Oops, Wrong Bride? Fine. No Wedding. Chapter 02

Oops, Wrong Bride? Fine. No Wedding. Chapter 02

When I came to, it was dark outside. The hospital room smelled like disinfectant, and a monitor beeped beside the bed. It was seven in the evening, and I sat there on the bed in a daze with an IV in my arm and blood seeping around the needle.

A nurse pushed the door open, pulled the needle out, and ran through the aftercare instructions. Then she couldn’t help asking, “Ms. Jennings, where’s your family? We’ve been calling the emergency contacts in your phone since you were admitted, and none of them picked up.”

I shook my head.

They should have finished the rest of the ceremony with Wendy by now. I was the only one who hadn’t snapped out of that ridiculous farce.

I stared at my reflection in the dark phone screen. My face was chalk white, with no color in it at all.

I’d had severe anemia since I was a kid.

The first time I fainted in public, all three of them cut class and got detention for it.

Ethan and Zach sat with me at the hospital all day, and Chloe cried so hard she couldn’t speak.

After that, Ethan kept better track of my medication, my dosages, and my weekly checkups than I did.

Whenever I had a flare-up, they were more nervous than I was, and they’d pepper the doctor with questions.

Because of my health, they were unbelievably good to me.

After school, Zach followed me home in silence every day until I was through the front door.

When I was scared of the dark, Ethan would show up in under ten minutes. He had a line he loved to say. “So what if Iris scares easily? I’ll protect her for the rest of my life, and that’s enough.”

After Ethan and I started dating, it stayed that way for almost ten years. Then one day, I went looking for him and glanced into the café on the corner.

Ethan was gently wiping coffee from the corner of Wendy’s mouth, and the tenderness in his eyes was exactly what I used to see when he looked at me.

Before I handled my discharge, I went to see Mom. She was awake for once, and a tear slid from the corner of her eye. “Such a shame. I won’t get to see my Iris walk down the aisle…”

My eyes burned, and I sobbed until I couldn’t get a word out.

It was late by the time the paperwork was done, and I caught a cab on the curb. The night wind slapped my face through the window.

Chloe had posted on Instagram.

Chloe: [What a perfect couple!]

I stared at the photo while anger churned through my chest, and my fingertips went white. Wendy had changed into a dress I knew all too well. It was an ivory gown with two lovebirds stitched across the bodice in gold thread, and I knew that embroidery.

Mom had made that dress for me by hand, years ago, back when she was still well.

I remembered how she used to hum me to sleep and stroke my hair. “Someday, my Iris is going to walk down the aisle in the dress Mom embroidered for her. How does that sound…”

And now they’d dug it out without asking anyone and put it on Wendy.

When I got out of the cab, I stumbled up to the apartment door, dragging my exhaustion with me. A big JUST MARRIED banner hung over the door. Ethan had held me up so I could hang it myself.

The door wasn’t fully closed, and someone inside was egging them on. “Kiss! Kiss!”

I pushed the door open, and the voices cut off the second they saw me.

Ethan’s brow creased, barely. “What are you doing here? I already explained this to you. Once the game’s over, we’ll do the wedding all over again.”

It was laughable. They’d taken the venue I’d negotiated, the apartment we’d bought to live in after the wedding, even the dress Mom had made for me. And now they were blaming me for showing up and ruining their good time.

I couldn’t hold back anymore. I lunged at them.