How could they pretend? This group was full of Ferry’s college friends—the same people he had introduced me to after we got married, saying, "These are my friends. You should get to know them."
Back then, when they had asked him who I was, he had simply said a friend.
[Introduce her then! Maybe one of us single guys will get lucky,] someone had joked.
Ferry had fallen silent. So had I. I had never truly belonged in that group. I had been an outsider, observing from the shadows. Back then, even Chindy had dismissed them.
[You guys act like you’ve never seen a woman before. Go find one yourselves.]
The Zach Family and my own—the Gardner Family—were both prominent and wealthy. Our parents had wanted a grand wedding, an extravagant celebration of our union. But Ferry had brushed it off. "I’m in the prime of my career right now. I don’t even have time for a small wedding, let alone a grand one. Let’s postpone it."
That postponement had stretched into five years. Eventually, I had stopped hoping for a wedding at all. It didn’t matter anymore.