Chapter 3
I keep my door locked while I get ready because it makes me feel safer.
And because I’m self-conscious, the last thing I need right now is a witness to my paranoia, to invite further speculation about the state of my admittedly questionable mental health.
I spend hours meticulously applying makeup, blowing out my hair.
I put on my dress. Stare at myself in the mirror.
This dress was never covered in blood, only margarita.
I exhale. I reassure myself. Today is different.
Tonight will be different. It’s a rule—the right dress can change your fate.
My eyes are still so bloodshot. They’ve been like this all day and it’s ruining the look. This is what happens when I don’t sleep well: I wear the evidence on my face. I search through my bag for eye drops.
There’s a knock on my door.
“Hello?” It’s Steph.
I rush over, unlock it, swing it open, and pull her in for a tight hug.
“Oh!” she says. “Oh my gosh, hi!”
“It’s so good to see you,” I say, stepping back.
Her long, dark hair is in that glamorous updo.
She wears the birdcage veil. The simple lavender dress.
Did she show me pictures? No, she said she wanted it to be a surprise.
But she must have told me about it. Described it to me at some point.
Right? My head is so foggy, such a wreck.
“What’s wrong?” she says, frowning.
“Nothing. Just drinking you in. You look perfect. You are perfect.”
“Wills…” she says, blushing. “You do! You look perfect!”
“I look high,” I say, pointing to my eyes.
“I figured you were hanging out with Luke.” She has this devious little giggle I want to eat. I love her. I missed her.
I see her on the floor, in the dark, drenched in blood. The mess of what was left of her eyes. I see her in front of me now, smiling and happy and breathing. Alive.
“I wanted to come say hey before things get crazy,” she says, pulling back the burlap curtain and looking out the window. “I know tonight will be a whirlwind, but tomorrow and Sunday will be more low-key. We can spend some quality time together. It’s been too long.”
Steph and Jace’s post-college New York City era was short-lived.
We all moved there together, but they were the first to leave, going up to Providence to be closer to both of their real nautical-knit-sweater-and-clam-chowder New England families.
They bought a house a couple of years ago and put down roots; they’ll start trying for kids after the wedding.
They’re not that far from where I am now, but it’s far enough.
“We’ll come down to the city all the time,” they said when they left. Maybe they meant it. But then Ravi got the job in DC, Evan and Wyatt got married and moved to Chicago, Cass and Luke left Brooklyn for the suburbs of Westchester County. We scattered.
Everyone else seemed so happy, so settled, and I just felt stuck. Their lives made sense, had purpose, and mine didn’t. I felt like I had made some crucial error, a miscalculation, and needed a hard reset. But there’s a chance I hit the wrong button.
She doesn’t seem any happier now.
“How are you?” Steph asks, with overt pity.
I paint on a smile. “Good. I’m good. I’m…” I laugh. “Good? Have I mentioned that?”
“You seem good,” she says. “I know today won’t be easy, but I really think it’s so admirable how you’re handling everything. It’s very adult. You being here, him being here. You being okay that he’s here with someone new.”
The nausea I’ve been fighting all day returns with a vengeance. “Um, what? He’s with someone? What’s her…”
The question gets stuck in my throat. I’m too afraid to ask, too afraid of the answer.
There’s a look of sheer horror on Steph’s face. “What? What do you mean what? Don’t tell me he didn’t tell you?”
“He did,” I lie. I don’t want to upset her. “I’m just…validating.”
“Oh, okay. Phew! I thought about calling you, double-checking, but I knew Ravi wouldn’t have asked Jace for a plus-one if you didn’t give the green light. I was, I didn’t want to, like, bring it up if I didn’t need to.”
“Salt in the wound. I get it,” I say, returning to my eye drop hunt for something to do with my hands other than ripping out my own hair. “Don’t worry about it. I’m…I’m good.”
“You’d tell me if you weren’t, right?”
Nope! It’s your perfect wedding that you’ve dreamt of for years and I don’t want to ruin it by admitting I’m likely having a psychotic break, convinced I’ve already lived this day.
Because contrary to what Cassie might think, I’m not making this weekend about me.
“Of course I would. But how could I not be happy? I’m at your wedding.
My best friend’s wedding! My two best friends!
The weather is beautiful, you are beautiful. What more could a girl ask for?”
“I love you,” she says, pulling me in for another hug. “You are amazing.”
I am losing my goddamn mind. “Thank you, Steph.”
“I should get going,” she says, releasing me. “My mom’s running point for me this weekend and she’s all…”
She throws her arms up and sticks out her tongue.
“Go, go, go.”
“Okay, bye!” She blows me a kiss and dances out the door.
I close it behind her and resist the urge to scream.
If I allow myself to break down, I don’t think I can pick myself up again, so instead I redirect my energy.
Finally find my eye drops. Apply them. Retouch my eyeliner and mascara.
Spritz my face with some setting spray. Lipstick.
Another few spritzes of setting spray. I use the bathroom.
Get nervous and use it again. Just one more spritz of setting spray. One more.
I haven’t had any water, which is probably why I feel like such garbage. My hands tremble. The nausea persists.
“Let it go,” I whisper to myself, even though the room smells exactly like it did in my dream. Like artificially fresh linen. Like Febreze.
Even though Ravi is here with a date. If it’s Tanya, doesn’t that prove it wasn’t a dream?
And if it wasn’t a dream, then what was it?
A premonition? Or am I still dreaming? Is this a dream within a dream?
I check my phone to see if I have service, and I do.
Four bars. At least there’s that. I can call for help if I need it. “Thank God.”
“You don’t believe in God,” Evan says, letting himself into my room. “You’re a heathen.”
“Maybe I’ve changed my ways,” I say, crossing myself.
“You’re giving me Catholic school flashbacks and I don’t appreciate it,” he says, elbowing me aside to adjust his bow tie in the mirror. “It’s about time to head out. You ready?”
“I don’t know, am I?”
He gives me the up-and-down. “Yes.”
“That was a confident yes!”
“Except—”
“Except?”
“Why does your foot look like tie-dye?”
My right foot is just a massive bruise from when I dropped my suitcase on it. I popped three Advil and it’s still killing me.
“Ugh!” I sit on the bed, kick my foot up. “Is it super noticeable?”
He shrugs. “No one will be looking at your feet. They’ll be looking at your face. Or your, you know. Assets.”
I laugh. “Thanks, Ev.”
“There could be some people looking at your feet, but you don’t need to concern yourself with those people. Unless you’re interested in a very niche income stream moving forward. Which, no judgment.”
My laughter morphs into tears. I’m crying. I didn’t intend to cry—it was an accident—but now that I’ve started, I can’t stop.
“I said no judgment!”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just…Ravi’s here and he’s with his new girlfriend and…
I’m exhausted and…I know it’s annoying talking about my stupid dream but it didn’t feel like a dream and I just can’t get over this déjà vu and it’s fucking with me and…
and I know I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping but the walls are so thin and I heard you and Cassie talking about me earlier and I’m…
I’m hurt and I don’t know what to do about it. ”
He pets the top of my head, careful not to mess up my hair.
“Cassie was just venting. It’s more about her than it is about you.
She knows it, and I think you know it. You’re both in transition.
Cassie struggles because she’s an empath and a control freak.
She’s compelled to fix everything and sees it as a personal failure when she can’t. ”
“Yeah. Accurate.”
“I know,” he says. “And with Ravi, this is the first I’m hearing about a new girlfriend. Sounds too soon and a little desperate. And with the dream, just take it easy on the gummies from now on. The night is young, we’re still young—”
“Are we?”
He shrugs. “No more tears. It’s party time. Let’s go.”
I wipe my eyes. “All right. Party time.”
—
“Willa the Killa!” Luke says. He initiates our elaborate secret handshake that neither of us quite remembers. We improvise.
“Luke the Nuke. Good to see you, as always.”
“We all set to go?” Wyatt asks, scratching his neck. He attempts to loosen his tie, but Evan won’t have it.
Cassie is already on the porch, hitting her vape.
“I know this is bad for me,” she says as I pass her, failing to avoid eye contact. “But not as bad as cigarettes.”
“Yeah, it’s worse,” I say. “Now I want to—”
“You shouldn’t smoke,” she says. “You already quit!”
“So did you!” I regret telling her that I picked it up again.
We all smoked cigarettes in college. We all stopped by twenty-five.
Cass got a Juul when they first hit the market and could never quite kick the habit.
I thought Theo would put an end to it for good, but she’s recently fallen back into her favorite self-destructive coping mechanism in the rare moments she’s child-free.
She wants better for me even if it makes her a hypocrite.