AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A friend group that included one Montgomery Allen Prescott III, a.k.a. Monty, a.k.a. my manager.
Starting a job with someone who was basically my boss and then meeting up with him later for drinks with Abby and the gang was weird at first. But I learned to compartmentalize it. At work, he was Monty, a direct and no-nonsense type. There was no sugarcoating with him, and definitely no small talk. Then, out at night with the gang, he was Monty, the man who made me laugh so much and seemed genuinely caring and interested in me. It was strange but also fascinating to be able to see both sides of him.
My attraction to him didn’t happen immediately, like it did with Grayson. He was handsome in a boy-next-door kind of way. Tall and thin, with sandy-blond hair and brown eyes. There was something about his facial structure that reminded me of Andrew Garfield.
Anyway, I was initially interested in him because he’s my boss and that’s what I do, but it was those after-work meetups that took my attraction to the next level.
But back to Abby. She was already engaged to Sam when I joined her group of friends, and their wedding was set for the following summer. By the time it came around, I was already fully entrenched in the friend group, and Monty and I had been dating for almost nine months. So, when one of her bridesmaids had to drop out, she asked me if I’d take the spot. It felt like an honor that she’d think of me, so I said yes. Even though, at this point, I’d started to notice that every wedding I’d ever been part of involved some sort of disaster, and I was the common denominator.
The big event was set up at Snoqualmie Falls in an old lodge that had been refurbished and turned into a beautiful wedding venue. Most of the bridal party came up two nights before so we could spend the next day getting pampered at the spa, and then do the rehearsal dinner, and then the wedding the following day.
I’d been hit with some twenty-four-hour bug a few days before and was just starting to feel like myself the day we headed up to the lodge. I was so happy it was a quick virus and I was still able to be in the wedding.
I’m sure you can see where this is going. Cue facepalm.
Anyway, the lodge was gorgeous. Rustic and quaint. The grounds were stunning with the falls in the backdrop. It was June, and we’d just come out of one of the wettest springs I’d experienced in my lifetime (so much rain), so the foliage was lush and a beautiful bright green.
The biggest suite in the lodge was saved for Abby and the bridesmaids, which was me, Abby’s younger sister, Valerie, who was the maid of honor, and the other two women in our friend group—Ava and Sarah.
Even though Monty and Sam were friends, they weren’t that close, not close enough for Monty to be in the wedding, so he was coming up the day of. I didn’t want to give him whatever I had, so I hadn’t seen him in person since I got sick, and I missed him. He’d had soup delivered to my apartment while I was dealing with the virus, which was super sweet, but I had been too sick to eat it. What I really wanted was soda crackers and my mom. But that seemed like a big ask.
Abby had made a girls’ trip of it. We’d spent the first day together, going shopping and getting pedicures and manicures before heading up to the lodge. In the suite, Abby had set out matching robes for us, and her parents had sent up champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries. We spent the evening laughing and having the best time.
It was around midnight that the first bridesmaid, Ava, came down with something.
“I don’t feel so great,” she’d said, rubbing her stomach and looking a little green.
When she barely made it to the bathroom before emptying the entirety of her stomach, none of us thought much of it, just that she’d probably overdone it on the champagne.
But then a few hours later, when Ava wasn’t getting any better and things were coming out both ends (graphic, I know), Abby’s sister, Valerie, started feeling sick too and then started coming down with something similar.
I was pretty thick that night because when it hit the third woman, Sarah, I still hadn’t figured out what was happening here. And what was happening was that I’d given everyone my twenty-four-hour bug.
At first, I’d tried to rationalize and tell myself I couldn’t possibly still be contagious. But one quick panicked Google search shut that right down. My only saving grace was that Abby, the bride, seemed to not be affected.
Until the next morning.
“This can’t be happening,” she’d said before running to the bathroom.
Because we didn’t want anyone else to get it, we stayed in the room, and since I had “miraculously” not caught it yet, I took care of everyone. I made sure they were hydrated, ordered more toilet paper from room service, and had one of the groomsmen go out and buy us soda crackers and Sprite. It was the least I could do. Theveryleast.
Luckily, even though Abby had known I was sick earlier in the week, she hadn’t put it together this was the same virus, and I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.
We missed the spa day and the rehearsal dinner, mostly because everyone still felt awful, even though Ava and Valerie were through the worst of it.
The day of the wedding, Abby was still a little worse for the wear, even though she was over the hump. The makeup artist did her best to make her pallid skin look less pallid-y. But you could still tell in the pictures she got back from the photographer afterward that she was suffering.
She made it down the aisle, she and Sam were married, and she and the other bridesmaids feasted on a diet of soda crackers and Sprite at the reception while the rest of us enjoyed the steak.
Unfortunately, the virus was the gift that kept on giving, because the next day, on the flight to their honeymoon (a Mediterranean cruise), Sam, the groom, got hit with it. We all decided he had it the worst, having to deal with that on a plane bound for Barcelona.
I never admitted to it, and I never will. Not that I speak to any of them anymore because the next wedding was the end of everything.
Mila
A HIKE IS NOT HOW I like to spend a Thursday. Or any day, really. But the one Grayson planned this morning is incredibly beautiful.
Grayson did some research and found some waterfalls we could hike up to that had recently reopened after being closed the past two years. It’s taken forty-five minutes so far and we’re only halfway through the two-mile hike, according to the map on GlobeTrotter. The terrain has made it difficult to go fast. So have all the times I’ve stopped to take pictures. Which I honestly want to take, but also use as an excuse to catch my breath. I haven’t done this in a while.
