In Fair Verona

Chapter 2

Gloria picked up on the first ring. "Hi, honey! I bet you're looking delectable in that dress I chose for you. You were supposed to send me pictures before your date. Don't tell me you forgot."

Tears filled Kenna's eyes, not the ones of laughter that usually greeted Gloria's words but those of a heartbreak too great to put into words.

Kenna didn't look delectable. There would be no pictures and no date.

"Ken? Are you all right?"

Kenna opened her mouth to speak, but all that escaped her was a strangled sob.

"Oh, honey, what happened?" asked Gloria.

Kenna took a shaky breath. She would not cry.

She clenched her free hand into a fist, uncertain whether her anger or her devastation would come pouring out of her first but determined to stop it at all costs.

"He dumped me." Kenna's voice was tight with the emotions she restrained. "Via voice note."

Gloria's most famous claim was that she had seen and heard everything, but the dead silence on her end of the line told a different story. It made Kenna feel alone, even as she looked down at her screen to see that the call was still in progress.

"Glor?" Kenna's voice cracked. "Are you still there?"

"The pathetic, cowardly toad!"

Kenna flinched, holding the phone away from her ear as Gloria's indignance exploded from it.

"Wouldn't I love to step on the little flea! Couldn't he tell you that in person? Couldn't he give you a chance to speak for yourself? Of course he couldn't. Executive Tim makes all the decisions."

A silence hung between them, forcing Kenna into a chokehold.

That was Tim, through and through, making others' decisions for them, but it was the first time Kenna resented him for it. She would've never hurt him like that. It stung more than she could say that he hadn't hesitated in doing that to her.

She should've seen this coming, all the days Tim hadn't had time to come over, all those calls he never returned. She had seen it, but she hadn't been ready to accept it. If she had, would this have been any easier?

Kenna didn't know. She didn't want to know. She didn't even want to think.

"Did he say why?" asked Gloria.

"Just that he met someone else." Kenna's voice quivered.

Hearing those words had felt like a punch to the gut. Saying them was like a million little hands tearing up Kenna's throat.

"Just when I thought he couldn't become any more despicable," said Gloria. "The scrawny rat! You deserve so much better, Ken, and don't you forget it."

The words were meant to be comforting, but they only taunted Kenna with the idea of what she yearned for but kept feeling pass by, just beyond her grasp.

She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that threatened to fall. "Why do I bother? Why do I keep trying?" Kenna curled in on herself as if she could disappear and make this all disappear with her.

Tim was a prat, but he was just the latest in a line of many such men who had been through Kenna's life. That said more about her than it did about them. She was the common factor, the one with a problem.

She could never make the right choice.

"Oh, Ken, we all go through that." Gloria's voice was soothing and sweet like honey. "Love is not without ups and downs. There is hurt as well as happiness, and they're never in equal parts."