Free Not Quite A Bride by Kirsten Sawyer

relax a little. Maybe he just needed someone, a close friend, to tell him it’s okay to call this off. He looks at me with eyes so full of sadness I reach out to hug him ... but he puts his arms up and blocks me.
    â€œMolly, no. Claire was afraid this was going to happen.”
    Excuse me?!? What’s going on?
    â€œThat’s why she didn’t want me to be alone with you,” Brad continues. “She had a feeling that you were secretly in love with me and would realize your jealousy as our wedding got closer and try to destroy our happiness,” he answers, eyes glazed over, as if he really has been brainwashed to repeat this rhetoric.
    I am speechless. I am such a combination of confusion and repulsion and hate (for Claire, of course) that I have lost the ability to form words. Finally something comes to me.
    â€œYou are insane! And so is your stupid girlfriend!”
    Okay, not exactly the calm, cool, and collected approach I was planning to take. I feel tears welling up in my eyes and sting my cheeks as they fall down my face.
    â€œI am not secretly or otherwise in love with you,” I yell at Brad as he looks at me with eyes full of pity. “I am worried that you are marrying a woman who trusts you so little that she has forbidden you from seeing your best friend! She has you wrapped around her finger and you don’t even care!”
    Brad stiffens slightly. “I like being wrapped around her finger, Molly. This is exactly what she said you would say. She does trust me—she just saw what we’ve been avoiding all these years.”
    â€œAnd what’s that?” I yell.
    â€œHow inappropriate our relationship was.”
    Again ... words are escaping me.
    â€œWhat was inappropriate about our relationship?!? We have never been anything but best friends!” I manage to blurt out.
    â€œBut Claire pointed out to me that it’s unrealistic for a man and woman to be best friends because one of them is always thinking about sex.”
    â€œI NEVER thought about sex with you!” This is a slight lie ... that one night in college that we kissed I did think about sex with Brad ... and about changing our friendship, but it wasn’t worth the risk and I completely put the thought out of my head and hadn’t thought about it since (even though he was a good kisser).
    â€œLook, Molly, we can still be friends. We just can’t be in that place where we were treating each other like boyfriend and girlfriend.”
    I am shocked and appalled and I can’t go on anymore. I realize that my fight is futile ... I’ve already lost. The game is over, the fat lady has sung.
    â€œBrad, you’re making a huge mistake,” I say sadly as I open the door for him to leave.
    He steps through the door and looks back at me and for a split second I can see that he is as heartbroken as I am. I watch him walk down the hall and then close the door and sink down to the floor, sobbing.

11
    Dinner with Lauren and Rob
    T he day is totally unproductive because I am too depressed to function. I even cancel the student I was supposed to tutor at 2:30, which is a pretty stupid thing for a person in my financial situation to do. It’s like the pain of being broken up with, but SO much worse. I can’t even describe what it’s like to be dumped by your best friend.
    At 7:30 I realize that Justin will be there to pick me up in, like, half an hour. I drag myself off the couch and into the bathroom where I get the first good look at my face. I look like I’ve been beaten, seriously. My eyes are practically swollen shut, my nose looks like a cherry, and my mouth is all goopy. I need to cancel the plans with Lauren and Rob.
    I reach Justin on his cell phone. “I can’t do tonight. I need to cancel.”
    â€œWhat? No. You can’t. You’re the one who said how important it is to stick to the ‘courting’ schedule.”
    â€œSomething awful