“I don’t hate you, Blade,” Weston said. “You’re my brother. I’ll always love you, but right now, I really don’t want to be around you.”
66
Avery
People were calling out to me when I pushed through the double doors. I stood for a moment at the top of the wide stone steps. The rain had started again, and the town square where the tents had been set up for the reception was soaked. People were scurrying to save platters of food and tubs of macaroni salad from the rain.
I paused and looked out over the bedlam.
“At least it doesn’t matter what my wedding photos looked like.” A laugh started to bubble up inside of me. That was better than crying.
How could Blade do that to me? After all his promises of building a life together and declarations of love, he had completely lied about my watch being worth millions. What was worse was that he had made me fall in love with him. I felt so foolish and betrayed. I just wanted to sit on the steps and cry.
Yelling echoed from inside the city hall building. I couldn’t stay here. I grabbed fistfuls of the dress and stepped into the rain. I was immediately drenched, the layers of satin and the heavy train sucking up rainwater as I slogged my way to the train station. A car sped past me and splashed me with the dirty water. I screamed at the car then immediately started crying.
“It’s not fair! Why does my life have to be such a disaster?” I sobbed, mascara and makeup running down my face as I dragged the train and the veil behind me and slogged down the sidewalk. “Why did I have to screw up so badly?”
The train station was crowded. I arrived a few minutes before the next train. I shivered in my soaking dress, ignoring the curious looks of the people on the platform. I hugged my arms around me as I waited for the train. My phone was blowing up with calls and messages, but I ignored them. What could I say? I had lied to my grandmother, lied to Blade’s family, lost my house, lost his contract, and worst of all, I had lost Blade.
“Blade is a piece of shit,” I told myself as I sopped onto the train. “You never loved him. It wasn’t real. It was a hundred percent fake.” But I had wanted it to be real. I’d wanted the cozy evenings by the fire, the charming small-town life, the daughters, the big family gatherings.
On the train ride back, I alternated between crying and cursing Blade. My dress hadn’t even dried off at all when the train pulled into Penn Station.
“One good thing about New York City,” I muttered to myself as I hiked up my dress, dragging it behind me to the subway entrance, “is that literally no one is batting an eye that I’m walking around in a soaking-wet eighties wedding dress.”
My nose was running, and I couldn’t feel my feet when I finally made it back to the apartment I had shared with Shirley and Edward. I slowly climbed the stairs. When I finally arrived in the room, I didn’t even have the energy to take off the dress. I just flopped onto the bed and pulled the covers up over my head.
* * *
“Did you sleep in that dress?”Edward’s voice was irritated. I pushed myself upright. I saw darkness outside through the tiny little window with its view of a brick wall.
A part of me wished Blade had come. I just wanted him to whisk me away, to say we were going to elope, and screw everyone else. But that was a bad idea. He had clearly never cared about me. He had just been using me.
“I couldn’t take it off,” I said. My hair, which had been soaked from the rain, had redried, the hairspray forming it into a scary-looking modern art piece.
“Good lord,” Edward said.
I squinted at him. He had a black eye, and his nose was swollen. “What happened?”
“No one treats my friends like that,” he growled.
“No one was arrested if that’s what you’re worried about,” Shirley assured me, throwing the blanket off so she could unbutton the dress.
“How is Blade?” I asked as Edward unpinned my veil.
“You can’t seriously be worried about that asshole,” he said. “He screwed you over, remember?” Edward pointed to my watch.
“You better put that somewhere safe,” Shirley chided as she untied the waterlogged bow around my waist. “You’re going to need to sell it.” She finished undoing my dress and helped me shimmy out of it.
I felt sad as I looked at the jewelry Edward was laying on the bed. “I guess I need to return this to my grandmother.” The shock and disappointment on her face were going to haunt me for the rest of my life.
“Cleaning the dress and giving it back to her in mint condition will go a long way toward making amends,” Shirley suggested.
We stared at the dress. The train had brown water stains on it, and the hem was muddy. The lace was stiff and the bows bedraggled.
“I don’t think there’s anything I can do to fix this with her,” I said dejectedly.
“I mean, none of your family treated you that well, and your grandmother stood by and watched a lot of it happen,” Edward said, undoing his tie. He was still in his green tuxedo. “So honestly, she made her bed on some of this.”
