Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Ava
T he day after my cousin’s bridal shower, Tori was…
someplace else. We’d cleaned the house—a task we normally did on Saturdays but moved to Sunday because of the shower—and she’d barely said two words the whole time.
We usually chatted while we worked unless someone was running the vacuum. I wasn’t used to Tori being this quiet.
Not just quiet—up in her own head. Like she barely even seemed to notice I was here.
The biggest red flag came when she was wiping down the counter after running the dishwasher.
Tucker, her fluffy orange cat, liked to attack the sponge.
Usually she’d play with him, sliding the sponge back and forth so he’d dramatically pounce on it like the absolute dork he was.
Today, she did that, but she just… didn’t seem to be into it. Her laugh was half-hearted.
I leaned my hip against the counter and cocked my head. “Hey. You okay today?”
“Hmm?” She looked up, a few blonde strands falling out of her loose ponytail and tumbling into her face. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m…” Tori forced a laugh and pushed her hair behind her ear. “Just, uh…”
I studied her. “You want to talk about it?”
She stared down at Tucker, who was now spinning the rotating spice rack with one of his big paws. Chewing her lip, she didn’t even laugh at his antics.
“Tori?” I came a little closer. “What’s up?”
She hesitated. Then she put the sponge by the sink and met my gaze. “I’ve, um… I’ve been thinking about what happened at the shower. What your mom said.”
I flinched. That had been crowding its way in and dominating my concentration all day. At best, it had been at the edge of my thoughts. I hadn’t expected it to be on Tori’s mind, though, never mind enough to distract her like this. “What about it?”
Tori absently petted Tucker. Her brow pinched, and I recognized that look—she was trying to gather her thoughts and figure out what to say. So, I waited, watching her quietly and letting her sort it out in her head.
I wasn’t ready when she blurted out, “What if we got married?”
My lips parted, and I had to take a step back, my balance wobbling. “What if— what? ”
“Hear me out.” She took a deep breath. “It doesn’t have to be real. But your mom really wants to see you as a bride, so what if she got that chance? What if we?—”
“That’s insane!” Anger flared in my chest. “You want us to—what? Just, fake a wedding? ”
“I mean…” She shifted her weight. “I don’t think anyone would bat an eye if we said we were together. And it would make your mom happy to?—”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I scoffed. “I’m not going to lie to my dying mother about getting married! I…” I shook my head, staring at her in disgust. “How can you even suggest something like that?”
Tori’s eyes widened and she put up her hands. “We don’t have to! I just—you were really upset about it yesterday, and I thought?—”
“You thought a fake wedding would—ugh. Gross. I can’t believe…” I couldn’t even finish that thought. And the fact that it was Tori of all people who came up with something that absurd? What the hell?
She tried to defend it some more, but I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t interested. I walked out of the kitchen and down the hall to my bedroom. It was tempting to slam the door out of fury, but by the time I got there, my anger had died away to hurt.
I shut the door gently and leaned against it as I tried to hold back tears.
What was wrong with her? She was my best friend in the world, and she thought…
she thought we should lie to my mom? Put on a fake wedding and then—what?
Tell everyone afterward, “Nah, we just made it all up to make Mom happy”?
What the hell kind of person did that?
I managed to avoid Tori for the rest of the night, and thank God I left for work before she even got out of bed. I was mad the whole way through my morning routine and my commute. It was a miracle I’d slept, but then again, I’d spent the evening crying off and on, and that had worn me out.
A few times, I’d thought I was overreacting. Like yeah I was going to say hell no to her suggestion, but maybe it wasn’t as big of a deal as I was making it. And then I’d tell myself, no, I was probably under reacting and maybe it was time to live with someone else.
This morning, I didn’t know what to feel.
I’d been on an emotional hair trigger ever since Mom was diagnosed three years ago, and that was only getting worse.
So… overreacting was always a possibility.
At the same time, I’d never known Tori to come up with something as bugfuck insane as pretending to get married so my mom could see me as a bride.
I might as well go as a bride for Halloween and say, “Look, Mom! You got your wish!”
Eww. No. My mom deserved better than that crap.
I must’ve been wearing my pile of emotions on my sleeve, because as soon as I walked into the office, my cubemate, Molly, straightened.
“Whoa,” she said. “You had a rough weekend, didn’t you?”
I dropped into my desk chair. “Kind of, yeah?”
Her forehead creased. “Is your mom okay?”
I wondered if I’d ever get used to this normal—where if I was sad or upset, people immediately assumed Mom had taken a turn.
Not because they were asking about her instead of me, but because in this timeline where I was living, most emotional roads led back to how slowly and cruelly cancer was taking away my mom.
Seriously… fuck cancer.
I sighed and put my coffee cup beside my keyboard. “She’s doing okay. But…” I hesitated. Everything wanted to come tumbling out, but I was at work, not with my friend.
Not with Tori. Who tirelessly listened whenever everything took its toll and I couldn’t handle it anymore.
Was that why I was so mad? Because this stupid plan she’d suggested felt like she’d yanked that rug out from under me?
Like I couldn’t go to her anymore because she’d respond with something like… that?
Molly took her own seat and looked right at me. “Tell me, hon. What’s going on?”
Well, it wasn’t like I’d be able to focus on work until I got it off my chest, so… fine. I’d owe her one.
I told her what I’d overheard Mom saying at the bridal shower, followed by Tori’s ridiculous suggestion last night.
I couldn’t help making a face. “I’m just so—I mean, what the hell is she thinking? ”
“It’s not… Honestly, it’s not a terrible idea.”
I gaped at Molly. “What?”
She shrugged, her tone and expression sympathetic. “What if you did marry Tori? No one but the two of you have to know that it was just an act. It’ll make your mom happy.” She inclined her head. “It’ll make you feel less guilty.”
My spine straightened. “Less guilty? About what?”
Molly rolled her eyes, though her tone stayed soft. “Hon. I can read you like a book. You’re upset that cancer is taking away your mom and your mom’s dream, but you also feel guilty that you haven’t fulfilled that dream for her.”
“No, I don’t!” I insisted. “I don’t feel—I mean, I’m not going to just get married so she can…
” I trailed off as my stomach knotted with, yep, guilt.
Shoulders sagging, I leaned back against my chair.
“Okay. Okay, fine. I do. But I’ll feel even guiltier if I’m lying!
” I flailed a hand. “How is pretending to get married better than… Just— how? ”
Molly shrugged again. “Well, let’s walk through it.” She started ticking the points off on her fingers. “She already adores Tori. Nobody on the planet would be even a little bit surprised if the two of you got engaged.”
My cheeks burned suddenly.
Molly wasn’t done. “Your mom would get to do all the things the mother of the bride gets to do. She’d get to be the mother of the bride. And when she passes away, she’ll believe you’re happily married to the woman of your dreams.”
A lump rose in my throat. She wasn’t wrong.
Mother-of-the-bride dreams notwithstanding, Mom would be over the moon if I ever told her I was marrying Tori.
She’d told me time and time again since I was little that I was better off alone than with the wrong person, and to never, ever rush into a committed relationship.
At the same time, Molly was right—Mom would be thrilled to believe I had found the right person. That I was happily married.
Getting to see me as a bride would bring her joy. Knowing I was with someone I loved and wanted to be with forever—that would bring her peace.
I closed my eyes and sighed as the anger in my chest started to cool. The guilt intensified, though—not because I wasn’t fulfilling my mom’s dream, but because I’d lashed out at my best friend. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t have to figure it out this minute,” Molly said gently. “But… Tori might be on to something. Even if you don’t want to go through with it—and no one would blame you if you didn’t—I think your friend’s heart is in the right place.”
“Yeah,” I admitted as the guilt burrowed deeper. “Yeah, I think it is. And… I don’t know. I want to do everything imaginable for my mom while she’s still alive. I’m just not sure how I feel about this.”
“Well, like I said—you don’t have to figure it out this minute.”
“Thank God for that,” I muttered.
We had to get to work, so we let the subject drop. All the while, as I pored over emails, customer orders, spreadsheets, and all that delightful stuff, I vacillated between wanting to veto Tori’s idea and jump on it.
It really would bring Mom some joy.
But if we did it, we’d have to do it soon—though Mom’s health was relatively stable right now, we’d learned how quickly that could change.
If we pulled the trigger, we didn’t have time for a long engagement.
I knew people who’d had gorgeous, elaborate weddings planned in the space of a few months or even a few weeks, so I knew it could be done.
One minute, I wanted to text Tori and say, Let’s do it , and then immediately start planning when I got home.
The next, I wanted to tap the brakes and really think about this.
And then I’d remember why we were doing this in the first place, and the urgency would surge forward again because we didn’t have the luxury of tapping brakes.
By some miracle, I made it through the day without making any catastrophic mistakes at work.
All the way home, though, I still didn’t know what to do besides apologize to Tori.