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I had no idea.
—
I hadn’t slept all week, and today was my wedding day. I’d had night after night of staring at the ceiling, emotions churning. I couldn’t eat, forcing myself to drink protein shakes because I couldn’t swallow solid food. Everything tasted thick and sour and revolting and I constantly gagged. I couldn’t look at Bradley without darting my gaze in another direction and I was strung out, exhausted, hands constantly trembling.
With every day, every wedding preparation, every guest arrival, it felt like the noose around my neck was tightening and I couldn’t breathe.
“Why are you going ahead with this?” Sophie had asked me last night after the rehearsal dinner when I went into the restroom to splash cold water on my face, upset by the sight of my excited grandparents.
I had no idea. I had meant to dump him on his ass. I really had. But everyone was watching me and my parents’ disapproval hung like a storm cloud over me and I couldn’t help but feel that somehow if I ended my engagement, Bradley won. I would be the loser in this situation in everyone else’s eyes. They would feel sorry for me.
I was going ahead with it because I didn’t want anyone to know Bradley was cheating. Because it was too humiliating, too painful.
And because I looked around and saw everyone who loved me gathered, celebrating what they thought was a happy occasion, that my mother and I had invested a hundred hours in planning. That my father had opened his wallet to pay for without question or complaint. I didn’t want to disappoint them.
Plus to cancel would be to admit that I was an idiot. A stupid, naïve girl who had sailed through life with nothing bad ever happening to me, assuming it never would. I had lived a charmed life for the most part, and I had no skills to deal with something bad. Not something like this. Not this bewildering, shocking, numbing heartbreak and myriad of emotions.
Bradley might be a cheat, but he had to love me. Right? Otherwise why would he marry me? My father had said he was crying. He loved me, he just had a restless sexual personality. He needed variety, the thrill of the hunt, the adrenaline rush of doing something dirty and forbidden.
Then again, maybe he was just a snake in the grass.
I was pretty sure that was the simple truth.
Those were all the things I told myself as I got dressed in my wedding gown. The dress I had been disappointed in at my fitting because it didn’t capture what I wanted it to. Perfection. But now I knew perfection was a myth and the dress didn’t matter. The wedding didn’t matter. I looked at myself in the mirror and I saw nothing but a mistake.
I looked the part. The quintessential bride. Hair, veil, and makeup on point, dress showing off my body to its best advantage. I looked in the mirror and I remembered being a little girl, trying on my mother’s overblown gown from the eighties, drowning in its lace and satin. The long sleeves, the high neck. Feeling very glamorous and excited for the day when it would be my turn to be the princess walking down the aisle to my prince. My mother would stand behind me and smile at us in the mirror, her hands warm on my shoulders, and she would whisper how lucky I was that I had been born beautiful. How proud she was and how she knew I would have the richest, most handsome man of all because I was so perfectly pretty, with impeccable manners.
I believed her. But I also wondered who I was beyond my appearance, which was an accident of genetics and not even particularly interesting. I was pedestrian pretty. A basic bitch turned bride. Whose fiancé wanted a good, hard bathroom bang.
For a second I thought I was going to faint. Everything went black. “Sophie,” I said, reaching out for my sister.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, grabbing my arm. “Are you okay?”
I turned to her, vision blurring with tears. She looked so pretty in her blush bridesmaid dress. I felt sad that she had been sad that her lobster fisherman hookup had ghosted her, but I hadn’t been able to give her any emotional support, too wrecked myself. “You look so pretty,” I sobbed.
“What?” Sophie just stared at me for a second, then she turned to all my friends, who were busily putting on makeup, sliding into shoes, fussing with their blowouts. “All of you need to leave.”
The photographer was snapping shots of my bouquet resting on the table, and I felt the most overwhelming urge to run. Spots danced in front of my eyes and I swore I could hear my blood pumping in my ears.
“Excuse me?” Kennedy said. “Why?”
“Because I need to talk to Bella.”
“Sophie, don’t be OCD right now,” was Kennedy’s response as she curled her hair. “We’re all busy, and what if someone sees us? I’m not going anywhere. Bella doesn’t want that.”
I did want that. Sophie studied me and I silently pleaded with her. I was going to lose it and she knew it.
“Get out,” she repeated, turning and waving her arms violently at everyone. “Get the hell out now.” Then she went and did her light switch thing, where she turned the light on and off—it was a creepy and annoying tic she had. Usually she did it to test the flow of electricity, but this time she was clearly doing it to annoy the shit out of everyone and get them to leave.
It worked. There was grumbling and questions for me. “Do you want us to leave, Bella?”
“Yeah, just give me five minutes,” I managed to say. My hands were shaking. I looked at the photographer. “Naomi, can you do some shots of the guests arriving, please? Thank you.”
I hadn’t slept or eaten in days and I felt light-headed, nauseous. Like a reed swaying in a light breeze.
After what felt like forever they finally all gathered their purses, shoes, and bouquets and left the room, the door slamming shut behind them. I grabbed my rib cage. “Soph, I can’t do this. I just can’t.” I shook my head frantically at her, now in a total panic. “I can’t pretend this is all okay when Bradley isn’t even sorry he’s cheating. I can’t even stand the sight of him.”
Let everyone feel sorry for me. Let them think I was a pathetic loser who couldn’t hold her fiancé’s attention. I didn’t care anymore.
