Chapter 1
I’d always thought mywedding day should feel like a fairy tale.
Apparently, I’d thought wrong.
I twisted the tiny ring on my pointer finger. Notthatfinger—not the one where my engagement band should be. My engagement band was sitting forlorn on a tray before a lit vanity, a sparkling anchor I was dreading slipping onto my finger.
Simon had picked out a glittering, princess-cut diamond for his proposal with no input from me. The huge rock was encircled by tiny diamonds, on a band of even more tiny diamonds. My engagement ring was a statement piece that others gawked over and complimented, to the point where I’d stopped wearing it completely because I hated the attention.
I told Simon the reason I’d started leaving my ring in the safe at home was because I didn’t want to lose such a valuable piece of jewelry at the hospital. As a recent med student graduate in my first year of residency, I woregloves often, and I told Simon it was a pain to slide latex gloves over the massive diamond. Simon liked hearing the words “massive diamond” quite a lot; he was very proud of those three carats.
“Allie,” my mother said, startling me out of my dismal wedding day thoughts. “Are you ready to go?”
I turned to my mother, a slight woman built on Nicoise salads and New York City pollution, held together with a tasteful dose of Botox. My eyes smarted with tears.
“Mom—” I pleaded. “I don’t think I’m ready.”
“I thought you agreed to take this shabby ring off.” My mother reached for my hand, ignoring my reply. She frowned at the tiny ring I wore on my pointer finger. “The blue doesnotmatch your theme.”
The ring on my pointer finger that I’d been fumbling with was the only personal item I’d selected for today. I hadn’t chosen the cake or the flowers or even my gown, but this ring—an unassuming silver band with tiny spires, a little circlet inlaid with miniscule blue gems—felt like a buoy. A tiny life vest keeping me afloat in an angry sea.
“No,” I said sharply, retracting my hand from her grasp. “I like this ring.”
“Allie, it’s cheap and tacky.”
“Please, it’s my something old.”
My mother’s gaze shot toward my face. I could count the number of times I’d told my mother “no” on onehand. One finger, more like. I’d been a rule follower my whole life. But I refused to compromise on this.
“Allie—”
“It’s not up for debate,” I said. “It’s my wedding.”
“I’ll never understand why you like that old thing.” My mother moved behind me and started to fritter around with my curls. “It’s something a psychic on the Jersey Shore would wear.”
I disagreed, but I didn’t say so aloud. My opinion wasn’t generally welcome from my parents, so I’d stopped giving it freely ages ago.
Even if I had wanted to argue, there were no words to describe why I liked this ring with the peculiar, ocean-blue gems embedded at the ends of the tines. It resembled a tiny crown encircling my finger. I’d found it when I turned eighteen, tucked away and forgotten in a shoebox in the back of my closet that I was certain my mother had never seen.
When I’d first put it on, it was as if something had snapped into place. A tiny sense of comfort had flooded my stomach that suggested, on some level, I’d found something uniquelyme. It felt enchanting and sweet and meaningful, a little secret I could hold dear. Wearing it gave me a new confidence that trailed behind me, barely discernable, like the scent of jasmine and roses and saltwater. I hadn’t taken it off since.
My mother tsked again as she glanced at my ring. Aside from that one piece of jewelry, everything else about today was perfect in her eyes. She had worked hard to make my wedding exquisite, and she had succeeded.
My hair was perfect. Painfully perfect, with clips digging into my scalp so hard it gave me a headache. My dress was perfect. So perfect, it cinched my waist so tightly I could hardly breathe. My shoes were perfect. So perfect they were a size too small and pained my toes.
My comfort didn’t matter today, or really any day. As the only daughter to two rich New York socialites, I was their only hope for a matrimonial parade fit for Page Six. My mother had ensured today would be a ceremony her friends would be talking about for weeks.
“It’s almost time.” My father sauntered into the room.
Dr. Wells was over six feet tall. He was broad-shouldered and had a presence to him. He took up almost as much space physically as he did with his ego. He was a world-renowned surgeon, and he acted like it. My father was disappointed I hadn’t chosen to follow in his elite footsteps. I’d chosen to practice family medicine, and that didn’t garner nearly enough esteem in his eyes.
“Allie, you’ve forgotten the most important thing of all!” My mother frowned, then retrieved my engagement band from the vanity.
She held the diamond studded band out to me, and the second it landed in my hand, it felt like a dullpaperweight. The only thing keeping me afloat was that little buoy on my other finger, the one that gave me a sense of peace and calmness and hope, like maybe there was something more. Like maybe someday, I’d figure out where I belonged.
Unfortunately, today was not that day. Today was my wedding day, which felt more like I was about to be sacrificed at the altar instead of married there.
I gathered up the dress my mother had ordered custom from a designer whose name I couldn’t pronounce. She placed a bouquet of flowers in my arms, an expensive arrangement of exotic flowers, neatly tucked together into a wrap.
