Chapter 30
30
M aeve
“Such a douchebag,” Bea fumes when I walk back inside. The flowy skirt of her knee-long pink dress follows her like a veil. This is what she’d wear every day when we were kids.
“You heard?”
“The whole island heard.” Her little nostrils flare as she jumps to her feet. “You don’t have to go through with that, you know. Fuck him. Let’s just run away somewhere together.”
“I’ve tried that,” I say with a sad smile. “And look where it landed me.”
“It landed you right back to me. Maybe it’s destiny.” She walks up to me and takes my hand. “He’s not getting you.” She speed walks to the closet and pulls out the suitcase she brought for me yesterday.
“I thought you wanted him for yourself.”
She rolls her eyes. “That was before I learned a few things about him. You’re doing me a favor by taking him off my hands. But really, let’s just leave. I have some money stashed away; it will be enough for us for a couple of months. And then we will figure something out.”
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“Why?” Her brows draw together.
“I don’t want to go to jail,” I explain quietly.
“He won’t go through with that.” She sounds a little doubtful. “Plus, he knows our parents now. It’d be awkward.”
“Parents that hold the voting shares for his company he’s about to lose,” I remind her. “If he can’t get the shares, he’ll do it out of spite. I go to jail. They get cast out from the society because of their wayward daughter: me.” I point a finger at my chest. “So yeah, I can see all of it happening. And no matter which scenario I go with, I always end up locked up.”
That draws her attention and makes her stop moving around my closet.
“He can blackmail them with my jail.”
“And they’d let him.” She resumes her chaotic activity.
“What do you think they’ll do to me for that?”
She stops again. “Probably deliver you to jail themselves. If it comes from them , it gives them extra points with the society for being good citizens.”
“Yep.”
“Shit.”
“Yep.”
A knock on the door interrupts our conversation. Expecting my mom to rush inside and smother me with her threats, I open the door wide. But it’s not my mother. In fact, I don’t even know who it is because the whole space alongside the doorframe is covered in white tulle. It’s everywhere. It’s giant. It’s sparkly .
“What the?—”
Someone on the other side moves this white monstrosity through the frame, getting stuck halfway in. With a few French curses, the person pushes through. A tall Tahitian lady can barely manage what I assume is the wedding dress.
“Where do you want it?” she asks, trying to wipe sweat from her face with her shoulder.
“Here.” My sister jumps into action. “On the bed.”
The lady drops the dress on the bed—not so gently may I add—and rushes outside without waiting for any signatures or anything really. All we hear is her constant “Merde.”
I walk up to the bed. “Is that…?”
“Your dress.” Bea points at the white, sparkling monstrosity.
I whip my head toward her. “No fucking way I put this on.”
It takes us forty-five minutes to put it on, and it’s as hideous as I expected. It’s big. Really big. But very tight. In fact, we can barely tighten the corset.
“Breathe out,” Bea orders while pushing her knee into my ass. I’m not sure how she’s managing to keep balanced and not fall. “Exhale, Maeve. For fuck’s sake.”
“I can’t breathe!” I squeak. “I can’t wear this.”
“No pain, no gain,” she grunts. “This was Mom’s dress. You know it’s a tradition to be married in that.”
“Why the hell does she have this dress with her on vacation?”
Bea puffs, trying to pull my corset closed, nearly breaking my ribs. “She’s had it with her since you turned eighteen.”
I try to turn my head back to look at her, but she smacks my shoulder to stay still. “How come I’ve never known that?”
“Because you ran away almost as soon as you turned eighteen. And then I guess she was saving it for me,” she explains nonchalantly. And for the tenth time—today only—I wonder what she’s been going through while I was gone. In our century, no one should be expected to get married when the opportunity arises just to satisfy their parents. It’s barbaric and not what we’ve been evolving for.
“I’m sorry, Bea,” I mutter, not knowing how to express how truly sorry I am for leaving her. Not them, but her.
“It’s fine.”
To my surprise, she does sound fine. Too fine. Too happy.
I’m happy that she’s happy. But why is she? She was so upset the other day when she figured out she wouldn’t be the one marrying Ezra.
“Ouch!” I cry out as her knee digs into my butt while she pulls the strings too hard.
“All done!” she exclaims happily, stepping aside to look at her creation.
I turn to face the mirror and cry out. Literally in horror.
First of all, my mom was like two to three sizes smaller than I am, and this corset barely covers my nipples. I can’t breathe because it’s too tight, and my boobs are about to push my head off my neck.
Second, the dress itself has a large skirt and underskirt and fifty thousand rings underneath it. It makes me look like Cinderella if her dress was on steroids. And not the good kind. I’ll need a double door if I want to fit anywhere. Or triple.
Third, the feathers. The dress has feathers. I never noticed them in Mom’s wedding pictures, but here they are. In big quantities. Sprinkled throughout the whole skirt, they make me look like I’ve just had a fight in a chicken coop and lost.
The corset is sparkling with gemstones and diamonds. I detest them. That’s what I was forced to wear once I turned thirteen. And when you wear a shit ton of diamonds, you’re automatically excluded from being a normal kid doing normal kid stuff.
“Oh, no.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Bea rushes to me and grabs the front of my corset. Trying to pull it toward her, she says, “Can you, maybe, like push the girls down a bit before they suffocate you?”
“Let me try.”
I push on my boobs from the top while she keeps pulling on the corset. But it’s stuck to my body as though my own skin has been replaced by lace. Bea did her job very well, trying to attach the damn thing to my body.
“Okay,” she says, stepping back with a puff. “You look good just like that.”
A wince on her face tells me all I need to know.
“You’ve always been a bad liar.”
I start walking toward the closet, but nearly trip over my own feet getting stuck in the skirt.
“Where are you going?”
“To change into something else. I’m not getting married in that .” I glance down at myself.
“Yeah, good idea,” she agrees easily and joins me in the closet.
The door suddenly bursts open, but I don’t remember sharing the keycard with anyone.
“You look amazing!” Mom exclaims as she steps into the closet with us. With the three of us and this damn dress, there’s not enough space to even move around. But it doesn’t seem to bother her. She steps right to my face and starts fixing my hair around my shoulders with a disapproving glare. “You should have put your hair up. This dress should be worn with an updo,” she finishes, clicking her tongue. “I looked so much different. I had to starve myself for two months to fit in it. You certainly could have stayed on that island a little longer. And that atrocious hair color,” a dramatic shudder, “cheapens this wonderful dress.”
I share a quick glance with Bea but don’t say a word. Anything we say will be used against us.
“Anyway, time to go.”
“What? It’s almost another hour until the wedding.”
“We moved the time.” She claps her hands. “How exciting is it?”
“No! Why? No!”
“Yes!” Mother’s eyes sparkle like the diamonds on my dress. “Let’s go.” She grabs my arm and pulls me away with her.
“Wait. Mom, wait! I don’t even have shoes on.”
“You don’t need them,” she says while pulling me toward the door with her iron grip.
I stumble a few times, but it doesn’t seem to stop her. Bea runs after us and tries to grab the hem of the dress in her hands, so I don’t fall face-first.
“Why don’t I need shoes, Mom?”
“We moved the wedding to the beach. It’s better for the pictures.” She chuckles. “Imagine the headlines: Wrongs keep the long-lived tradition going by allowing their daughter to get married on the beach.”
There’s so much wrong with her gleeful words, but I don’t have time to get into that because all I’m trying to do is not trip over my dress and keep my nose attached to my face.
Bea mumbles something behind me, clearly mad at Mom’s words.
When we get to the opening on the beach, the first thing I notice is the groom standing under a giant arc of white gardenias. Two small round tables on each side of it are covered in white candles and more flowers.
Wearing a black suit with a white shirt and black tie, Ezra looks anything but like a happy husband-to-be. With his nose deep into his phone, it feels like this wedding is the last place he wants to be. Noah’s standing by his side, whispering something to him with a hand on his shoulder. He has a black suit on as well, but no tie.
At some point, Ezra’s jaw squeezes shut, and he shakes his head. After that, Noah pulls away and stops talking.
There’re a few people I don’t know, some of them are photographers who will make sure the world will get a very unrealistic picture of the perfect ceremony. My father’s waiting for me at the beginning of the aisle.
When someone notices us, the music starts playing. A live band is performing the classic Wedding March, the music that’s supposed to bring excitement to everyone’s hearts.
Ezra brings his face up. His brows suddenly draw together, nearly forming one line.