Chapter 5

"What the hell is happening?" I look at Clarabella.

"Jennifer is having an allergic reaction to something, and we don’t know what," Clarabella starts to say, and we all rush toward the bridal suite. "We think it’s the funeral flowers."

"Funeral flowers?" Bennett asks them as we walk down the stairs.

"We got the wrong flowers," Presley states as she follows us. "Instead of the wedding flowers, we got funeral flowers. We didn’t want to tell you because, well, how much can go wrong with one wedding?"

"Isn’t it like a three-strikes-and-you’re-out kind of thing?" Bennett asks, and Presley slaps his shoulder. "I’m just asking, how do I know? There was the fridge." He holds up one finger. "The fire, and now this. Oh, and we forgot that Harlow showed up, so it’s really four strikes."

"It’s going to be fine," Clarabella reassures me. "We just had to call the ambulance because, well, her throat started to get scratchy, and then well." We all stop and look at her. "Her face blew up."

"You," Shelby says. "Stay here." She looks at Bennett. "You keep him here. It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding."

"Trust me, this isn’t what is going to bring bad luck to this wedding," Bennett counters, and all my sisters glare at him. He holds up his hands. "Fine, I’ll man the station. Jeez, you try to make a joke and everyone wants to jump down your throat."

"This is crazy." I run my hand through my hair and hold my neck, the tension coming all through my body.

"Look at the bright side," Bennett says. "How many people can be like, on my wedding day…"

"What is going on?" I ask, running next to her, and I can’t see her face.

"We have to get her to the hospital. She’s having a severe allergic reaction," one of the EMTs says, and everything is happening so fast I don’t have a minute to think.

"Oh my God." I run out toward the ambulance and see them placing the gurney inside. One of the ambulance technicians looks at me.

"I assume you are the groom. Are you coming with us?" he asks, and I nod my head, and he moves to the side to give me a chance to get up. I put my foot on the step and get into the ambulance.

"Let us know," Shelby starts to say when the ambulance technician closes the back door. The ambulance takes off a second later.

"Jennifer," I say, getting to her side, and she looks over at me, and I try not to freak out. Her lips are swollen ten times their size. One of her eyes is sealed shut. The other one is slowly going to close. "Are you okay?" I hold her hand in mine and try not to show her how freaked out I am.

"My throat is scratchy," she says and tries to clear her throat.

"Did you guys give her an EpiPen?" I look over at the technician, who just nods his head.

"We are four minutes out," he says. "And we already gave her one."

"Well, it’s clearly not working," I point out, looking over at Jennifer, who is wearing a white satin pjs set. Her black hair is half curled, and she has makeup on one side.

"Is she allergic to any medications?" he asks, and I have to admit that I have no idea. The phone buzzes in my pocket, and I ignore it.

"Not that I know of," I say and then look back at Jennifer, who shakes her head. I bury away the voice in my head asking me how I didn’t know she was allergic to anything.

"Hi," I say, interrupting them, and they both look back at the phone with their eyes wide.

"How is she?" Shelby comes back to me, and I see people walking around behind her, and then I see her moving out of the room.

"The doctor is in with her now," I start to say.

"Listen, don’t worry about anything over here," Shelby assures me. "Everyone is waiting, and if anything, we can do the ceremony during the reception. Which will give the service staff enough time to get here."

"This is just a hiccup," she says softly, and I see her sit on the couch. "It’s a bump in the road."

"It’s a meteor that crashed into earth," I correct her.

"And the aliens are invading us," Clarabella says, and Shelby just glares at her.

"It’s not that bad. I’ve seen worse." She rolls her eyes.

"Have you really?" I ask, and she doesn’t answer. "Didn’t think so."

"She is going to make a full recovery," he says. "I strongly suggest that she has an allergy test done as soon as possible." He closes the chart. "She’s good to go in a bit."

"Thank you," I say and walk back into the room. I look over at her as she lies on the bed with her head back on the pillow. Making my way to her, I see that her lips are already starting to go down. Her one eye opens, and she sees me. "Hi," I say softly, sitting on the bed beside her. "How are you doing?"

"Awful," she says, and I see a tear escape from the eye that is still sealed shut. "I can’t get married."

"I don’t mean today," she says and then looks down and then up at me. "I don’t want to marry you."

"I almost died today." She sits up in the middle of the bed. "Do you know what went through my head the whole time?"

"I have no idea," I say, looking at her, and it dawns on me that this news is not destroying me.

"The thought that we would be together for the rest of my life." I look at her, and if this wasn’t happening to me, I might just burst out laughing. "Like, don’t get me wrong, you are amazing."

"I don’t know if that is supposed to make me feel better or not," I say, and my collar feels like it’s going to strangle me, so I loosen the knot on the tie and then undo the top button of the shirt.

"You are amazing," she says, reaching out to put her hand on mine. "But I don’t know if I love you like that." I just look at her, not sure what to say. "The last two weeks, I’ve been going over this in my head." She blinks as the swollen eye starts to open a little bit. "I’ve been wondering, is this really what I want."

"Oh, come on, Travis," she says. "You can’t honestly say that you really wanted to get married in the first place."

"Well, I showed up," I retort because I’m not really sure I wanted to get married in the first place. Especially after today. "Why didn’t you say anything before today?"

"I didn’t really know," she says softly. "And then today when I was getting my makeup done and then my throat started to get all scratchy, and I was thinking about what we were going to do. It just…" I shake my head. "I think I’m in love with Jackie." She wrings her hands together.

"Jackie?" I ask, shocked, like a bomb just went off. "Jackie, like your roommate Jackie?"

"I don’t know," she admits. "I’ve never done anything about it. I know that the thought of not being with her makes my heart hurt."

"Is this why you never wanted to move in with me?" I ask her, thinking of all the times she made excuses. It wasn’t the right time. Things were too busy. Heck, she slept over at my house a max of four times.

"I don’t even know if she feels the same way about me," she says. "But I can’t marry you if I feel this way."

"I don’t know what to say," I answer her.

"Do you love me?" she asks.

"Yes," I answer her honestly, and she tilts her head to the side.

"Like full-on completely love me?" She points at herself. "Give your life away for my love?" I know the answer, my head knows the answer, my heart definitely knows the answer. But I can’t say it out loud. Seeing Harlow walk into the church today just made everything so crystal clear. I thought I was in love with Jennifer. But I was fooling myself. There was no one I could have loved as much as I did Harlow. No one even came close to completing me like she did. For the last four years, I have fooled myself into thinking that she didn’t exist. Yet one fucking look at her, and I was right back there. Instead, I take a deep inhale and then exhale. "Exactly. I mean, think about it; you didn’t even propose. It came up one day when we were having lunch with your family, and your mother asked if we were going to get married, and we just said yeah. It was more along the lines of well, we are dating, so we might as well take the next step. Neither of us dared to back out, but now, after almost dying, I can’t marry you."

"What do you want to tell people?" I ask her, knowing that I’m going to have to call my sisters.

"I don’t care. You can blame me." She shrugs. "But whatever you do, you need to do it now. There are two hundred people expected to attend the reception." She moves to get out of bed, and I stop her.

"I’ll take care of this," I say. "You stay here." I turn, walking out of the room, stopping. "I’ll send Jackie," I add, and she smiles at me.

"You really are amazing," she says to me, and I turn and walk out of the room thinking about what the fuck I’m going to tell two hundred people.