My newsfeed was full of typical Friday-night posts—happy-hour smiles, pictures of food, and the babies some of my friends were already starting to have. I scrolled mindlessly for a while as I sipped my wine . . . until I came to a photo that made my swiping finger freeze. Todd had shared a photo posted by someone else. It was of him and a woman arm in arm—a woman who looked a lot like me. She could’ve passed for my sister. Blonde hair, big blue eyes, fair skin, full lips, and the foolishly adoring look I’d once had for Todd as well. The way they were dressed, I thought perhaps they were going to a wedding. Then I read the caption underneath:

Todd Roth and Madeline Elgin announce their engagement.

Their engagement?

Seventy-seven days ago—not that I was counting—our engagement had ended. And he’d already proposed to someone else? For fuck’s sake, she wasn’t even the woman I’d caught him cheating on me with.

It had to be a mistake. My hand shook with anger as I moved the mouse around and clicked to Todd’s home page. But, of course, it wasn’t a mistake. There were dozens of congratulatory notes—and he’d even responded to a few. He’d also posted a picture of their joined hands, showcasing the engagement ring on her finger. My. Damn. Engagement. Ring. My classy ex hadn’t bothered to have the setting changed after I threw it in his face while he was still zipping up his pants. There was no way he’d changed the mattress we’d slept on for two years before I moved out. In fact, Madeline was probably already a buyer at the Roth chain of department stores—sitting at my old desk, doing the job I’d quit so I wouldn’t have to look at his cheating face every day.

I felt . . . I wasn’t sure what I felt. Sick. Defeated. Aggravated. Replaceable.

Oddly, I didn’t feel jealous that the man I’d thought I loved had moved on. It just really hurt to be so easily substituted. It confirmed that what we’d had wasn’t special at all. After I’d broken things off, he’d vowed to win me back—told me I was the love of his life and that nothing would stop him from proving we were meant to be together. The flowers and gifts had stopped after two weeks. The calls had stopped after three. Now I knew why—he’d found the love of his life, again.

Shocking even myself, I didn’t cry. I just felt sad. Really sad. Along with my life, my apartment, my job, and my dignity, Todd had robbed me of the ideal I’d always believed in—true love.

I leaned back in my chair and shut my eyes, taking a few deep, cleansing breaths. Then I decided I wasn’t going to take this news lying down. This is crap! I had no choice but to take action. So I did what any scorned girl from Brooklyn would do after discovering her ex-fiancé didn’t wait for the bed to cool before bringing home another woman.

Finish off the bottle of wine.Yep. I was drunk.

Even if my speech hadn’t been slurred, the fact that I was sitting in a feathered wedding gown with the zipper wide-open at the back, while slugging directly from a wine bottle, might have been a dead giveaway. I tilted my head back in a very unladylike manner and emptied the last drops before slamming the bottle down on the table. My laptop jolted, causing it to spring to life from sleep mode. The happy couple greeted me.

“He’s going to do the same thing to you.” I wagged my finger at the screen. “You know why? Because once a cheater, always a cheater.”

The damn feathers on the gown tickled my leg again. It had happened a dozen times over the last hour, yet each and every time, I swore it was a bug crawling up my leg. When I reached down to swat again, my hand brushed against something, and I realized what it was. The blue note.

Lifting the hem, I pulled the inside of the dress up and read the note again.

To Allison—

“She said, ‘Forgive me for being a dreamer,’ and he took her by the hand and replied, ‘Forgive me for not being here sooner to dream with you.’”—J. Iron Word

Thank you for making all of my dreams come true.

Your love,

Reed

My heart let out a yearning sigh. So beautiful. So romantic. What had happened to these two that this special dress had wound up on some drunken girl instead of being cherished and passed down to their daughters? It was a long shot, but I couldn’t stand to look at Todd’s face anymore anyway. So I typed into Facebook: Reed Eastwood.

Imagine my surprise when two popped up in New York. The first guy was probably midsixties. Although the dress was a little sexy for a bride his age, I stalked to be sure anyway. Reed Eastwood had a wife named Madge and a golden retriever named Clint. He also had three daughters and cried while walking one down the aisle last year.