Chapter 8
Shelby
I watch Sheila cry in front of Ace, my stomach hurting for him. Begging for him to give her a chance to explain, but he doesn't want to hear anything from her. She hangs her head as her shoulders shake as she cries. Ace walks away from her and tries to walk past Joseph, who is stupid enough not to see that he's hanging on by a fucking string. Only people who know him well can see the signs. He's usually calm and cool, but the minute he untied his bow tie from his tux, I knew it was just a matter of time before he would snap.
"Ace," Joseph says. All I know is that I inhale a deep breath, and I want to step forward and make sure that Ace is okay. I'm about to step forward when I see it happen before my eyes. My eyes go big as Ace's shoulder pulls back, and the next thing I know, Ace's hand is balling into a fist, and his fist connects with Joseph's mouth. I see his head snap back, and then his footing slips, and he falls to the side. My sisters and I gasp as Joseph's hand comes up, and he sees he is bleeding. He leers at Ace, and it angers me all the way through my veins. Ace doesn't even give him a second thought before he walks away into the event space.
I shake my head and then look at Joseph as he gets up and takes a step toward me, but I hold up my hand for him not to come any closer. "I'm going to go and make sure that everything is okay in there," Clarabella says, and I just nod. "Presley, you stay with her." She looks at Joseph. "And you fuck off, you spineless piece of shit." It's the first time that someone has cursed him out loud since all of this happened. I see her turn her head toward Sheila, who waits for whatever is going to be thrown at her. "You." Clarabella laughs. "You're second place, you know that, right?" She looks at Sheila. "At the end of the day, he chased after Shelby and left you in there." She points at the ceremony doors. "He may have declared his love for you in a fucking email, but at the end of the day, he went after the woman he wanted." Clarabella takes one more look at Joseph before turning and walking back into the ceremony space.
Sheila just shakes her head. "I am so, so sorry," Sheila says, and she wipes her tears away. “I never meant to hurt anyone."
"Meant to hurt anyone." I laugh out at her. "Meant to hurt me? Of course, you didn't." The sarcasm just rolls off me. "It's funny because I went over and over it in my head last night. All night," I tell her. "Every single time I was nice to you. Every single time I included you in plans because all I wanted to do was be your friend. Every single time I confided in you about things, you just took that and used it."
"That isn't how it happened," she says, stepping forward and then stopping.
"The only thing I think you are sorry for"—I swallow and look over at her—"is that you got caught." I look at them. "That both of you got caught."
"Trust me, the last thing I ever wanted was for anyone to find out," Sheila replies and looks at Joseph, who just looks at her. I don't know why she was expecting him to rush to her side. He's always been a selfish person, but I overlooked it since he was an only child. He didn't know that you needed to do certain things. Whether it was for little things like forgetting when I had a stressful day and just wanted to relax but instead focused all on himself. Or when he forgot the biggest day of my life three months ago, which could have broken us. Instead of sticking around to hold my hand, he went out of town. Now that I think back, the signs were all there. I was just blind to it. She takes one more look at me before turning and walking out with her head hanging down.
"I hope when things calm down," Joseph says, his hand coming up as his thumb rubs the side of his mouth where a drop of blood trickles out again. He looks down at his hand. "I hope that you give me the opportunity to talk to you and explain myself."
I stare at this man who I was going to marry. The man who I thought I loved with everything I had. The man who in the end was nothing that I thought he was. "I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you," I tell him, and he nods at me and storms out the front door.
"Typical," Presley observes. "Fucks shit up and then just fucking leaves." She shakes her head. "If you were keeping score"—she puts her hands on her hips—"I never really liked him."
I can't help but throw my head back and laugh. "Obviously." The brown doors open, and I hold my breath, wondering if some of the guests are going to come out. When I stormed out of the ceremony space, I avoided everyone's eyes. And I mean, everyone's. I just couldn't bear to see the looks of shock on some people's face along with the pity looks. I'm the bride who couldn't keep her fiancé from having sex with someone else.
Travis comes out, followed by Harlow, who heads straight for me and looks around. "Did you guys hide the bodies?"
Presley laughs at her. "I wish." She shakes her head. "He took off like a coward." She looks at Travis. "How's it going in there?"
"I think Clarabella needs some help in there," Travis reports, putting his hands in his pockets.
"How is Mom doing?" I ask, feeling guilty that I didn't include her in this plan.
"Well, she called Joseph's parents dickheads for raising a, and I quote"—he takes his hands out of his pockets and tries not to laugh—"'shriveled little dick.'"
My eyes go wide at that because my mother is the politest person I know. Even when people don't deserve it, she’s always smiling. "Oh, it was good," Harlow says. "Especially after she called him a shriveled little dick, she looked down at his package and raised her eyebrows." Harlow can't help but laugh. "He literally cupped himself to make sure that she didn't see or better yet kick him in the family jewels."
"Oh my God," Presley says, putting her hands to her mouth.
"Oh, it got just a touch worse," Harlow says, and I just wait for the rest. "She looked over at my father and asked him if he could take the trash out."
"Jesus." I shake my head and think about going in there and facing the music. My eyes go to the brown door. My head is telling me to get it over with, my feet are pretty much full of cement and don't even move an inch from the spot I'm on.
"I'm going to go and make sure that Mom is okay," Presley says, taking two steps toward the door, then turning. "Bet you’re sorry he didn't die yesterday." She makes her way to the door, and with one hand on it, she turns. "I'm not keeping score or anything like that, but this is two missed weddings for our family."
"Don't worry about that," Harlow soothes. "It's still fifty percent."
"Oh, goody," she says, smiling. "Fifty-fifty chance my husband will marry me." She shakes her hands in front of her. "Can't wait to meet that lucky man." She pulls open the door and steps in.
"This is a clusterfuck," I affirm, looking around and then pulling the veil out from the back of my hair.
"It's not that bad," Travis says, and even Harlow looks at him like he has two heads. "By next week, they will be talking about something else."
"If you want," Harlow plots, "we can start a rumor about him. Once my cousin started dating this guy, and he cheated on her, she started this rumor that he meowed during sex." My eyes bulge out of my head, and Harlow laughs. "Joke was on him, though, because he taped himself having sex, and the girl then sued him." She claps her hands together. "Good times."
Travis smiles at Harlow. "How did you do it?" I ask him as I hear people moving in the ceremony space.
Travis looks at me. "What do you mean?"
"How did you face the music?" I point at the ceremony space.
"Booze," he says right away and then looks over at Harlow and smiles.
"And sex," I add to that. "That didn't hurt." When Harlow came to his wedding and it was called off, they spent the whole night drinking and dancing. When we went to clean up his cabin the day after the wedding, we caught them naked in bed.
"Sex definitely didn't hurt," Harlow confirms, putting her arms around his waist and looking up at him. My chest hurts right in the middle as if an elephant is sitting down on me.
"Well, might as well get this over with," I say and take the five steps toward the brown door. My stomach climbs up to my throat, and my neck starts to get hot. If I had anything in my stomach, I'm pretty sure I would have thrown it up. I take one more deep breath and pull open the door.
I step inside, expecting to find everything still there, but it's empty. I take two steps in, and the door closes behind me, and I take in the scene again. I put one foot in front of another as I start walking down the aisle. The gold chairs that were full of guests not even an hour ago are left empty. Wedding day programs are left on some of the chairs, and one is in the middle of the aisle, facedown. "Figures," I mumble when I lean down and pick it up. Turning it over, I see the picture of us taken at our engagement party. A party he didn't want. The day he chose to go golfing instead of helping me set up. The day when I started to see the cracks in the foundation but pushed them aside, telling myself that it was probably nerves and jitters that made him like that. The day that I look back on should have been the first of many red flags. The day I spent mingling with our families because he spent most of the night at the bar with his college friends.
The paper slips out of my hand, and I watch it float back and forth until it lands on the floor. I walk the rest of the way down the aisle, seeing that a bouquet of white peonies is thrown on the floor right where I stood. The white printed-out email sits beside it. As I look down at it, everything inside me turns cold. "Fuck this shit," I say out loud to no one. "Travis was right. I need a drink."
I walk to the side of the room, where a back hallway leads you straight to the event space. I'm expecting to find my sister there, getting everyone organized and making sure the space is cleaned up. But that, too, is empty. The only sound is my heels clicking on the floor.
Walking into the event space, I see all the tables set up to host our guests sit eerily empty. I zigzag my way to the bar and stop when I see Ace sitting on one of the stools. A bottle of whiskey sits on the bar top next to a small glass. He pours himself two fingers’ worth and takes it in two gulps. Putting the glass down, he pours another bit. "Is this seat taken?"