Chapter 1
JESSICA
“Ican't do this!"
I spin around and face Mom.
She's standing in the doorway of the bridal suite, one hand clutching her champagne flute, the other pressed against her chest like she's trying to hold her heart in place.Her blonde hair is swept into an elegant twist. She's wearing that dusty rose dress Callum, my groom waiting downstairs, picked out.
She hated it but bought it anyway because I begged her not to make waves.
She looks beautiful, but as if she has been waiting for this moment.
"It's normal, wedding jitters before the big day."
I shake my head. I wish it was as simple as that.
We're on the second floor of the Riverside Estate, a sprawling Victorian manor that Callum's parents booked the second we got engaged.
It's all exposed brick and crown molding, with massive windows overlooking the gardens below.
Two hundred guests are already seated out there in neat rows of white chairs, waiting for me to walk down an aisle lined with roses I didn't pick.
The bridal suite is supposed to feel luxurious.
Plush carpet the color of champagne, an ornate mirror that takes up half the wall, a velvet settee in the corner where Melissa left her purse and half-empty mimosa.
There's a table covered in champagne bottles and fruit nobody's touched. White roses spill out of crystal vases on every surface. The air smells like hairspray and lilies, and it’s making my stomach turn.
Or maybe that's just the panic.
"Constant nightmares, waking up in cold sweats, loss of appetite, drinking wine. Those are just a few things I've had ever since Monday. I can't stop feeling as if I'm making the biggest mistake of my life."
"Oh!” She gasps as she puts the flute down.
Yeah, Oh. I'm supposed to be happy thinking about how my life will change, but not feeling as if I'm giving myself a free pass to prison. There were signs, but even more signs this week.
Mom walks toward me slowly, like I'm a spooked horse. Her heels click against the hardwood. She's shorter than me by a few inches, but she's always carried herself like she's six feet tall. Strong. Steady. The kind of woman who raised me to speak my mind and stand my ground.
Except I stopped doing both of those things when I started dating Callum.
"Talk to me," she says softly. "What happened this week?"
I take a shaky breath. "First I want to get out of this corset. I can't think straight when I can't breathe. Then I'll tell you everything."
She moves behind me and I feel her fingers on the zipper. The moment she pulls it down, I gasp. Actual oxygen floods my lungs.
"Jesus, Jessica," Mom breathes. "This is way too tight."
"I know." I sink onto the settee as she works the dress open, and it poofs around me like a cloud.
There's so much fabric. Layers and layers of tulle and expensive lace.
"Callum's mother picked it out. Ordered it in a size smaller than I wore because I'd want to 'slim down for the big day.
' Callum agreed. Told me I'd look better if I lost a little weight.
Wedding photos are forever, and I'd want to look my best."
Mom's hands still on the zipper. "He said what?"
"He was just being honest." The words come out automatically. A script I've repeated to myself for months. "Concerned about my health. Wanted me to feel confident. The camera adds ten pounds, and he didn't want me unhappy with the photos later."
"That's not honesty. That's cruelty dressed up as concern."
I don't respond. Can't. Because she's right, and I've known it for weeks, but admitting it means admitting I've wasted two years of my life with a man who made me feel like I needed to shrink to be worthy of love.
"I haven't eaten a real meal in six weeks." The confession spills out. "Just protein shakes and salads with no dressing. Two hours of cardio every day. And this morning, when he saw me in the dress, you know what he said?"
Mom's voice is dangerous. "What?"
"'Almost there.'" My voice cracks. "A project still in progress. Not quite good enough yet, but maybe by the time we got to the venue, I'd be acceptable."
So here I am, drowning in someone else's vision of perfection.
My phone buzzes on the vanity. I can see the screen lighting up with notifications. Callum, probably. Reminding me that I'm supposed to do or say or be.
I ignore it.
"Monday. We were at breakfast. The Bluebird Cafe, remember? Going over the final wedding plans." My voice sounds hollow, like I'm talking through water. "You asked if I was going to Pine Hollow to help Sharon with the expansion of her wedding planing business.”
Mom nods, her eyes never leaving my face.
"I didn't even get a chance to answer. Callum just said, 'Work. She's not going to work. Once I put a ring on her finger.' Like it was already decided. Like I didn't get a say."
I'd laughed it off at the time. Made some joke about him being old-fashioned while I pushed avocado toast around my plate, too nauseous to eat.
Mom's face had gone tight across the table. I saw her fingers tighten around her coffee cup. She'd opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, then closed it again.
But I saw the worry in her eyes. The recognition of something she'd been trying not to see.
"That night I had my first nightmare. I was walking down the aisle wearing cement shoes. I couldn’t move. I just kept sinking."
Mom sits beside me on the settee, and the cushion dips under her weight. She smells like the perfume she's worn my whole life. Gardenias and vanilla. Safe. Familiar.
Everything Callum isn't.
"Tuesday, he told me I needed to tone down my personality at the rehearsal dinner. His boss was there, and apparently I laughed too loud. Talked too much."
The rehearsal had been at some upscale Italian place downtown. Dark wood paneling, low amber lighting, waiters in bow ties who moved like ghosts. Callum's boss had been there with his wife, both of them stiff and formal, the kind of people who measure every word before they speak.
I'd been trying so hard to be charming. To be the kind of woman Callum wanted me to be. Light and bubbly and perfectly appropriate.
In the car afterward, he'd given me that look. The disappointed one he tries to hide but never quite manages.
"You made everything about you tonight. My boss barely got a word in."
I'd apologized. Of course I'd apologized. I always did.
"Wednesday." My throat tightens. "He rewrote my vows."
Mom's jaw clenches, and I see her hands ball into fists on her lap.
"I spent two weeks writing them. Stayed up late, trying to get the words right. Trying to explain how I felt. Or how I thought I felt." I laugh, but it comes out wrong. Brittle. "He read them over breakfast. Said they were too emotional. Too personal. Would embarrass him in front of the guests."
Fifteen minutes later, he'd handed me a revised version. Shorter. Cleaner. Stripped of anything that felt real.
"These are better. Trust me."
And I had trusted him. Because that's what I always did.
"Thursday." My voice drops to barely a whisper. "I heard him on the phone with his mother."
Mom's hand finds mine and squeezes it.
"I was packing for the honeymoon. Some resort in Mexico he picked without asking what I wanted.
His voice carried through the bedroom door.
" I close my eyes, but I can still hear it.
That casual, matter-of-fact tone. "They were talking about when we'd start trying for a baby.
He said once we're married, it'll be easier to convince me.
That there's no point in waiting. That I'll come around. I always do."
Like I was a project. A problem to manage. A box to check on his life plan.
Mom makes a sound in the back of her throat. Anger and grief mixed together.
"Friday, I came here for the final fitting. His mother kept fussing over the dress, saying how perfect everything was. How lucky Callum was to have found such a lovely bride."
I look at my reflection in the massive mirror across the room.
"I stood in front of that mirror and felt nothing. No excitement. No joy. Just this overwhelming sense of dread."
I turn back to Mom, and the tears I've been holding back finally spill over.
"Now it's Saturday. My wedding day. And I feel like I'm drowning."
Mom doesn't say anything for a long moment. She just pulls me into her arms, and I collapse against her shoulder. The dress crinkles and protests, but I don't care. I hold on like she's the only solid thing in a world that's spinning out of control.
"What do you want to do?" she asks quietly, her voice steady against my hair.
I pull back and look at the door. At the window with its view of the gardens below. At my reflection in that mirror, this stranger in white lace who's been pretending for so long she forgot what real felt like.
"I want to run."
A sharp knock on the door makes us both jump.
"Jessica?" A voice calls from the hallway. Melissa. My maid of honor. "Everyone's asking what's taking so long. The ceremony was supposed to start ten minutes ago."
Mom's eyes meet mine. She stands up, walks to the door, but doesn't unlock it.
"She needs a few more minutes," Mom calls through the wood. "Makeup emergency."
"Well, hurry up. Callum's mother is having a fit, and the photographer is threatening to leave if we don't start soon. The guests are getting restless."
I can hear the irritation in Melissa's voice. She's been like this all week. Short with me. Impatient. Always checking her phone and disappearing for long stretches during wedding prep.
Always coming back smelling like men's cologne that isn't her boyfriend's.
My stomach twists.
"We'll be out soon," Mom says firmly.
Footsteps retreat down the hallway. Mom turns back to me, and I see the decision crystalize in her eyes.
She walks to the door and locks it. The click of the deadbolt echoes through the room.
"How much of a head start do you need?"
Relief crashes over me so hard I almost can't breathe.
"Ten minutes?"