Chapter 60: The Wedding Was Off

I’d been driving around New Hope for what felt like forever. Thirty, maybe forty minutes? Maybe even longer? Circling the same streets, retracing the same turns, pulling into the same parking lots like the answer might suddenly appear if I looked twice. Bars, clubs, diners. I even checked the cinema, scanning the dark corners of the lobby like some kind of stalker. Still nothing. Dean was gone. And even though he’d been nothing but an asshole to me lately, I couldn’t stop the coil of worry strangling my stomach. He was hurting, that much I knew. And no matter how badly I wanted to wash my hands of him, I couldn’t forget the way his world used to revolve around Chloe. How much he loved her. Still loves her. And she had thrown that love away. I turned down another street, sunlight bouncing off the hood of my yellow car like a spotlight. Blinding. I winced and pulled to a stop in front of a flower shop, dragging in a breath as if oxygen could clear the frustration clawing at my chest. May