I pause. “You should really spend some time with Brit,” I suggest gently. “Perhaps if you got to know each other a little better…”

Camille sighs. “I know,” she says, giving me a real smile, resigned and full of regret. “It’s just, I’ve been dreaming about Hunter’s wedding day for years now. I never pictured it like this.”

Me neither.

I say my goodbyes and slip out of the restaurant. “Sorry,” I whisper to Hunter as I pass. “Work, got to go.”

“One sec,” he begs, and I can’t help but pause, waiting as he wraps up the call then turns back to me with an apologetic grin. “I’m so, so sorry. Can I make it up to you? Dinner, tomorrow? Brit is going out with her friends.”

My heart twists. “I’m snowed under at work,” I try to excuse myself, but he just gives me that puppy dog look.

“You’re always busy these days. C’mon, we can catch up,” he adds, “I’ll even let you get anchovies on the pizza. I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

I feel my resolve slip. “Fine,” I agree, hating the rush of excitement I get at the thought of spending time with him alone. “I can make it work.”

“Great!” Hunter’s smile turns rueful. “Maybe you can help me figure out how to handle this wedding thing without losing my mind. I swear, Brit and I are this close to saying ‘fuck it’ and eloping, like, tomorrow.”

I gasp. “You wouldn’t.”

“We would.” Hunter gives me a quiet smile. “All this party bullshit, it doesn’t mean a thing. I just want to be married to her already, starting our lives together.”

A sob wells in my throat to see that look in his eyes, so proud and full of fierce devotion.

“You really love her, don’t you?” I say quietly.

He nods. “She’s my life,” he replies, serious. “She’s everything to me.”

I feel a weight pressing down on my chest, crushing me. I fight back tears, forcing a smile. “Then everything will work out. I have to run,” I add. “Say hi to Brit.”

I can’t stop Hunter from pulling me into a goodbye hug; it takes everything I have not to let the tears fall. I turn and hurry away, walking blindly down the busy city street until I turn the corner, out of sight.

Pain ricochets through me.

I can’t hide from it anymore, I can’t pretend another day. I’ve been holding out to some distant hope for so long. First I told myself he needed time to find himself and grow up, then I thought that he and Brit wouldn’t last. Engagements can be broken, sometimes it just doesn’t work out. But there’s no denying the passion in his eyes, the solemn vow that doesn’t need a wedding ceremony to make it true.

Hunter loves Brit, truly, with all of his heart.

He’ll never be mine.

4.

I can’t face work in this state, so I call in sick to Lily, making some vague excuse about food poisoning and lunch.

“You sound terrible!” she agrees. “Go home, take it easy. We’ll be fine for the rest of the day. Hell, we’re so far ahead of schedule, you could take the rest of the week off.”

“No, I’ll be fine,” I protest. “I just need a good night’s sleep, that’s all.”

And intensive surgery to fix this broken heart of mine.

I blink away the tears as I drive home, a whirlwind of desperate questions beating in my mind.

What am I supposed to do now?

I’ve tried a hundred times over to get Hunter out of my system, but there’s no self-help book in the world that can break the hold he has on my heart. Every year that passes, I tell myself, this will be the one. I’ll finally manage to put my feelings aside and meet someone else; take one step closer to that life I want so badly, the life of love and intimacy I’ve never known. But still, I can’t help it. All it takes is a casual dinner sneaking glances into his blue eyes, and I’m right back where I started: feeling helplessly lost, trapped in a prison of my own design. I can’t cut him out of my life altogether without revealing my humiliating secret—even trying to avoid him for a little while never works; he just calls me up and says it’s been too long since he’s seen me, how about we grab a beer Monday night and catch up?

My resolve always falters. That night with Dex was the only glimpse of freedom I’ve had from the burden of my feelings; the only man to come close to distracting me from Hunter, even for a few hours. Still, it wasn’t enough. I still walked away. I still chose the fantasy of a man who doesn’t want me, over the real possibility of a man who did.

But this time, it’s different. It has to be. The pain that aches through me with every heartbeat is sharper than I’ve ever felt before, and as I pull into my parking garage and head up to my apartment, I realize why.

I always had hope to cling to, comforting me through all the rejection and heartache. A vision of future happiness, my life with Hunter, a dream to keep me warm at nights. It was a foolish fantasy, sure, but it was something.

Today, I looked into his eyes and finally saw the truth.

He doesn’t love me. Not like that.

My hope is extinguished, all burned out. No amount of hoping or wishing or praying will ever change the fact he’s chosen Brit now, forever. They’re happy starting their life together: marriage, a home, and one day children, too.

A life I want myself—but one I’ll never have if I keep spinning in these self-defeating circles.