5. Neve
CHAPTER FIVE
Neve
I hear a loud, pain filled groan before I open my eyes. At first I’m not sure if it was me that made the noise or not, but as I slowly get dragged into the devastating reality of my hangover - Dalila groans again.
“What the hell.” I mumble, rolling over and an intense, heavy headache throbs behind my eyes. “How much did we drink?”
“All of it.” Is her only answer, and it makes me chuckle. But laughing hurts even more so I put a stop to that.
“I think I might puke.” Her voice is tight.
“As long as it isn’t anywhere where I’d have to clean it up - “
She sits up and looks over at me, her hair a tangled mess, knotted in yesterday’s braids. I reach up and touch my own, already worried about how much of a challenge it’s going to be to get these braids out - but my hair is silky soft and falling over my shoulders in neat waves.
There isn’t a single braid in my hair and all the pins and clips are set on the bedside table.
“What the fuck?” I mumble. There is no way I did that last night. I couldn’t even strong a sentence together - never mind worrying about brushing my hair.
“Did you take my braids out?” I ask.
She lifts one corner of her lip and squints one of her eyes. “Are you kidding me?” she says.
I can’t for the life of me figure it out, but there are more immediate things that need my attention right now. Like painkillers. Coffee. Water. More pain killers. And please, for the love of all things that are good and wonderful on this green Earth - I need to get out of this wedding dress. It’s cutting into me in the most uncomfortable ways and the skirt is completely twisted around my legs. I have no idea how I slept throughout the night wearing it - well I guess I know - I was freakishly drunk.
I stand up, hating how it feels, clutching onto one of the four-bed pillars.
The world spins a little and I swallow back a nauseous wave.
“Coffee.” She says.
“Coffee.” I agree.
Thank goodness they have one of those one push button machines that does it all for you.
I really hope my stomach can handle this coffee because my brain desperately needs it.
“Here.” Dalila says, handing me a couple of painkillers.
“Thanks.” I murmur.
“Are you doing ok?” She asks, and I know she isn’t referring to the hangover.
I sigh softly and bite at my lower lip. “I don’t know. I think I need to first get over this waking up thing - I can assess how I am emotionally after that.” I say, not having the mental or physical capacity to unpack that disaster and all its intricacies.
We sit quietly drinking coffee and waiting for the headaches to stop drumming entire songs inside our skull. Dalila scrapes herself off the chair and sighs. “I better get going. Nevio is asking where I am and if I don’t start moving now I’m going to climb back into that bed and stay there all day.”
“Same. I’m going to hop into the shower and get out of this damned dress. Before you go, will you help me untie the corset thingy?”
She giggles. “Where would you be with without me?”
Checking my phone was a mistake.
It’s not like I expected anything other than what it is - but now I have anxiety on top of everything else.
My face is on every possible news site, plastered all over social media and most likely on every newspaper throughout the city .
They have a picture of me, standing alone at the doors that lead into the church, holding those flowers and looking utterly lost.
What made him decide not to marry her?
Where is the groom?
Runaway groom leaves stricken bride at the altar.
Embarrassing night for Neve Greco as her fiancé is a no show on their wedding.
The headlines are endless - and horrible.
Standing in the elevator with Dalila, heading down into the foyer with my little overnight bag on the floor next to me, the wedding dress rather brutally shoved into it along with the rest of my clothes from yesterday - I close my eyes and count to three.
Stop looking at your phone. Stop stressing about it. Get home. Deal with one thing at a time.
But, as soon as those elevator doors slide open I realize another big mistake I’ve made. I didn’t ask the hotel staff to escort me out of the back entrance .
The foyer is flooded with reporters and cameras fire off bright flashes of light.
“Oh my word.” Dalila squeals in horror.
“Walk - keep your head down.” I say to her, speaking loud enough to be heard over one hundred questions being blasted at me.
“Why did he decide not to marry you, Neve?”
“Were you two having problems?”
“Can you tell us if one of you was having an affair?”
“How did it feel to be stood up at the alter?”
I want to punch them in the face. Their questions are heartless and cruel. They don’t give a shit about what I went through - they only care about the headlines. The best story. And this, right now, is the best story.
We tackle our way out of the foyer with the help of the hotel staff who finally realize what is going on and come to our rescue. “You can’t be in here.” One of them shouts angrily to a camera man.
“Where did you park?” Dalila asks .
“Right here.” I say, pointing to my car.
Last night they were supposed to take it away and send it back home for me - I was supposed to leave this morning in a limousine, headed for the airport.
But obviously someone made the right choice and left it here for me. Thank goodness.
I climb in and Dalila waves goodbye, and hurries towards her own car.
In the silence of my car, driving through the city towards my apartment - my heart is heavy. I’m grateful that the painkillers seem to work, dulling it to a mild thirty percent of what it was before, but now with the headache gone my mind is free to think about everything else.
“Where are you, Damion?” I ask no one as I turn into the underground parking of my building.
The security is ridiculously strict, so I am not worried about reporters here. But I am worried about how I’m meant to be dealing with all of this.
What am I supposed to do now ?
Hurrying up to my apartment a wave of relief washes over me as I step inside and pull the door shut behind myself. I remember what I told Dalila last night. I told her I was relieved when I didn’t have to marry Damion and it’s true. I am still relieved now - but that doesn’t mean that I wanted anything bad to happen to him and I have no doubt that something has happened
Damion is not the type of person who would stand me up. And I think he was pretty excited to marry me.
I push the suitcase up against the wall next to the front door, knowing it will sit there for a few days before I deal with it. A tinge of guilt pokes at me because the dress is in there.
Dammit.
Fine.
Unzipping the top I yank the dress out but leave everything else.
I shake it out and toss it over the back of one of my dining room chairs.
Flopping onto my sofa I slide my phone open to check my messages .
So many friends have sent me their condolences - but I flip past those. I’m looking for clues, hints, trails, anything that might tell me what happened to Damion.
When my phone dies I plug it in and grab my Mac Air, sitting with my legs curled beneath me I go through his social media, his friends pages, his emails which are still open on my Mac from the last time he logged in to check them. Nothing is out of the ordinary. Nothing is weird or alarming or suspicious. He up and vanished into thin air.
“Oh shit.” I say excitedly. “I have keys to his apartment.”
In a split second my mind is made up. I have to go there. I’m convinced his parents, or his brother would have already checked it out, but I want to see for myself. There might be something they overlooked.
He lives only two streets away from me and there is a coffee shop in between us, so I decide to walk and stop for a take away on the way. Maybe something to eat as well because my stomach is settling.
The first few minutes of the walk aren’t too bad, but of course, I underestimate the determination of reporters - and now they are following me.
Running is the last thing I want to do today, but I have no choice as I move faster and faster towards the coffee shop which is now some kind of sanctuary ahead of me - I need to get off the streets.
Bursting through the doors, breathless and mildly panicked, everyone inside turns to glare at me in shock.
Reporters flock outside the doors. I don’t make eye contact.
Instead I head over to a table in the corner, sit down and pull out my phone so that I have something to do with my hands and somewhere to look.
My cheeks are glowing red.
I hate this.
I hate everything about this.
A sweet server comes over and greets me by my name, showing that she recognizes me from one article.
“Hi, Neve, what can I get you today? ”
I pull my mouth tight.
“Coffee - and uh - a toasted cheese with bacon and that pesto type sauce you guys usually have.”
“I won’t be long.” She smiles, and I breathe a sigh of relief. No questions. No nosy poking into my business.
Because I have nothing else to do but wait - I start messaging people. Anyone I can think of. His friends, my friends, his work colleagues. Someone knows something .
And by the time my toasted sandwich arrives I have discovered that the night before our wedding Damion went out for a drink with a friend of his - they left the bar at the same time and that seems to be the last time he was seen.
After that no one heard a single thing. Not a message, not a phone call, not a whisper.
Maybe I should get a private investigator. The police will poke around, but apart from a distraught bride who got abandoned on her wedding day, there is no evidence of foul play - yet . His family is influential though. They will pull some strings .
I’ll have to call his mom later and find out what they are doing.
In the meantime I want to talk to my father and see if he’ll help me.
Something about this is wrong.
I have a horrible feeling that something bad has happened to him.