“Can you please just get us out of here?” Carrie Lynn motions for Evan to get a move on. “I never want to hear the words Sin City again. Sorry, Vegas, but I think you broke me.”

Yes, Carrie, Lynn, I completely agree with you.

Huh? I never thought those words would cross my mind.

***

The drive home feels longer than the one on the way here, and it’s way too quiet for me to get comfortable. Almost everyone sleeps the entire way. I pretend to sleep to avoid talking to Evan, but I’m too wired to actually fall asleep. I’m so angry with myself for getting into this mess and even angrier that I’m going to have to get myself out of it.

I plan on doing so when we arrive at Carrie Lynn’s. I make a plan to pull Evan aside and ask him to go for a drive with me so I can break the news to him. But the moment he parks the car in her driveway, he practically bolts, muttering something about having to get to work. By the time I get out of the car, he’s already in his car and peeling out of the driveway.

“What’s his deal?” Emersyn mutters as she heads around back to get her bag.

“I have no clue,” I say, but I can’t look her in the eye.

After I say my good-byes to everyone while staring at my feet, I climb into my car and drive toward home. I’m halfway there when I receive a text from my mom.

Mom: Hey, honey, just wanted to let you know that you might not want to come home for a few hours. There was an incident with some massaging oil and a candle that got a little out of hand. But, anyway, everything’s okay. We just have a huge mess to clean up, and we need to air out the place for an hour or two. Right now, it smells like burned hair.

I don’t even want to know why it smells like burned hair.

I steer the car off the main road and drive down the back roads to kill time. Needing some best friend talk time, I dial Sophie’s number and put it on speakerphone.

“You’re still alive.” She sounds so relieved. “Thank God.”

I turn right at an intersection and down a street lined with mismatched houses. “What do you mean, ‘I’m still alive?’ Were you worried the town killed me?” I try to laugh wickedly but miss the mark.

“No, I was worried about you after you called me last night and told me you met some random guy,” she says, slightly irritated. “You said you were in Vegas and you were about to show him your Miss Mini Lexi all night long, after he put a ring on your finger. Then you broke out in a very off-key version of what I’m guessing was “Here Comes the Bride.” "

“Sounds like I was pretty out of it.”

“You were. I was so worried. Still am.” Worry fills her tone. “Lexi, please tell me you didn’t get married last night, that you were just joking around.”

“Um, I didn’t get married last night. I was just joking around,” I say, but it sounds like a question.

“Oh. My. God. Lexi!” she shouts. “How could you? You got married? In Vegas. To some random guy?”

I huff out a deafening breath. “It wasn’t technically some random guy. He’s from Fairville … We used to go to school together.”

“So you married someone you know?” She seems calmer now.

I give her a recap of everything I can remember: the bachelorette party, the car ride down there, and how depressed I was feeling over being so behind in life. Then I tell her about Evan and how I used to know him: how he was sweet—still is—and how really, really trashed we were when we decided to get hitched.

“So you don’t think he remembers marrying you?” she asks after I’m finished.

“I don’t know. He seemed chill during the car ride, but then he got all squirrely when we made it home and took off like a guy running away from a girl he just accidentally married.” I park in front of some random house and rest my head on the steering wheel. “What am I going to do?

“Well, first you have to talk to him. You can’t run away from that problem.”

“You make it sound like I always run away from my problems,” I grumble, my headache kicking up again.

“You kind of do sometimes. I don’t mean to sound like a bitch, but I think you hate confrontation so much that you’ll do just about anything to get out of it. You do it all the time, especially when you have to break up with a guy.”

“I’m not that bad, am I?”

“One word for you: Brody. To this day, he probably thinks you’re sailing around the world on your yacht, trying to break some world record for how many waves a boat can go over while the captain wears a fedora.”

“Okay, maybe you’re right.” I raise my head and reach for my sunglasses in the console. “I’ll talk to Evan and break the news to him. Then I guess I’ll start looking into getting the marriage annulled.”

It takes her a second to respond. “You could do that … unless you don’t want to.”

“What do you mean, ‘unless I don’t want to’?” I slip on my sunglasses. “You think I should just stay married to him? Because that would be crazy.”

“I don’t know. It might be crazy for a lot of people, but you … I love you to death, but you are a little bit insane sometimes.”

“True dat.” I sigh and let my head fall against the steering wheel again. God, my head hurts so badly I can’t even think straight.

She sighs heavily. “Look, just talk to Evan. If he’s as nice as you make him sound, I’m sure he won’t go too ballistic.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

After that, she makes me promise to call her the second I talk to Evan. Then we hang up, and I drive laps around the town, trying to figure out my next move. I don’t know what’s bugging me more: the fact that I got married in Vegas last night or that my first marriage is going to end before it even really started. All I wanted to do was start getting my life back on track by getting a job, getting my own place, maybe investing some money in a couch or something. Not get married then annulled.

“This sucks,” I mutter to myself. “Why can’t I just do normal things like a normal person? Why can’t I just be normal …?” I trail off as I spot a pink and white striped chair sitting in front of a house right next to the garbage cans. “Are they throwing that away?”

I slow down the car and park in front of the house. Mrs. Maywelter is standing in front of the house, watering her garden as I get out of my car.

“Hey, Mrs. Maywelter.” I round the front of my car. “Is this your chair by those trash cans?”

She glances at me as she continues to hose down her hydrangeas. “Yeah. Why?”

I tuck my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. “Are you throwing it away?” When she nods, I step up onto the grass. “Can I take it?”

She stops watering the flowers, sets down the hose, and approaches me. “Lexi Ashford, is that you?”

I nod. “Yeah, it’s me.”

She smiles. “I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“I know. I’ve been living in the city, but”—I shrug—“now I’m back. And I’d really like to have your chair.”

“Oh, honey, you don’t want that thing. It’s old, and one of the legs has been glued back on more times than I can count.”

“That’s okay. I don’t mind. In fact, I like when things are used and worn out. It gives them more personality, don’t ya think?”

She eyeballs my car with wariness. “I guess so.”

“So, can I take it, then?” I ask. “It’d really mean a lot to me.”

She considers my offer then throws her hands in the air. “Oh, what the hell? If you want it, then take the damn thing.”

Smiling, I put the chair into the back of my car, leaving the trunk open so it can fit. Then I spend the drive back to my parents’ place thinking about what I’m going to do next.

Once I make it there, I drag my chair out back and grab a pen and paper out of my car. Then I sit down in the chair, get comfortable, and start making a plan on how to get my life on track.

Step one: Tell my husband he has a wife …