I appreciate it, but somehow, I already know.
It’s confirmed when I see the screen finally, Bradley’s smiling face and his name at the very top, the last text I sent reading: Good morning! I can’t wait to marry you today!
His most recent text reads:
I’m sorry. I can’t do this.
And the world comes crashing down around me.
TWO
SATURDAY, AUGUST 19
The pile of tissues is as big as a small child.
A toddler, maybe.
A preschooler?
I don’t know.
It’s really big.
And as I stare at it, my eyes and nose and head and soul throbbing, I can’t help but think I should clean up. It’s a hotel room, after all, not my own place. There are more used tissues on the bed and in the little kitchenette. Someone zipped up the gown my mother loved, perfectly tailored to fit every edge and curve of my body in a way that would sell well in tabloids.
We were going to donate the proceeds, of course. It would look too garish to sell your daughter’s wedding photos without having a good cause. I had agreed but only under the promise the money would go to Cami’s mother’s charity, Moving Forward.
Guilt wraps around me, and I make a mental note to ask my grandfather to donate to the charity in my name. I can pay him back in four more years when my trust is open.
The charity shouldn’t suffer just because I couldn’t get my fiancé to actually tie the knot. It’s not her fault the wedding won’t happen, that there won’t be some glamorous tabloid stories to sell and profits to donate.
Instead, they’ll get an even juicer story and they’ll get it for free.
My fiancé—ex-fiancé, I remind myself—ended our engagement just minutes before the ceremony, and now it’s all ruined.
All of it.
And now, I’m surrounded by waste.
So much fucking waste.
Who knew a simple wedding could have so much stuff?
The tissues.
The gown.
The flowers.
The cake, the food.
Three years of my life.
All of it a fucking waste.
The words weigh on my soul, the idea filling me with a heavy panic I don’t know how to escape from.
Clean.
That’s the obvious answer, of course.
I need to be clean, to scrub this day off my skin until there’s a fresh layer Bradley has never touched, a new version of me who will be able to stand strong and tall beneath this disappointment, but until then, I need to clean this room.
It’s suffocating me, and I need it gone.
Standing, I wobble on my feet as if I’ve been drinking all day, but despite the twenty bottles of Dom Perignon Cami had sent up to the bridal suite (we weren’t going to be having a Champagne toast, after all), I haven’t had a drink since mimosas this morning.
“What are you doing?” Cami asks, her voice like a mother of a toddler who is walking toward a flight of stairs.
“I need to clean up,” I say, and my voice is raspy, like it hasn’t been used in days.
“Liv, no.”
“Cami, there’s—”
“Liv, no.”
“Cami, I need to do this,” I say, panic filling my chest. Cici walks to me and grabs my hand.
“Come on. Let’s sit down. We can—”
“I don’t want to. I want to clean. I need to do something, I can’t just sit there. I need—” The panic is crashing over me like waves and I’m being pulled into the undertow.
“You need to sit down because you’re scaring me.” I paste on my well-practiced fake smile.
“I’m fine. I swear. I just need to be productive.”
“The only mess in this room is those tissues, Liv. It’s only going to take a moment,” Cami says, her eyes wide. I’m sure mine are frantic, unable to hide my true feelings based on how she’s looking at me like I’m a wild animal who has been put into a small enclosure.
Have you ever seen those videos of those zoo animals in terrible enclosures, how they pace and twitch and act completely out of sorts?
That’s how I feel.
And the pain in my chest when I watch them, the all-consuming desire to jump in there and let them out is probably how Cami feels.
Shit.
I shouldn’t make her feel that way. It’s not right. It's not her fault I was left at the altar. It isn’t fair to put that on other people, people I love.
I’m making a scene, and I need to stop.
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath in and slowly release it, trying to come up with a solution.
Something to do.
I can’t just sit here.
“What about the venue? It needs cleaning. We’ll never get the deposit back if we don’t clean up before midnight. We have to—” Again, Cami cuts me off, grabbing both of my hands in one of hers and leading me back to the bed until I’m sitting on the edge.
“Your dad has it handled, honey. He’s making sure it gets done. Damien’s with him and a few others. We’ve got this under control.” More guilt lashes through me, making me angry and in pain at the thought of my dad having to do even more.
He already had to go out front and let everyone who was sitting, waiting for a bride to walk down the aisle to Pachelbel’s Cannon in D (I wanted Lover by Taylor Swift, but my mother insisted we go classic), know the wedding was canceled. He already had to answer questions and deal with angry guests. After that, he helped clean up the cathedral, making sure I didn’t have to look at or deal with any of it while in my state of misery.
And now he’s doing more.
“I should help. That’s not fair,” I say, my voice cracking, the throb in my throat near impossible to ignore. Cami’s hand tightens in mine, a silent attempt to hold me in place, to stop me from standing and running down to him.
“Babe, let him do this.”
“Cami—” But she knows me too well, knows how to hit me where it will hurt, or at least what to say so I’ll do as she would like.
“He doesn’t know what to do with himself. You know your dad—he’s a fixer. His girl is sad, he wants to fix it, and he has no way of fixing this, Liv. Let him do this. If not for you then for him. If he doesn’t, I genuinely think there’s a good chance he’ll try to hunt down the douchebag and give him a taste of his own medicine.”
The throbbing turns into a painful ache and finally, the sob I was holding back breaks free. Cami wraps me in her arms, and I cry into her shoulder.
“My god, Olivia. I can’t believe how selfish you’re being.” Cami’s entire body goes stiff at my mother’s words. I hold on tighter to her, not for my benefit, though.
Because Cami has an unhinged sense of justice and I don’t need to end this day in a prison.
Again.
“Excuse me?” Cami says, not even turning to look at my mother.
“Cami,” I say low, under my breath.
It’s not worth it.
It’s not worth it.
I’ve been my mother’s daughter for 26 long years, and this is just part of it. She means well, but she was raised to think the world revolves around her. It’s not her fault.
“You’re babying her. She’s throwing a hissy fit, but what about the rest of us? What about the guests—”