Author: Cassia Leo

“I can’t believe I’m getting married to Rachel,” he slurs.

I try not to laugh at this declaration. Rachel has always been a supreme bitch – always saying what’s on her mind with no regard for anyone’s feelings. She has absolutely no filter between her brain and her mouth. But despite that, I think Jake is lucky to have her. She’s dug him out of so many holes over the years. She even drove his mom to all her radiation appointments when she got skin cancer on her arm last year.

“You can’t believe you’re getting married? Or you can’t believe it’s Rachel you’re marrying?”

“I can’t believe she wants to marry me.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? You’re Jay-Rae! You’re gonna get your matching Jay-Rae pillowcases and she’ll give birth to two-point-five beards. And Jay-Rae will live happily ever after.”

He smiles reluctantly. “Show me that fucking tattoo.”

The tequila swirls in my belly at the sound of these words. I consider blowing him off, then I realize that there is absolutely no way he’ll know what it means. I pull the gauze and tape off my wrist and hold it up for him to see.

He leans forward in his chair and squints. “One, two, three. What does that mean?”

“Nothing important,” I reply, standing from the chair and taking the bottle of tequila with me toward the vanity area. I put the bottle down on the surface of the white vanity and proceed to cover the tattoo again. “Come on. You have to drink some water and try to sober up a little. You’re on in forty minutes.”

Once Jake and Rachel say their vows, I set off to find Chris to give him his wedding gift before his ceremony begins. I stop him just as he’s heading for the big tent.

“What’s up?” Chris asks as he tucks his phone into his pocket.

I feel nervous; like, so nervous I’m almost sick to my stomach. Why the fuck am I so nervous about giving my best friend his wedding present? Maybe it has to do with the sheer magnitude of the gift.

“I want to give you and Claire your wedding gift before everything gets crazy. Do you mind? It’s in there,” I say, nodding toward the tent where Jake and I were downing tequila shots earlier.

“You just can’t wait until later to give me that blowjob, can you?”

I shrug as we head for the tent. “Nah, that can wait until later. And this present is much better since I’m not nearly as good at sucking dick as you are.”

We enter the tent and I immediately head for the purple bag where Senia packed the present with her gazillion styling tools. That girl and her obsession with hair and make-up are going to make me go broke. I pull a thick, white envelope out of the bag and hand it to Chris.

Chris stares at it for a moment, trying to figure it out. “What the fuck is this?”

“It’s the deed to my house. I don’t want it any more. Senia and I are moving to Chapel Hill so she doesn’t have to commute to school next semester.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t want your house.”

He tries to push the envelope into my hand, but I take a step back and shake my head. “It’s done. I already gifted it to you. I already put a deposit on an apartment off campus. The house is yours.” He runs his fingers through his hair as he stares at the envelope in my hand. “I know you and Claire wanted a house with a good piece of land.”

He shakes his head in disbelief, but soon a smile comes over his face and his eyes light up as if he has an idea. “You can have my condo. There’s still eleven months on the lease.”

“Are you serious?”

“As serious as I am that this is the craziest fucking day of my life.” He tucks the envelope into his back pocket and looks me dead in the eye. “What about the tour? Are you bailing on me?”

I shrug as he continues to stare at me. Finally, I nod. “Yeah, I gotta stay here. My grandma will kill me if I let Senia have the baby alone.”

“Doing it for Grandma, huh?”

I try not to let him see the internal struggle going on inside me right now – the voice telling me that Grandma won’t be around long enough to know if I leave Senia to go on tour.

“Yeah, let’s just stick with that story for now,” I reply. “I’m not used to this relationship bullshit.”

“Thanks, man,” he says and I congratulate him, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when your best friend is getting married to the person he’s been in love with for six years. But something is off. He has a faraway look in his eyes, and I hope he’s not thinking about the one person who’s not here with him today. “Hey, Claire is pregnant,” he says, and his smile returns. “Don’t tell anyone. I’m going to tell everyone at the reception.”

I can’t help but grin like a crazy person as I slowly nod my head. “You just had to outdo me, didn’t you? Now what? I’m gonna have to get married on a fucking tightrope?”

“I’ll be there to cut the rope.”

When we head back to the big tent to wait for Claire to make her big entrance, I don’t have to wait very long before Senia comes walking in wearing a black dress that hugs her gorgeous body, her hair pulled back exposing her slender neck. She walks with such grace and confidence.

“You’re beautiful,” I whisper, and she smiles as she hooks her arm in mine and we set off down the aisle.

Something about watching all your best friend’s dreams come true in a single moment is really fucking emotional. I manage to keep my cool, but I understand why ladies cry at these things. I understand why Jake was crying during his vows. Weddings are intense.

Senia cries throughout Chris and Claire’s entire wedding ceremony and she sobs uncontrollably when Chris, Claire, Jake, and Rachel all get on stage and sing “Your Song.” When Chris and Claire break the big news about Claire’s pregnancy to the crowd, I have to hold her to console her.

“This is the most beautiful wedding ever,” she says with a deep sigh, then she uses a fancy napkin to soak up her tears.

“Yours will be better.” She looks up at me in total disbelief. “I promise.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Four Years Ago

Thirteen months ago, I walked into Mrs. Langley’s art class and my eyes settled on a skinny girl with dark hair sitting in the corner of the class. I knew from the moment I saw Ashley that she was the girl from my last day at Elaine’s house. What I couldn’t see just by looking at her slumped shoulders and round brown eyes was that she, like me, had never spoken to anyone about what happened that day. She told me later that the reason she was removed from her aunt’s home was because her aunt died in a freak car accident the week after Ashley and I met. It turned out her aunt was the woman sitting in the corner of the bedroom that day. When I asked Ashley why she hadn’t told anyone, she replied, “Because she’s dead now. She can’t hurt me any more.”

But she was wrong. Dead or not, the memory of what happened in that back bedroom on that day and in the days after I left Elaine’s were like pieces of glass in Ashley’s skin. If she kept still, didn’t talk to anyone or do anything, she could just ignore them. But just the slightest movement, the littlest reminder, and the pain would come rushing back. Just a few months ago, she broke down in the middle of the mall when she saw a toddler in a stroller with her hair styled in pigtails.

Sometimes, she goes catatonic for hours at a time. Her adoptive parents have done everything to get her the help she needs, but she’s refused to talk to anyone about what happened. Until I walked into that art classroom.

She was silent for four years until we found each other. Now, after thirteen months of sharing our secrets and learning to trust, it’s all over with a single sentence.

“He makes me happier than you do.”

“Because he doesn’t know you. I’m the only one who knows you.”

Her face has a blank quality; her eyes a remoteness that tells me she’s bluffing. She doesn’t want to do this.

I knew when Ashley moved into the dorms at Duke a month ago that things would be difficult for us. I thought we’d have a rough nine months, then everything would go back to normal once I graduate from high school next year. I’ve been making the thirty-minute drive out to see her three times a week. I guess it wasn’t enough.

“I can’t be with you any more. He’s better for me. We’re in the same classes and we like the same music and—”

“Music?”

The only music Ashley ever listens to are my band’s songs, some of which I wrote for her, and the stuff I add to her iPod. She’s told me repeatedly that my music is the only music she feels safe listening to. Apparently, the day I met Ashley at Elaine’s was a trial run to see how Ashley would perform, and she passed the test. After I left Elaine’s, her aunt was disappointed, but she insisted that Ashley could still entertain the johns with stripteases. Ashley effectively blocked out the memory of the music she was forced to strip to, but she was left with a crippling fear of one day encountering one of those songs.

“You’re lying to yourself or you’re lying to me. I can’t figure out which one it is.”

She shakes her head adamantly. “No, I’m not. I don’t love you. I … I love him. He’s better for me.”

“Stop saying that.”

“He is!” Her hand trembles as she jams it into the pocket of her jeans and pulls out the necklace I gave her three months ago when she graduated. She holds her palm out and the gold heart glints in the mottled September sunlight. “I don’t want this.”

“I don’t want it either. It’s yours.”

“Take it or I’ll throw it away.”

“Then fucking throw it away.”

She stares at the necklace for a moment and her cool composure is beginning to evaporate. “I don’t want it. Why can’t you understand? I don’t want anything from you.”

That’s when I realize she doesn’t want the necklace because she wants to leave every trace of her past behind her. Not because she doesn’t love me. If she didn’t love me, she’d throw it away.

I turn around to walk away and she calls out to me. “Tristan! Please take it!” I continue down the concrete path in the campus courtyard. “Tristan!”

When I turn around, she seizes the opportunity to hurl the necklace at my face, then she spins around and runs off in the direction of the dorms. I pluck the necklace off the concrete and tuck it into my pocket. I think I always knew this would happen. Though I certainly did try, I knew nothing and no one could fill the hole in Ashley’s soul. And I may never forgive myself for that.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Senia

Recovering from the wedding – and hangover – of the century would be a lot easier if Tristan had his amazing steam room to sweat out the two bottles of vodka he drank last night. Ugh! Just the thought of it makes me sick. I’m glad I’m pregnant and I don’t have to deal with hangovers for at least another eight months.

“So I take it we’re not going to breakfast with everyone before they leave for their honeymoons?”

He grunts and, for a moment, I think this is his response. Then, “You can go. I can’t eat anything right now.”

I prop my head up on my elbow as I trace shapes on his bare back with my fingertip. “Were you drunk while Chris and Claire were singing last night?”

“I don’t remember,” he mutters, then he shifts a little and the way the muscles in his back flex under his skin is so sexy. “Can you get me a bottle of water?”

“Yeah, and I’ll order you the room service hangover cure.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know. Probably Gatorade and a butler to hold your puke bucket.”