Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Annie
The elevator doors slide shut, and I jab the button for the bridal suite. I’m clutching my stupid little beaded bag, sweating through my dress, and willing myself not to cry or scream or both at the same time. I need to get to May, and then I need to tear this motherfucker to shreds.
But just as the elevator jerks, a manicured hand catches the doors.
“Wait up,” Elodie chirps, smug as shit, stepping inside with fake fucking innocence. Tom follows, adjusting his cufflinks like he’s walking into a boardroom, not the goddamn reckoning.
You can kick his ass after you tell May, I tell myself. Don’t let anything stop you from getting to May.
“What a coincidence,” the bitch says. “All of us heading up at the same time. Isn’t that fun?”
I don’t answer and focus on taking deep, centering breaths, but I’m shaking like a leaf.
Tom does, though, answer. “So what’s your plan, Annie?” His voice is cool. “You gonna go cry to May? Cause a huge fucking scene?”
My jaw locks.
“She’s not going to believe you,” he says, stepping a little closer, crowding my space with his stupid fucking face and smugness and cologne. Filling the elevator with fear. That Tom is right, and May isn’t going to believe me.
I can see it—her face turning tight, her voice going small. Getting hurt and saying I’ve misread it and it can’t be true, he would never.
But even as the fear tightens in my chest, I know the truth: It doesn’t matter.
It’s not my job to decide what May does. It never should’ve been. Not when we were kids. Not in high school. Not even now. It doesn’t matter if she’s going to be upset.
I’m not here to save her. I’m here to tell her the truth. And this time, she gets to decide what to do with it.
I snap my head toward him. “Fuck you, Tom.”
The elevator dings.
I step out into a perfectly carpeted hallway that smells like roses and furniture polish.
My heels are too loud, even through the carpet, my heart punching in my ears, a muffled click-click and a pounding of impending doom.
My stomach is a twisted knot, my mouth bone-dry.
I barely hear the elevator ding shut behind me.
Tom and Elodie are two steps behind me.
“You don’t have to do this,” Tom says, low and threatening, the kind of whisper that wants to slap. “You’re going to ruin her wedding. Make it the Annie show, like always.”
I whirl around. “Fuck you, Tom. There is no wedding.”
He scoffs, all teeth and superiority. “You think she’s going to believe you? You think anyone will?”
I don’t answer him and turn away before I commit a felony.
Inside the suite, I’m vaguely aware of other things happening—all white chiffon and blush florals, hairspray and champagne, flower girls twirling in sparkly shoes, someone fixing May’s veil, Vanessa touching up lipstick, groomsmen and half empty fruit platters—but it’s all happening outside of the tunnel, and the tunnel is leading me directly to May.
I call out to her, but she turns before I speak.
Her eyes find mine, and something in her face shifts instantly. Alarm and fear. A sister's radar. She sets down her bouquet and takes one step forward. “Annie?”
I shake my head, motioning her over, adrenaline carrying me across the room. “Come here. Please.”
She meets me quickly, her heels quiet on the rug. I tug her to the far corner near the balcony doors, away from the others.
“I need to tell you something,” I whisper, my throat closing around the words. “I just—I just saw Tom and Elodie.”
She freezes.
“What?” Her voice is thin.
“Together. Walking out of a room. I heard them fucking against the door, May.”
Her lips part. No sound comes out.
The door to the room slams open. “What the fuck is going on?” Tom says loudly as he enters behind us. “May, baby, don’t listen to her—”
I see red and lose my fucking mind. “Don’t you ‘baby’ her, you motherfucking piece of shit.”
“What are you even talking about?” he sneers. “You’re making shit up because you’re a miserable little attention whore.”
Gasps around the room. Izzy comes to stand by our side.
Elodie tries to hang back near the door, face red.
People are standing now. Someone whispers to a groomsman.
Someone else knocks over a glass of champagne.
A tiny flower girl starts crying. Nico moves towards Tom like he’s going to wring his neck. Good.
May steps between them, pushing Nico away, voice shaking but loud. “Tom, were you with her?”
“No! Jesus, baby, she’s making this up—”
“Annie wouldn’t lie to me,” May cuts in.
Tom steps forward, the light catching on his tie clip like it’s a dagger. “I wasn’t, May.”
“Then where were you?” May demands to know.
“I was—”
“I watched you walk out of a room with Elodie, and I heard you fucking her against the door,” I answer for him.
“She’s insane, May—”
“Then what were you doing?”
“I was up on the roof, checking—”
“I went up there to look for you. The wedding planner said she hadn’t seen him. You can ask her,” I retort.
Tom steps towards May. “Are you seriously going to let her hijack this day?” His voice is a weapon—measured and sharp. “This is classic Annie. Stirring up chaos, screaming in the middle of someone else’s moment because she can’t stand not being the center of attention.”
“Enough, asshole,” Nico spits, trying to get to Tom, but May stands her ground and doesn’t let anyone past her.
Tom sneers at him. “Shut the fuck up, dick.”
His eyes land back on me. His smile is cruel. “She lies and plays victim and leaves a mess for everyone else to clean up. That’s what she does. That’s who she is.”
“This is not about me. You are not doing this right now,” I manage to spit, low and guttural, but he barrels over it.
“She can’t help it,” he says with a bitter chuckle, looking at May now, like he’s trying to reason with her.
“It’s pathological. She gets off on ruining things for other people.
She needs to be the loudest. And you—” He gestures at May.
“You always let her. You bend your spine backwards trying to make her feel like she belongs here, like she’s not a walking disaster. ”
Nico is suddenly by my side and wraps me in his arms, his knuckles white. Safe, steady, secure. The room is heating up. A bridesmaid stifles a sob. Izzy is ready to throw the fuck down the second May says the word.
“She can’t stand that you have a real relationship,” Tom spits. “That someone like me—stable, smart, with a future—chose you. Because she’s never had anything like that.”
“Shut up,” I growl, but I’m shaking while Nico squeezes me tighter, like he can protect me from the slaughter. Safe, steady, secure. But my voice still breaks in the middle, and he smiles like that was what he wanted.
“You’re just going to take her word for it?” Tom shrugs. “She’s jealous. That’s all this is. Jealous and lonely and attention-starved.”
“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you, Tom.” Nico says it like a promise.
Tom turns to him with a smirk. “Oh yeah? And you’re what—her latest fuck toy?” He looks to May now, loud and smug and sharp as a whip. “And you’re going to believe the one who’s fucking the porn star?”
Every single muscle in Nico’s body goes tight behind me.
Time stops. For one heartbeat, the room doesn’t breathe.
“What did you just say?” May asks.
Someone whispers, “What porn star?”
Tom doesn’t blink. “He’s a porn star. He gets paid to be naked on camera. Again, May,” he drawls, “You’re gonna believe her, when she’s fucking him?”
My blood runs cold.
I turn.
Everyone turns. I can feel it—the shift of the entire room swiveling, eyes clicking into place like dominos falling. On him.
Nico looks at me. And his face… it crumples.
“I didn’t tell him,” I whisper quickly. “Nico. I swear.”
But now his face is scarily blank, devoid of any and all emotion. He takes a step back, a step away from me, and the sudden loss of warmth is paralyzing.
Something in me collapses, crumbles.
The noise hits all at once as everything begins to unravel.
Voices rising. Groomsmen trying to reason with May.
May’s hand trembling as she stares at Tom.
Izzy getting in Tom’s face. My mother: “What are you doing, Annie?” My father’s voice like a whip: “You’ve humiliated all of us, again.
” A bridesmaid whispering, “Oh my God,” to someone else. The flower girl crying.
Nico, now several feet away from me, standing motionless, except for a slight shift in his eyes. The flicker of something breaking.
And then—finally—Elodie steps forward.
“It’s true,” she says. Her voice is loud, the shrill tone of her voice isolated from all the noise. “He and I… it’s true. For a while now.”
May flinches. Her face drains of all color.
“I’m sorry,” Elodie adds weakly, as if that helps.
May bolts.
I try to follow, but my feet don’t move. My lungs don’t work. I’m stuck. Watching Nico. Watching May fly out the door. Watching the whole room devolve into chaos.
Then Izzy punches Tom in the face.
I snap.
“You fucking piece of shit,” I scream at Tom, who’s holding his bleeding nose. I shove myself between him and Iz, my voice shaking with rage. “You emotionally abusive, manipulative little coward. You don’t deserve her. You never did.”
Years and years of pent-up thoughts and aggression uncork.
Pop. The dam breaks, and I flood the room with anger and vitriol.
“How dare you?! You used May like a motherfucking sponsor for your sad little country club cosplay. The boat shoes, the brunches with your awful finance bro friends who all talk about women like they’re interchangeable LinkedIn endorsements.
You treat her like a lifestyle accessory.
Something to show off, not someone to love. ”
My voice rises, disgust dripping from every word. “She paid for your future. She gave you stability, status, image, and you paid her back by lying, gaslighting, and cheating. On her wedding day. In a hotel room she paid for.”