Chapter 25: : Chapter 25

The doors open for me, and I step outside.

It’s perfect weather. Mid-sixties, the sun shining high overhead. No clouds in the sky.

Eva gives me a look that silently asks, Is all okay? She inspects my face, grabs Miles’ handkerchief from my bouquet, and starts to clean the tears from my cheeks. As soon as she does, more take their place. I can’t stop.

“Shh,” she says to me. “Smile. When you’re walking down the aisle, just look at Aaron. Okay?”

I nod.

My father steps over to me. He looks so handsome in his suit. “I see you got a new dress for the occasion.”

I laugh. My father always knew how to make me laugh, even in the darkest times.

He offers me his arm. “Ready to do this thing?”

Pachelbel’s “Canon” starts to play, which is the signal for the bridesmaids to start filtering down the aisle. I peer through the curtains as each one starts to walk. There are so many guests. I never realized how many five hundred guests were. The officiant is standing in front of us, straight down the aisle. I get the briefest glimpse of my husband-to-be as the curtains part. And next to him…

Oh, god.

One by one, the foyer empties out, until Eva nudges the flower girls and ring bearer out. She gives me a thumbs-up and disappears, leaving me alone with my father.

I can’t breathe.

I clutch my heart.

“Lia?” my father asks, squeezing my hand.

I draw in the air slowly and nod at him. “I’m okay. I can do this.”

Pachelbel’s “Canon” ends, and then the wedding march begins to play. A sound of scuffling as five hundred guests rise to their feet and turn to watch me take my last steps as Dahlia Ripley.

We part the curtains, and we begin our walk down the aisle.

It’s just as I dreamed. The blue sky. The singing birds. Not a single snowflake in sight.

Yet, I almost wish there was snow.

Aaron and Miles and the rest of the groomsmen wait at the front of the gazebo. As I get closer, I can make out features on their faces. I tell myself to do as Eva said. I joke with myself that at least there are more men up there that I haven’t fucked, than ones that I did.

I glue my eyes to Aaron’s face, to Aaron’s smile. I tell myself that he has truly forgotten. That we will move forward from here and build a life of mutual trust and love.

Aaron’s face is red. He looks a little nervous. He pulls on his collar.

But just as Miles promised, Aaron’s face is flawless.

Miles is a man of his word.

And I can’t help it.

When I’m a few steps from Aaron, my eyes shift to Miles.

His gaze is on me.

And I can’t seem to unstick my eyes from his.

What is wrong with me? I’m walking down the aisle, on the way to marry a man, and I just told his best friend that I’m in love with him.

I need to put the brakes on this.

This boulder, rolling downhill.

I think about what my mother said. There’s always time. If I want to, I should be able to stop this.

Now.

Or, now.

My feet keep moving forward. Ankles wobbling, but moving forward, guided by my father’s steady hand, as if on a track with nowhere else to go.

We reach the end of the aisle. My father steps into my line of sight to kiss my cheek.

This is the part where he’d hand me off to my husband-to-be. And he tries to.

But suddenly, I’m off the track. Pushing the boulder back with all of my might, and backing away. Shaking my head.

“I can’t…” I keep whispering, mostly to myself. “I can’t.”

Aaron reaches for me, but I pull away. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

In the front rows, people who’ve heard me start to gasp and murmur amongst themselves.

Aaron’s face is tight, his lips still turned in a smile. “Lia,” he murmurs. “Remember what we talked about?”

“Yeah, I do.” Eva comes to my side and whispers something to me that I don’t hear. I look around and see confused faces all around, and my heart begins to beat madly. My vision twists.

Everything around me is the way I envisioned, except the mountains are now closing in on me. The twittering of birds sounds like screeching. The sun is too hot.

And all of this is so wrong. Even the groom.

Especially the groom.

“Aaron,” I whisper to him. “I’m so sorry. I do love you.”

He pulls on the collar of his suit. “Then what’s the—”

“The problem is that we’re not in love!” I shout, so loudly it echoes through the mountains.

More gasps.

My eyes plead with him. “You have to know that.”

He’s shaking his head. “What do you mean? I thought you and I—”

“No.” I look over at Mimi, in the front row, and I think of her and my grandfather, strolling down the Santa Monica pier like they were the only ones in the world. “If we loved each other, none of this would matter. But now, it’s all that matters. And what happens after?”

He looks confused. “Well, we have our honeymoon. Hawaii.”

“No. After that? This, now? It’s supposed to be the easy part. I told you, Aaron, I don’t know what I’m feeling. But I don’t think you know, either. We got together five years ago. We were each other’s first real relationship. We didn’t know what we were doing.

“But now I think I understand. You know what I did was shitty and wrong, and you’re willing to give me a pass, because you’re a good guy. We’re so used to ignoring the signals that something’s wrong, because that’s what we do. Maybe we need to take a step back and admit what’s been screaming in our faces all this time?

“If I was in love with you, I wouldn’t have needed all of this. And if you were in love with me, Aaron, you wouldn’t need any last hurrah. I wouldn’t be an afterthought. I wouldn’t be second to your brothers or a good keg stand. I’d be at the front of your mind, all the time,” I tell him. “And you’re a good person. You deserve someone who comes first for you. Someone who drives you so insane with love that you can barely think. I know I’m not her.”

“You are her. Lia—”

“No, I know I’m not. And I can’t be. I don’t want this.”

Rage fills his eyes, and he hooks a thumb behind him. “What? Do you want him?”

More gasps.

I can’t see Miles behind Aaron’s broad shoulders, and I’m glad of that, because one look at him would probably melt me. The last thing I need is for them to throw down again in the middle of all our friends and family. “I don’t know what I want! All I know is, this is a mistake.”

His face is the kind of red it gets only when he’s drinking. His voice is tight. “You walking out of this door is a mistake, Lia. Don’t do that to me.”

I shake my head, pull off the ring, and place it in his palm. “I’m sorry. Take the trip to Hawaii. You can probably bring one of your brothers.”

I gather up my skirts and make a mad dash for the door.

When I get out to the front of the lodge, I’m crying so hard I can’t see straight. I run straight into someone who’s smoking at the entrance, and before I can move away, he grabs my hands. I look up.

“Oh! West!” I bury my face in his chest.

He tosses his cigarette on the ground and stubs it out as he wraps his arms around me. “Whoa. Dahl. What’s going on? I’m not too late for the wedding, am I? I had to take a call and—”

He stops as I sob into his clean white shirt and striped tie.

“I just ran out. I can’t marry him.”

He smooths my hair. “Well, it’s about fucking time you realized that, Peanut.”

I pull away. “What?”

He smirks. “I’ve tried to get along with him, Dahl. But he’s a fuckhead. You can do so much better.”

He wipes the tears out from under my eyes as I let out a groan. “If you thought that, you could’ve told me sooner.”

“Like you ever listen to me. Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.” He wraps an arm around me and starts to walk toward the lodge, but I hold firm.

“I can’t go back in there.”

“Yeah? Where do you want to go?”

“Home.”

“All right,” he says, reaching behind me to lift my skirts. “Then let’s go.”

He loads me and my massive dress into his big pickup, and as I sit there in a pile of organza up to my boobs, he massages my bare shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Peanut. I promise. You’re a tough nut to crack.”

I look over at him through a haze of tears. I feel anything but tough. I feel like I just let so many people down.

As he pulls away, I watch the Midnight Lodge fade into the distance, as well as all those fairytale wedding dreams. They don’t seem to matter to me anymore.