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I have no idea if it will be a good night, because right now I’m wide awake.
FOUR YEARS AGO
WHEN MY CLOSEST FRIEND FROM high school, Chloe, asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding, I was kind of confused. It had been years since we’d spent time together. We went to separate colleges, and while there were occasional phone calls or texting sessions to catch up, we primarily kept up with each other through social media.
I watched the entire progression of her relationship with Matt (Chloe is a bit of an oversharer), from their first date during her second year of college, every date they went on after that, to their engagement, and pretty much every detail leading up to the wedding. Her updates didn’t stop there. Currently, she’s expecting their first baby, and anyone following her on Instagram knows every emotion, craving, and doctor’s visit she’s had. It’s a boy, by the way.
At the time, I’d suspected Chloe was doing this to have memories to look back on. Even though it was annoying, I could understand. Not something I’d ever do, but to each their own. It turns out there was a much more sinister motive behind it—especially the part detailing everything about her relationship with Matt—which I discovered during the bachelorette party.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
So, when she’d called me that November to tell me she’d gotten engaged (which I already knew because of the aforementioned social media oversharing) and asked me to be in the wedding the next August as one of her bridesmaids, I was pretty shocked.
“I know we haven’t seen each other in a while,” she’d said. “But you are still one of my best friends.”
“You’re one of mine too,” I’d told her. This felt kind of weird coming off my tongue. She was definitely my closest friend in high school, but like I said, we hadn’t stayed all that close since. Surely there were other closer friends she’d made since then who would be better candidates for her bridal party? I found out later there weren’t. In fact, it was only me, her sister, Lilly, and a cousin I’d never met before (who was the maid of honor) standing up there with her. But more on that later.
“It would mean the world to me if you were up there with me,” she’d said.
Oh, sweet and foolish Chloe. She had no idea what she was asking. Neither did I at the time, but I really wish I had. For multiple reasons.
I accepted her invite, and because I’d just started working at LogicSphere only a few months prior to her call, I had to manage most things from Seattle. This also meant I couldn’t actively participate in all the preparations leading up to the wedding, except for the bachelorette party that took place just a few nights before.
Turns out, it was for the best. Had I known the kind of person Chloe had become since we’d graduated from high school, I probably would have backed out of the wedding. But since I didn’t find out until the bachelorette party—which wasn’t your typical single ladies’ party given her mom, sister, and grandma came along because pretty much everyone else had turned down the invite—I felt sort of stuck.
To make a long story short, I found out at the party, from her sister no less, that Chloe had stolen Matt from her college roommate, Trish. And then posted their entire relationship online to basically throw it in Trish’s face.
Chloe, it seemed, had turned into a man-stealing hag.
I can see how someone might read this and think that if Matt was so easy to steal away, then maybe Trish was better off. And I’m sure she was, but that doesn’t make it right. You might also be thinking there are two sides to every story, and I would agree. However, Chloe’s actions the night of the bachelorette party confirmed she was, in fact, a hag. She acted spoiled and entitled and was basically a whiny brat the entire night.
I’m not going to go into all the details but trust me on this. Gone was the shy, sweet friend from school. The most damning evidence was the fact that no one wanted to come to Chloe’s last party as a single woman. It was only me and her family. Also damning? Not one friend, besides me and my parents, came to the wedding. It was all just family on her side.
Despite all that, the rehearsal the night before proceeded without any issues. Matt seemed kind of dull, and not what I was expecting from the drama that had begun his and Chloe’s relationship. Let’s just say he didn’t seem like a man worth fighting over, and I’ll leave it at that.
Except for a couple of temper tantrums from the bride the next morning, Chloe wasn’t all that bad. She was also live streaming the entire thing, so maybe that helped since she had to keep up her perfect-life persona for social media.
The wedding was being held in front of the pool her parents had put in the year before. I’ll never understand why anyone would want an outdoor pool in Colorado. Unless you pay to heat it, you’ll get two to three good months of use. The rest of the time, it will sit with a cover on in your backyard.
This pool was pretty fantastic, to be honest, with water features and a spacious wooden deck framing it. For the wedding, which was in mid-August, chairs had been arranged on the lawn leading up to the wooden deck, and an arch adorned with flowers was positioned by the pool, with bouquets of flowers floating on pieces of Styrofoam in the water. As far as backyard weddings go, this one was lovely.
That was, until the ceremony. We all walked down the aisle—live streamed, of course—and no one tripped or fell. Everything went perfectly up until this point, in fact. Chloe, I’ll admit, looked beautiful, and although Matt didn’t portray the part of the usual lovestruck groom who’s excited to see his bride, he did sort of smile at one point while Chloe was walking down the aisle, so there’s that.
The officiant, an older gentleman who was the preacher at their church, started the ceremony, and I stood next to Lilly (the same sister who’d drunkenly spilled all the details at the bachelorette party). It was kind of running long—the preacher was a bit long winded—and I kept having to adjust my stance because just standing in the four-inch heels I was wearing was proving to be quite uncomfortable.
When it came time for the rings, the ring bearer—one of Chloe’s cousins who was around twelve at the time—had been sitting by his parents in the first row and came up to the front to give them the rings he’d been holding and … I tripped him. Not on purpose, of course, but I had set my foot out in front of me a bit, to give it a rest while I put most of my weight on my back leg. The pointy-toe part of my shoe was out there just enough that it caught his foot just right. Or just wrong, really.
The rings fell out of his hand as he went down, and the preacher moved to save the rings from rolling into the water at the same time Chloe did, and that’s how they got entangled and ended up falling backward, right into the pool behind them.
Chloe screamed when she came up for air, and some people got in to help her and the preacher out. She looked like a drowned rat when she finally emerged.
I felt horrible. I’d ruined her wedding. I tried to downplay it, hoping maybe no one would find out it was my toe that tripped the ring bearer, but when the finger-pointing started (as soon as Chloe and the preacher had gotten out of the pool safely), the ring bearer ratted me out almost immediately.
I apologized because it was my pointy toe that started it, but honestly, who gets married on the side of a pool? And really, if anyone is to blame, it was the preacher for dragging on and on to the point where my feet needed a break.
I took the high road and didn’t try to turn the blame on anyone else. I just apologized. Which was not really accepted, and if looks could kill, Chloe’s diced me up and served me on a platter. She told me I ruined her wedding and then stomped off, the train of her dress leaving a trail of pool water in her wake.
My mom was horrified, and my dad kept sucking his lips into his mouth to keep from laughing. It turns out that they never liked Chloe, even when we were friends in high school, and now I wonder if maybe she was always nasty like this, and I just didn’t see it.
