Chapter 18
Unless this devil of a dress kills me first.
And, more specific, the way the hem of this dress makes my thighs bulge under the can lights.
In a banquet hall of several hundred people.
I pull at the unrelenting fabric of the “warrior blue” dress sliding up my thigh to unreasonable levels. Thirty minutes into a very stubborn dispute, Olivia eventually got her way on having me wear the horrible, cap-sleeved dress from her college graduation. I put up a fight, but the battle was lost after Mom and Dad, both marching in place on the living room rug in quaking pearl earrings and jostling necktie (supporting Olivia in getting some extra steps in before the banquet), took her side.
Mom shuffled her champagne-sequined handbag from one hand to another, looked at me, and said, “Honey, you look beautiful. And really, what’s there to worry about? Nobody will be looking at you onstage anyway.”
So here I stand, not in a flattering floor-length dress with one shoulder clipped by a beguiling gold feature, like my red one last year. Instead, I’m showcasing a knee-length, two-sizes-too-small spandex number from the nineties with cap sleeves and my rear end sticking out like two buns in a hot oven. My skin looks pale and sickly beneath the spotlight.
Olivia, on the other hand, holds the microphone with one incredibly toned arm, looking like a model straight out of a magazine.
My parents stand to my left, nodding enthusiastically with each of her words.
Ferris is to my right looking . . . well . . . looking quite green.
His eyes are glued on Olivia as she speaks, but instead of nodding at the parts of the speech where we’ve all been told to, he’s just staring. Staring. And brooding. So intently there’s a decent chance he doesn’t even hear her.
Wow.
I’ve had my turn with first-time jitters up here, but he looks like he’s about to lose it.
“Anyone can say they have a dream,” Olivia says, sweeping one arm over the crowd. “People fill up their in-boxes and heads with dozens of goals and dreams. But you know what makes you different from most people?” Her hand, in a rather startling move, slams on the podium with each of her following words. “Actually. Doing. Something. About. It. That’s where you are different. That’s where all of you who’ve made the effort to come out tonight, to show you really mean business, shine. And we are in February, people. The year has just begun. So make this your year. Not only to reach your step goals and health goals but to start making real, tangible achievements in every area of your life. It all starts here. Just joining us tonight is step one of a fantastic journey.”
A round of applause moves through the room, and my mother, father, and I lift our hands in supportive clapping. There was actually a drill for clapping. Appropriately enthusiastic but not too attention grabbing.
Ferris doesn’t clap.
At this point I break “protocol” and turn my head. “Ferris,” I whisper.
He doesn’t move.
“Ferris,” I whisper again as the clapping starts to dim.
I nudge his side and he jolts as though forced out of a dream.
“You okay?” I mouth.
And his eyes, once they’ve locked on mine, don’t move. His stare is fixed on me now.
I give him an overbright smile, baring all my teeth as if to say, See? This is what we do when we have stage fright. We just look straight ahead and smile, and then turn my attention back to Olivia.
But he’s not doing it. He’s not changing his position.
It’s time for another group nod, and I give it my biggest and brightest.
And I’m just settling into another round of nodding and clapping when I feel a tug on my elbow. Ferris is holding on to my arm.
“I need to talk with you,” he says.
My eyes widen. “Now?” I hiss. “We’re a little busy.”
“Now,” he says, and he’s not even whispering! He’s just standing here onstage with loads of people watching us, holding on to my elbow and talking like we’re in the middle of a coffee shop.
Olivia has even noticed, and halfway into her raise-arm-in-triumph paragraph, her eyes slide over to give us an incredulous What-the-heck-are-you-two-doing? glance.
I open my mouth, momentarily stranded between two bad options: turn my gaze toward Olivia and pretend Ferris is not trying to pull me off the stage or accept it and actually walk offstage in the middle of her speech.
Well, in light of the available choices, I take the one I’d rather be doing anyway. “C’mon,” I whisper and shuffle with tiny sideways, penguin-like steps toward the velvety blue curtains at the back of the stage.
The second I’m out of the public eye, I turn around. Or maybe Ferris turns me around. I’m not quite sure which. Either way, I’m acutely aware of his hands now gripping my elbows.
“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” he says, his words coming in a rush.
I raise my brow, although warning flares are starting to shoot off in the corner of my mind. “Ferris, if this is about your stage fright, don’t worry. You can just take a stand about it—”
“It’s not about stage fright. I wish this was about something as simple as stage fright.” And suddenly he’s letting go and pulling back, raking one hand desperately through his hair. He takes a pacing step one direction, then back.
He’s in real distress. The flares in my mind are getting bigger and brighter. I haven’t seen him this way since . . . well . . . since the last time he came back to me after we broke up in college.
Oh no.
No, no, no, no, no.
I cross my arms over my chest, the tight blue fabric stretching to its limit beneath my rib cage. He can’t be doing this. He absolutely can’t. It’s not possible. I’m boring, average, underachieving Savannah, and he’s already chosen Olivia.
Perfect, shiny, gorgeous, super-successful Olivia.
My sister.
Who’s planning to marry him in two weeks.
“Ferris?” My voice is more high pitched than I intended. Brassy.
When he stops and looks at me, any shadow of a doubt is gone.
“I’m so sorry.” His words are husky. Not in a sensual way, though. Not like last time when he came crawling back to my door. Back then, the come-hither tone was inescapable. I knew I was going to forgive him the second I opened the door and saw his sorrowful puppy dog eyes. The way he leaned against the doorway as if he owned it.
But tonight? Tonight he sounds like a man on the edge of a panic attack. “I don’t know what happened,” he says, shaking his head. “You and I—we had just had that stupid argument—I can’t even remember what it was about—”
“Because we had them all the time,” I say quietly.
“Yes.” Ferris nods his head. “Yes. Yes, we did, didn’t we? We were passionate.”
It strikes me that he’s saying it like it’s a positive thing. That the frequent arguments we had were a sign of something good. But we weren’t like those hot-blooded couples in the movies who yell and scream and throw plates and end up kissing passionately on top of broken pottery. No, as I remember, our arguments only made me feel cold, unheard, alone.
He’s dragging his hands over his face now, as if truly on the edge of despair. “I don’t know what to say to make it up to you.”
He’s mumbling more to himself than to me, I realize, like he’s been trying to work this out for some time.
“Don’t say anything,” I say.
And suddenly he drops his hands from his eyes and looks me full in the face. He grabs my wrists and, in the strongest, most level voice I’ve ever heard from him, says, “Savannah, I don’t deserve you.”
“I’m not—” I begin.
“Please,” he continues. “Please, just hear me out. Please.”
I give him one long look. Now that I notice, behind the fine tuxedo suit and the perfectly gelled hair, I see honey-brown eyes rimmed in red as though he hasn’t slept in days. I see desperation. Genuine, heartfelt desperation. And it tugs at my heart.
“Somebody is going to see us,” I whisper, starting to untwist my hands from his.
“Let them,” he answers with an unwavering tone. “Let them. I don’t care. I can’t play these games anymore.”
“I care.” I tug my hands free. “You are marrying my sister in two weeks.”
“I can’t.” At this, his voice cracks, and his gaze veers off toward the curtain and Olivia beyond. “I can’t marry her.”
“But you are so perfect together,” I remind him. “Like you always say, ‘Cupid shot his arrow.’”
“No, Dolos shot his arrow and set me on the path to misery,” he says, his voice hard. “Do you know what it’s like to be with her? Do you have any idea what it’s really like to be with her, Savannah?”
“I mean,” I say, taken aback, “she can be a bit overbearing—”
“Overbearing?” Ferris laughs. “Overbearing was months ago. I dream about the days of overbearing. Now my life is nothing but logging what I eat, how many tasks I get accomplished before noon, how many steps I take. How many steps I take! Do you know the last time I had actual food in a restaurant? Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve eaten steak? And the wedding!” He throws his arms up in the air. “On and on and on about the stupid wedding! Do you know how many bakeries I’ve been to in the past nine months?”
His voice is rising, taking on an I’ve-lost-my-mental-stability tone. People backstage are starting to look, and, to my surprise, he really doesn’t seem to notice or care.
“Six?” I venture.
“Thirty-two. Thirty-bloody-two.”
He’s looking at the floor, but then his gaze shoots up as if he remembers where he’s at and the aim of his message. “But you.” He takes a step toward me. “You were a treasure. Letting you go, Savannah, was the biggest mistake of my life.”
There’s silence, and then he moves in closer, his voice lowering as his chin tips down toward me. “Let’s get out of here. Now. We can go anywhere. Do anything. Shoot, we can fly all the way to Vegas right now and get married. Just please, please forgive me for what I’ve done. And I promise . . . I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
I stare at him. Vaguely I hear the hum of activity beyond the curtain and the clinking of glasses. But mostly I’m looking into his eyes. His desperate, tired, eager eyes locked onto mine.
Ferris wants to leave Olivia.
Ferris is sorry for leaving me.
Ferris wants . . . to marry me.
Right now.
And my head feels like a ship full of various packages has exploded, and I’m trying to sort through the wreckage, discovering new and overwhelming emotions and memories at each turn.
But as I do so, one single point does come to mind. And it lingers.
In this moment, I’m getting everything I’ve dreamed of.
In one succinct moment, all the secret hopes and dreams I’ve held over the past year are happening all at once. Olivia is going to get her heart crushed, just as mine was. Olivia, for once, has been rejected, despite her perfectly sculpted jawline, despite her unrelenting tenacity, despite her Energizer Bunny lifestyle and row of neatly framed accomplishments. And I . . . could . . . be back with Ferris.
Marry . . . Ferris.
Finally get my own happily-ever-after.
How long have I dreamed, even in the quietest way, of marrying him? A third of my lifetime.
And yet.
More than anything else, the biggest thought in my head—the strangest part of it all—is the words of Will Pennington. Not Sam, my mystery editor. Will.
And the words he said while he looked into my eyes outside the courthouse: “You deserve the same kind of happiness you wish to bestow on them.”
And he’s right.
And that isn’t Ferris. It was, for a long time, the dream of Ferris. The longed-for idea of what we could be. But it was never him. Never truly.
It’s Will.
The follow-up thought strikes quickly: But of course it is. How could you have ever thought otherwise?
It has been him all along. For all that my mystery editor—Sam—has going for him, there’s just something missing every time I meet him face-to-face that cannot be forced into being. No matter how I try, I can’t force the spark to exist when it’s not there. No matter how much it pains me to accept that fact.
I take a step back and, in doing so, see the question in Ferris’s eyes.
He really did think I’d come back to him, didn’t he? The thought makes the heat rise in my cheeks.
“I had no idea you felt this way, Ferris,” I say, brushing my dress off as if I’m brushing off the conversation. “I’m sorry to hear this.”
His eyes widen in disbelief. “Of course you did, Savvy. With all the coffees and the little chats. With all the flowers. You knew—”
“Yes, well, that’s the problem, then, Ferris. It’s a little hard to tell you’re trying to hit on me when you’re bringing both me and your fiancée coffees in the morning and flowers on behalf of the pair of you at night.”
He stops. “They’ve never been from her. They’ve always been from me. Just me.”
There’s something in the way he says “they” that stops me. I pause. Raise a finger. “You sent me more than one bouquet?”
“Twice!” he exclaims. “Twice, just in the last month! I know it was a bit of a risk sneaking them into your room and office, but I had to do it.” He rakes another wild hand through his hair. “I had to show you I care. That it’s been driving me insane to be without you—”
I realize he’s reaching for my hands again. And as though there’s a slowly moving copperhead slithering my way, I jump back.
As I do, my eyes catch the sight of a particular shade of warrior blue behind him.
Olivia’s face is horror stricken, her long, slender fingers at her lips. Her eyes shimmer, and despite it all, I feel my big-sisterly defenses rise.
“I’m sorry, Ferris,” I say, my jaw flexing. “My sister is here, and I need to attend to her. I wish you luck wherever your slimy backside lands.”
And without hesitating a moment longer, I move aside and reach for my sister, who has, at last, broken her six-year hiatus from crying and dissolved into tears.