Chapter 25 Perry
PERRY
The bridal suite still smells like hairspray and peonies.
The mirrors are ringed with soft bulbs that make everything look airbrushed. The curling irons are unplugged but still warm. Lipsticks lie uncapped on the vanity like shells on the ground after a battle.
And I am sitting on the floor where I collapsed.
My back is against the wall beneath the garment rack where Faith’s spare veil hangs, ghostlike. My hands are shaking hard enough that I have to press them between my knees to stop it.
I can’t stop crying.
It’s not loud. It’s not theatrical. It’s the kind of crying that feels like it’s been waiting for months and finally found an exit.
I told him. I finally told him. And he walked away.
I have to get these drinks to the groomsmen. That sentence keeps replaying like a glitch. It reminds me that I wrecked the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand and stand up too quickly to glare at myself in the mirror. The room tilts. I grip the edge of the vanity and force my breathing to slow.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. You cannot look like this. You are the maid of honor. You do not get to fall apart.
The door swings open without a knock. Amber.
She doesn’t even pretend she didn’t barge in. She steps inside like she owns everything around her, shutting the door behind her with careful precision. “Well,” she says, eyes sweeping over my blotchy face. “This is convenient.”
I straighten automatically. “What do you want?”
“What do I want?” she repeats incredulously. “I have only ever done the right thing by Damian. And this is the thanks I get?”
The tears threaten again, but I shove them down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She laughs sharply. “Don’t insult me.” Her composure is fraying at the edges. The perfect hair. The controlled posture. It’s all there, but something underneath is cracked. “My son,” she says, voice tightening, “now has a pair of bastard half brothers.”
The word hits. Bastard. I flinch before I can stop myself.
“And Damian’s mother just humiliated my boyfriend in front of the entire county,” she continues.
My brain stumbles over that. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t pretend you didn’t notice,” she snaps. “She practically threatened Meron on a microphone.”
The pieces click together.
“Why are you here?” I ask quietly.
“Because,” she says, stepping closer, “I have done nothing but protect that man from his own stupidity. And you waltz in and undo everything.”
Protect him. From me. I feel something shift inside my chest. “You think this is about you?”
Her eyes flash. “Everything is about me when it affects my son.”
I wipe my face again. “You don’t get to call my children bastards,” I say, more steadily than I feel.
She smiles thinly. “Then you shouldn’t have had them with your ex’s father when you weren’t married to him.”
The room feels smaller. The air heavier. I am so tired. And suddenly, something inside me finally settles, not into calm, but into a kind of exhaustion so complete that it burns off whatever restraint I had left.
I push myself fully upright from the vanity, smoothing my dress automatically even though there’s nothing to smooth. My eyes still sting from crying, but my voice, when I speak, is steady. “I’m done, Amber.”
She blinks, caught off guard for half a second. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not pretending to give a shit about your tragedy,” I say, meeting her gaze directly now. “None of this is about you. Find someone who cares enough to let you yell at them. It’s not me.”
Her composure fractures instantly. “This is all your fault. If you hadn’t slept with Damian, none of this would be happening. Jason’s wedding wouldn’t be overshadowed. Meron wouldn’t have been humiliated. My son wouldn’t be discovering he has illegitimate half brothers.”
Illegitimate. My jaw tightens before I can stop it. “Watch your mouth, Amber.”
“You created this spectacle! You are a menace!”
“Your boyfriend fired Damian. If anyone here is a menace, it’s you!”
“He was unprofessional.”
“You decided that Damian dating me was unprofessional because you took it personally, and you made your pathetic boyfriend fire him. If anyone in this was unprofessional, it was Meron. Grow up.”
Her eyes narrow, but I don’t look away this time. “You think this is romantic?” she demands. “A middle-aged man and his son’s ex-girlfriend? It’s pathetic.”
“You’re angry about my age. Admit it, if I were one of your hoity toity, tight-ass forty-something friends, you wouldn’t give a shit.”
“Because one of my hoity toity, tight-ass forty-something friends wouldn’t have dated my son first!” She drags her manicure through her hair. “Damian always makes reckless decisions.”
“He makes his own choices. Deal with it!”
“He sleeps with children half his age.”
“I am a woman, fully capable of making my own choices. Not some teenager, so stop acting like it.”
She gives a short, humorless laugh. “You’re a liability.”
The word doesn’t wound the way she expects it to. Instead, it clarifies something. “To you. I’m a liability to you. And that’s only because you’ve decided I am. We could have been friends, Amber. But you chose to be a giant pain in my ass instead.”
She steps closer, heels clicking sharply against the hardwood. “You should break up with him. For the sake of decency, for his career, for his real family. If you cared about him, you’d leave him. But you’re too selfish for that, aren’t you?”
The absurdity of that nearly makes me laugh. “You want me to end it so you can feel powerful again.”
“I want you to stop destroying my son’s life. Any mother would feel the same.”
“Your son propositioned me ten minutes before his wedding, so I am not the one destroying his life. That’s on him.”
That stops her. “He what?”
“He suggested we find a room. Nostalgia, apparently.”
Her expression shifts, but only briefly. “He was drunk.”
“Does it matter?”
She regains her footing, chin lifting again. “Even so, this is bigger than you.”
“No. It isn’t. All of this revolves around me, which is why you blew in here, trying to make it sound as if it were all about you. You’re petty and jealous and mean, and I hope you find a really good therapist one day.”
Silence stretches between us. For the first time, she studies me not as a nuisance but as a variable she miscalculated. “Do you think love excuses your behavior?”
“I’m not here to make excuses for myself. I just came here to get some quiet, and then you barged in.”
Her laugh is brittle. “You are not built for this world.”
“I could not possibly care.” It’s the truth. I’m so over this bullshit.
For a moment, I think I’m going to cry again.
Not the quiet, leaking kind from earlier—the kind that slips out without permission—but the ugly kind.
The kind that caves in your face and makes your voice tremble and hands your enemy exactly what they want.
I can feel it building behind my eyes, the pressure tightening, the sting sharpening.
Amber sees it. Her mouth curves just slightly, not in sympathy but in satisfaction.
And that is just what I needed to stop me from crying. I swallow around the hard knot in my throat and straighten my shoulders, forcing the reaction down. I will not give her that. Not here. Not now.
I need her to leave before I lose my composure. “You don’t have to worry,” I say, and my voice is steadier than I expect it to be. “Damian wants nothing to do with me anymore.”
Amber studies my face carefully, searching for weakness. “Is that so?”
“I told him everything. He walked away. So, you can let go of your little snit and fuck off.”
For a split second, something in her expression flickers—relief, maybe, or recalculation. The lines in her forehead smooth slightly as she exhales through her nose.
“Well,” she says stiffly, adjusting the fall of her sleeve as though restoring order to her body restores order to the world. “Good. He’s made enough questionable decisions lately,” she continues, her composure rebuilding layer by layer. “He doesn’t need another.”
I don’t respond. There’s nothing I can say, and I’m too tired to argue further. My heart is still racing from the bathroom, from the confession, from everything that followed.
She gives me one last assessing look, the kind women like her use when deciding whether someone is worth further engagement.
Apparently, I no longer am. “Try not to ruin anything else today, dearie,” she adds lightly, as if she’s offering polite advice.
Then she turns and leaves, the door shutting behind her with a soft but decisive click.
Damian wants nothing to do with me. The sentence loops in my head.
Saying those words out loud cost me a piece of my soul, but at least she left.
I drag in a slow breath and open my eyes, forcing myself to look at my reflection.
My makeup is slightly smudged. My hair has loosened from the earlier chaos. Red rims my eyes.
A knock hits the door. Sharp. Impatient. Before I can answer, it swings open. Jason stands there, flushed and furious, tie loosened, eyes blazing.
And suddenly, Amber feels like the easier opponent.
He stands in the doorway, chest rising and falling too quickly, tie loosened, collar slightly crooked. There’s fury in his eyes. It’s a familiar look, the kind he used to wear when something threatened his control.
His voice is hoarse. “So it’s true?”
I don’t answer immediately. I study him the way I used to when I was trying to decide whether an argument was worth having. “Is what true?”
He steps inside. “You’ve been sleeping with my dad?”
“Yes.” There’s no point in pretending otherwise.
His jaw tightens. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I’ve been called worse today.”
He laughs harshly. “You couldn’t handle me moving on with your sister, so you went for my dad?”
The arrogance in that nearly makes me smile. “You think this is about you?”
“It always is with you.”
I tilt my head slightly. “You overestimate your importance in my life. Not for the first time.”
He steps closer, invading my space the way he always used to when he wanted to intimidate. “You were in my bed on New Year’s. You tried to ruin my engagement.”
“And you tried to ruin my life first,” I say evenly. “Let’s not rewrite history.”
“You could have had this,” he says, gesturing vaguely to the room, to the venue, to the curated life outside these walls. “When I got back from my honeymoon, we could have figured something out.”
The audacity of it leaves me speechless for a moment.
“You’re married to my sister,” I say slowly. “And you’re propositioning me in the bridal suite. Do you not see the problem here?”
“It’s not like you’re innocent. Don’t rewrite history,” he quotes me in a snotty tone.
I smile then, sharp and deliberate. “Who do you think I was in your bed with at New Year’s, Jason? Ask your wife. She knows.” I nod toward the doorway.
The door he forgot to close.
When he turns around to see his teary bride, the color drains from his face. “Faith,” he says quickly, smoothing his tie like that will cure reality. “I was just—”
She raises one hand. “I was looking for you.” Her voice is calm in a way that terrifies me more than shouting would.
Jason laughs awkwardly. “You caught us at a weird moment.”
“Did I?” Her eyes flick to me for a second, then back to him. There is no hysteria there. No tears anymore. Just recognition. She looks me in the eye over his shoulder. “You can have him.”
“What?” Jason snaps.
But I shake my head. “Absolutely the fuck not. He’s your mess now, Faith. I tried to warn you when I caught you two sleeping together, but I’m pretty sure you knew what he was back then, so it’s your turn to figure it out.”
Faith’s face tightens, and this time the hurt shows.
Jason turns on me. “You always do this. You stir things up and then pretend you’re above it.”
Faith looks at him now like she’s seeing him clearly for the first time in years. Then she leaves.
I feel something inside me harden. Sisterly love?
Ex-girlfriend rage? I’m not sure which, and I don’t think it matters what it is.
I stride over to Jason, closing the distance between us.
I’m inches from his handsome face, and all I feel is impatient fury.
“If you don’t find some way to fix this with Faith,” I say to him, and my voice is low and steady, “I will make your life a living hell.”
He looks at me like he doesn’t recognize the person standing in front of him. “You don’t get to threaten me.”
“Oh, I absolutely do. Because, unlike you, I am not drunk enough to forget what matters. Forget her again, and I will start the party by slowly gutting you while smiling. Wanna know what comes after that?”
Jason hesitates only a second before following her. The door slams shut behind him, leaving the bridal suite quiet again.
I stand there alone, breathing hard, listening to the distant music from the reception swell and fall. Ten minutes ago, I was crying in this room. Now, I have truly ruined everything for everyone I care about.
I used to crave drama. Lived for the thrill of it. But drama left me with a pair of twins, and everything changed. Including me, apparently.
I don’t know who I am anymore.