Not Scared Anymore

Chapter 25 - Stephanie

Stephanie spent most of Saturday at home. She had drafted about ten different text messages to Kevin, and deleted every single one of them without sending. Denise met her for dinner at a pub, and could tell right away that something was wrong.

"OK, what happened?"

"Nothing."

"Don't lie to me. You look slightly better than death warmed over. And that's being nice about it." Denise peered at her, "Is it David again? Did he do something else?"

"No. Well, yes, he did text me asking if I got home okay, but that's not it." She gulped down some of her water before continuing. "It wasn't exactly a fight, but I kinda fought with Kevin last night."

"What? Why? Did he try something on you?"

"No, nothing like that. We just said some things to each other that weren't super nice. He implied I was pretending at Com-Expo, so... I implied he was narrowminded."

"Stephanie..." Denise's voice was full of pity.

"And I called him 100% nerd. But I know he's not!" She put her head in her hands on the table, "but he said I was faking, and that was so uncool. I lashed out. I haven't heard from him all day."

Denise sighed. "Did you text him to tell him that?"

"No. I tried, but I just don't know what to say. It's so awkward now. He probably hates me. I would. I don't deserve him."

"I think you're making assumptions." Stephanie shrugged, so Denise continued, "well, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I'm not letting you turn our fun dinner into a pity party for yourself. Have faith in him. Have faith in yourself. But it's wine time now!" Denise got the attention of the waiter, and they moved away from any discussion about men.

*

For the next week, all Stephanie did was work. She had been assigned to a last-minute wedding. The bride was completely scrambling, and Stephanie was doing everything possible to help her complete her vision. 

The original venue had burned down exactly one month before the wedding, and everyone was in a panic to get everything rescheduled for the same date and city. The happy couple lived on the west coast, and most of the guests were out of town as well, so no travel plans could be changed so late. Stephanie was on the hunt for a new venue with very last-minute availability, as the bride would not even be in town until the week before the wedding.

Stephanie used nearly every connection she had ever formed to get everything ready in three weeks. The original venue planned to supply nearly all of the table settings, linen, and décor, which meant the list of vendors to be replaced was nearly four times longer than what the bride had originally hired on her own.

Due to the differing time zones, she could only conference with the bride in the evenings. During their most recent chat, the bride had informed Stephanie that she also wanted her to be the day of coordinator.

Unfortunately for Stephanie, the wedding was the day of the Spellmasters premier, but her boss told her in no uncertain terms, that she absolutely had to be at the wedding. The groom's father was a personal friend, and the bride's family was willing to pay well above the quoted price for wedding services to make it all come together. It would be a huge bump for the company's profits, and Stephanie was specifically promised a large bonus for it.

With two weeks to go to the wedding, Stephanie finally found a new venue that would accommodate the guest list and suit the bride's dream, and was well on her way to hiring all the rentals. With the biggest stress off her shoulders, Stephanie needed a distraction from the long hours and once again found herself opening MatchedUp. She had not heard anything from Kevin, and wanted to get him off her mind.