Chapter 7 - The Wedding We Chose
Lena returned ten minutes later.
“We can keep the guests comfortable for another fifteen minutes,” she said gently. “After that, I need to give the kitchen a definite plan.”
My mother looked exhausted.
Brooke had stopped trying to stand near her.
Uncle Mark waited by the door.
Everyone seemed to expect me to decide what happened to all of us.
For once, I decided only what happened to me.
“I need a minute with Ethan.”
My mother started to speak.
“Alone.”
Nora touched my shoulder on her way out.
The room emptied.
Ethan sat opposite me.
The letter lay across my lap.
“I turned our ceremony into a fight,” I said.
“You interrupted it.”
“That sounds generous.”
“It’s accurate.”
“Are you angry?”
“Yes.”
I nodded, looking down.
He leaned forward.
“At what they did. At the fact that you felt you had to set a trap to be believed. And a little at being the last person you trusted with it.”
“I trust you.”
“I know. But when you got scared, you went back to doing everything alone.”
That hurt because it was true.
“I don’t know how to stop that overnight.”
“I’m not asking for overnight.”
Outside, a cart rattled down the hallway.
Ordinary hotel sounds. Somebody else’s perfectly normal afternoon.
“Do you still want today?” he asked.
I stared at him.
“We can leave,” he said. “We can marry next week. We can go back in there. I’m not going to make you prove anything.”
I looked at my father’s letter.
Then at the man in front of me.
“I want to marry you.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“In this dress?”
I laughed through my nose.
“Especially in this dress.”
He held out his hand.
“Then let’s go finish.”
At the ballroom doors, Lena asked about my mother and sister.
I found them standing together by a marble column.
“You can stay,” I said. “But you don’t speak during the ceremony. You don’t make a toast. You don’t change anything with the staff.”
My mother’s face tightened.
“And afterward?”
“Afterward, I decide when I’m ready to talk.”
Brooke nodded.
Diane looked at the open doors.
The guests were waiting.
For the first time, the embarrassment belonged to her, and I wasn’t rushing to take it away.
“Do you understand?” I asked.
May you like
After a long moment, she nodded.
Then Ethan and I walked back into the ballroom together.
