How to Ruin a Wedding(12)
Shit, now.
I sprint to the room with the double doors on one side. Eliza isn’t waiting there, which means everyone is already inside the ballroom at the end of the corridor. I could be too late. If I am, no big deal. I’ll find a window to fling myself out of.
My heels are on the brink of shattering as they slam against the polished marble. I almost collide with the oversized doors as I grip the golden knobs. I pull and they move, just too damn slow. I have to use my foot as leverage on one door and yank the other to slide between them, my curves getting squashed as I tumble through the opening. I catch myself before my face meets the floor.
A few people in the back row, resting on chairs so heavily covered in flowers it looks like they’re sitting on top of a garden, spot me.
Eliza is under the arch of roses, her husband is looking down at her, and the pastor is reading from his book. I’m not too late. They’re not pronounced yet. Not yet.
I pick myself up from the floor and scream, “I object!”
Now everyone is facing me. All at once, heads turn. I can actually hear the collective shuffle of bodies. People gasp, some clutch their jewelry. My skin heats from it all, or maybe it’s the lingering hangover, but I’m too deep now.
I jog forward, objecting again.
Nobody moves as I rush toward the arch. I mean, how many times does a wedding get objected to? I can’t blame them. They’re probably in shock.
I grab James by his tie and yank his face to mine. “You told me you’d marry me!” I shout, hearing the collective gasp from the unwillingly but fully immersed audience. “How could you do this to me?”
“What the hell is this?” James asks, his voice shaking.
The pastor’s hand reaches out. “Now, what is going on?”
James slaps my hand away from him. “Who the hell are you?”
“Who the hell am I?” My voice climbs even more. “I’m the mother of your unborn child!”
The gasps turn into shouts, buzzes of conversations. James jerks around, denying this, calling me crazy, but nobody is listening to him. Especially not when tears start spilling down my cheeks, and I hold my stomach dramatically. The last part is definitely not an act. A few more minutes of excitement and I might throw up again.
When nobody listens to him, his eyes narrow in on me. He grabs my shoulders tightly.
His nails pierce my skin.
“Get off me!”
When I try to wiggle out of his grip, he shoves me. I fall back into the arch, and the metal and my back collide like two cymbals banging against each other. My bones rattle as I land on my ass, sending the pain reverberating up my back.
The arch tips slowly. I reach up and grab the back of Eliza’s dress, yanking her away from it as it falls over.
Right into the pastor.
Oh, I’m going to hell.
That has got to be a major sin. Injuring a pastor? Not as forgivable as the many offenses I’ve already accrued.
I hurriedly right myself, grabbing an edge of the arch and lifting. But the man isn’t the only thing tipping over.
The pastor falls back on a wall of delicately placed candles. Glass shatters, and most of the flames flicker out, except for some that join with another and another until a gathering of light grows at the center of it all.
Fire first, pastor later.
I rush forward without thinking, reaching the flame with nothing to smother it with. I have enough sense not to use my hands but not enough sense to keep from blowing on it as if it’ll snuff out the flame.
When I stomp on the fire with the bottom of my shoe, a shard of glass pierces through it and carves a tiny home into my foot.
I shout, instinctively jumping away, but I lose balance and fall back—toward all the broken glass.
Arms grip my hips, pulling me back from the potential damage.
My savior yanks off his long blazer as he passes me, smacking it over the flame until it’s smothered. Once it is, he turns on his heel, and I freeze.
This close, nose to nose, my vision is good enough to make out a face. It’s the man from the garden.
Flashes of memory blink through my head in rapid clicks. Giggling as Anders pulled me away from making water angels in a fountain out in the gardens. Tossing french fries into each other’s mouths from way too far a distance to ever make it. Getting a piggyback ride through the halls. Fingers cupping my chin as Anders held a bottle of water to my dry lips.
“Anders!” I say at the same time he says, “Lucinda!”
Even with my haphazardly-put-together disguise, he recognized me.
My throat desperately needs a gallon of water. I tear my attention off him, and several people lift the arch while someone pulls the pastor up.
Most everyone is on their feet now, and it sounds like the beginning of a concert, with all the chatter and buzzing of movement. Anticipation is pounding through the bottoms of their shoes, causing the floor to shiver.
James is shouting at Eliza, gesturing toward me, screaming that he has no idea who I am. Eliza turns to face me, pulling up her dress and stomping over.
The veil catches around her face, and she yanks it away and snaps, “Who are you?”
With the veil and my lack of sight, I didn’t see her well enough, but this close, her features become clear. Her nose isn’t supposed to be as straight and pointed as it is right now. It’s supposed to be rounded, and lower. And her skin should be riddled with enough freckles, no amount of foundation could cover them all, unlike the tan, clear skin I see. Her lips should be thinner, her jaw rounder, not full and sharp.