It was time.

“OH, THANK GOD.”

I had just stepped out of my cab, hand shielding the sun that was now high in the sky as an older gentleman rushed toward me. Another younger, rounder version of the man followed quickly behind him, both of them weighed down by large cameras and multiple bags.

“Are you with the Shaw wedding?”

“Yes?” I tucked my lipstick I’d been reapplying in the cab back into my clutch.

“Wonderful. We’re supposed to be shooting the bride and bridesmaids getting ready, but no one is answering their phones, and the groomsmen are acting like security guards. They won’t let us back to the dressing room area.”

The man was wiry, and frankly too much for me in that moment, but he was sort of adorable, too. I held up my hands, calming him. “Okay, don’t worry. I just got here, so give me a second to figure out where everyone is and then I’ll get you where you need to go, okay?”

He nodded, sighing with relief. “Okay. Thank you.”

I smiled, pushing past them into the country club. I didn’t see anyone at first, not even Angel’s family setting up decorations outside. I glanced briefly at the aisle out back as I passed through the main entrance and took a left toward where rehearsal had been. No one in sight.

But the closer I got to where dinner had been, the more my hairs stood on end. Something wasn’t right. I heard faint yelling from down the hall, and I walked faster, nearly slamming into Charlie when he popped out of the rehearsal dinner room and landed a hand hard on my shoulder.

“You don’t want to go back there.”

There was definitely yelling happening, and Jamie was most certainly one of the voices. I tried to push past Charlie, but he strengthened his grip on my shoulder.

“I’m serious. Not your fight.”

“What’s going on? Where’s Jamie? Why is no one setting up? The photographer is freaking out,” I said, gesturing behind me. I saw Ryan and Andrew then, standing at the bar behind Charlie, both drinking what I was sure was hard liquor.

“B?”

I turned, and Sylvia gave me a sympathetic look before wrapping me in a hug.

“What’s going on?” I asked, pulling back. Everyone knew something I didn’t, and the uneasy feeling in my stomach bloomed even more.

Jamie’s voice rose above the commotion in the room Charlie was blocking me from and we all turned just in time to see him rip the door open. It slammed back against the wall, propping itself open as he tore out of the room.

He didn’t look at any of us as he pushed past Charlie, yanking on the tie around his neck until it was hanging loose. He kept walking, down the hall and out the front door without so much as a single word to any of us. I made to go after him and Sylvia pulled me back.

“Just let him go.”

“What the hell is going on?” I asked, whipping around to face her again. She opened her mouth, but another voice spoke before her.

“You,” Angel seethed, and my eyes adjusted to where she stood in the room behind Charlie. Her face was makeup-free, red and blotchy and shining with freshly shed tears as she stood. She was in a silky white robe that said “bride” in gemstones on the right breast, and she pointed one hard, shaky finger right at me. “This is all your fault!”

She kept screaming, but her mother popped up then, shutting the door before Angel could storm out after me. I looked to Charlie then, mouth open.

No. He wouldn’t have…

“It’s over,” Sylvia said behind me, but I was still staring at Charlie. He seemed to be amused by my discomfort, and I realized I didn’t know him at all. Of course he could have told her what he’d seen this morning, even if nothing had happened between Jamie and me. He didn’t owe me anything, least of all loyalty. Sylvia said something else and it snapped me out of my thoughts.

“What?”

Her face crumpled. “She cheated on him. Last night.”

The air was gone then, and I stared at her in disbelief. She cheated on him?

“I don’t understand.”

Sylvia blew out a breath. “I guess she saw Jamie post on Facebook that you guys had decided to go camping. It was a group shot of all of you, and his arm was around you, and it just set her off. She was drunk, all the girls fueled the fire and told her how wrong it was that he was going to be with another woman overnight. So they took her out, got her even more wasted, and she slept with one of the guys they met.”

My mind was spinning. “I’m so lost. She saw a picture, so she cheated?”

Charlie butted in then. “She assumed if you guys were in the same place all night, you’d end up sleeping together.” He frowned, crossing his arms, and I scowled right back at him.

“Yeah, well we didn’t. And her trying to use our friendship and her own insecurities as an excuse to cheat is pathetic.”

I expected him to argue with me, but the crease between his brows softened and he nodded. We may have technically slept together, but we didn’t have sex, and I didn’t want to explain myself to Charlie but it seemed I didn’t have to.

Sylvia sniffed, and I turned to find her eyes glossy.

“He’s got to be crushed,” she said softly.

I sighed, rubbing her arm soothingly. “I’ll go talk to him.”

I was fuming now. I wanted to march through the door behind Charlie and rip Angel up by her pixie cut. She cheated on him, she betrayed his trust, she hurt him. But then my lips tingled where Jamie had kissed them not even twelve hours before, and I remembered that though she’d put the final nail in their coffin, Jamie wasn’t completely innocent, either.

Neither was I.

“I just don’t know how you come back from something like this,” Sylvia added, wiping at her nose. My ribs crushed in a little tighter then, and I glanced behind her at the door Jamie had fled through.

“Me either.”

PERCEPTION IS REALITY.

To some, whiskey is a crutch. It’s a drug, it leads to addiction, it dulls the senses and damages the mind.

To others, whiskey is medicine. A shot of bourbon can chase away what ails you, whether it be a sore throat or a broken heart.

That night, I realized that maybe I was Jamie’s whiskey, too — and maybe we existed in both realities. Maybe we were bad for each other, but maybe we were good, too. As much as I hurt Jamie, as much as he hurt me, we were there for each other always — without hesitation, without expectation.