crème glacée [the fate of coincidences 1]

3: Glen

Glen's mind was teeming with too many thoughts, none of which were good, as he drove to Peet's. His fingers drummed erratically on the steering wheel every time the traffic slowed.

Argon's agency insisted on using their own makeup artist, and the commission went up almost fifty percent. That whole negotiation meeting lasted about three hours, mostly consisting of tireless discussion of the contract, Argon's manager fighting tooth and nail for every point they went over. They also wanted to do the first photoshoot today, and that resulted in a lot of prep work and running around the office while calling the creative director and half the marketing team.

Now he was late to the meeting with Vendi, who was one of the most punctual people he'd ever met. And, to top it all off, his car, which he payed off just last month, was now a complete mess. From what he was able to see, the bumper was one huge wrinkled pancake. It was a miracle it still drove.

When he entered the coffee shop, his gaze went straight to the window seats on the left, Vendi's usual table. She was there, like he expected her to be. She looked up when he walked over and instead of giving him a slightly impatient but polite look, like she always did, she looked sad (or nervous?) instead. All previous thoughts flew out of his mind and he sat down, solely focused on the girl in front of him. There was grim determination in her blue eyes as she twisted a lock of dark hair around her finger so hard that the circulation was probably being cut off. He has never seen her this distraught in all the three years he's known her.

"Vendi?" he prodded gently.

"Hey." She swallowed and faced him head on. "I'm sorry it has to be done this way, I really am."

"What?" He considered taking her hand in his as some sort of comfort, but that was out of question. "What's going on? What did you mean you can't do the wedding?"

"Isn't it obvious?" She let the lock of hair unwind from her finger. "I'm breaking off the engagement, Glen."

A quiet ringing started in his left ear. "Just like that?"

She nodded, picking at her cuticles. Glen looked down at her hands. They were trembling just barely enough to be noticed.

"Vendi, what happened?" he asked, starting to get really worried. She never acted like this.

"It's just... You know, things are not going the way I planned. For me."

"Is it the wedding planner?" he asked. "We can just switch to a different one who's less difficult."

"It's not the wedding planner." She looked down, avoiding his eyes. "It's... I still kind of love someone else? I think. I don't know, but he's back in Seattle and I." She took in a deep breath and exhaled. "And I can't really do this anymore."

Glen stared at her without a word. Vendi had someone she loved, someone she was willing to break an engagement for. Even though he knew it was a very narrow-minded thing to do, he just always kind of assumed she wasn't capable of any intense human emotion. But here she was, making major decisions based on feelings. It was mind-boggling.

She cleared her throat. "This shouldn't be such a big deal, right? It's not like we loved each other anyway."

That brought him out of his reverie. "You always said that love wasn't important in things like these. You just wanted to get married because it was beneficial for both of us. Why are you suddenly like this?"

"I know! I know. I'm not even making sense to myself." She covered her face with her hands.

Glen tentatively reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. She jumped at the touch, startled, and when her hands revealed her face again, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Glen retracted his hand as if it was burned.

"Are you about to cry?" he whispered.

"No," she said just as a tear rolled down her cheek. She hastily wiped it off, but then another one dropped, and another one.

It was like having an out-of-body experience; every moment felt surreal. If someone asked him to name a person least likely to ever cry, just an hour ago his instant answer would have been Vendi. Everyone in her office was equally terrified and in awe of her. Sitting here, watching this cold-blooded business woman wiping tears off her face felt like some weird kind of almost-nightmare. He had no idea how to act. If only Zack was here with his convenient social skills.

"It's ok." She looked like she needed a hug, but he wouldn't dare. "Hey, Vendi, it's ok. Don't cry. Or cry? You can cry, too, if you really want to. I promise I won't tell anyone."

"I'm not crying," she said. "I'm just... I don't know what came over me. It's been a really long day." She laughed and it sounded uncomfortably forced. "Even though it's barely past noon."

"What happened?" he asked after a pause. They never really talked about feelings, but this was probably a good time for an exception. "Are you ok?"

She avoided his gaze. "I just think if we get married, it'll make things more complicated. For both of us."

The feeling of dread that has been growing in his stomach since the phone call in the morning reached its peak. "Did he come back for you? Or because of something else?"

Vendi glanced up at him, and he could almost hear all the walls going up at record speed. Her eyes were back to being distant, slight moisture clinging to her mascara the only betrayal of the breakdown. Glen bit the inside of his cheek. He went too far.

"Our business relations won't be affected by this, of course." She gave him a tight smile as she took the ring off her finger. "I really am sorry, I should've realized this wasn't going to work out in the first place."

"Right," he replied, more resigned than anything else by now. "Ok."

She slowly slid the ring across the polished wood of the table. The sound was worse than nails on chalkboard to his ears.

"I'm sorry, Glen." Her voice was a lot softer this time, filled with something he couldn't quite put his finger on. "I'll be paying all the wedding cancellation fees."

He didn't reply, mostly because he didn't have much to say to that. Instead he stared at the ring. A simple princess cut set in platinum. He paid over $40k for it.

"Glen?" There was a thin line of desperation leaking into her tone. "At least we didn't have too many feelings for each other, right?"

That was like a punch in the gut, but he looked up and tried his best at a smile. "I'll see you around."

It seemed to work, because she fake-smiled back and walked away. Glen didn't watch her. He turned back to look at the ring instead. At least it would pay for his damaged car. And now he won't get any more annoying calls from the wedding planner asking if he preferred lilac or lavender. There was always a bright side to things if you looked hard enough.

His phone pinged with a notification from work. Work. That was the bright side of things. There was so much to do, why was he still sitting here? He pocketed the ring and stood up.

He must've picked up on a few things after two and a half years of dating Vendi, because suffocating his feelings was starting to get easier.