If I were a house, I would be haunted.
“And I would remind you,” Nouria says, her brittle voice returning me to the present, “that you are not the only person on earth ever to have been married. I’m sorry you can’t bear to be separated from your fiancée long enough to have a single vital discussion about our failing world, but the rest of us must continue to move, Warner, even if it means deprioritizing your personal happiness.”
Her words strike a raw nerve.
“Too true,” I say quietly. “There are few, indeed, who’ve ever prioritized my personal happiness. I wouldn’t expect you to be the exception.”
I regret the words the moment they’ve left my mouth.
I steel myself as Nouria reels, processing my uncomfortable moment of honesty. She looks away, guilt flickering, fighting with irritation. Her anger ultimately wins the battle, but when she meets my eyes again, there’s a note of regret there, in her gaze, and I realize only then that I have been tricked.
There is more.
I take an imperceptible breath; the true purpose of this meeting is only now about to be revealed to me.
“While we’re on the subject,” Nouria says, sparing her father an anxious glance. “I—well. I’m really sorry, Warner, but we’re going to have to postpone the wedding.”
I stare at her.
My body goes slowly solid, a dull panic working its way through my nervous system. I feel multiple things at once— anger, grief, confusion. A strange sort of resignation rises up above them all, crowning a familiar pain, a familiar fear: that joy, like dew, evaporates from my life the moment I begin to trust the sun.
This is it, then. Par for the course.
“Postpone the wedding,” I say, hollow.
“Today is just turning out to be a bad day for everyone,” she says, rushing to get the words out. “There’s too much going on. There’s a major sewage problem we need to get under control, which is using up most of our manpower at the moment, and everyone else is knee-deep in other projects. We don’t have enough hands to set up or break things down—and we tried, we really tried to make it work, but we just can’t spare the generator tonight. Our electricity has been touch and go, and the temperatures are supposed to be brutal tonight; we can’t let the kids freeze in their beds.”
“I don’t understand. I spoke with Brendan, he offered—”
“Brendan is drained. We’ve been relying on him too much lately. Winston has already threatened to kill me if we don’t let him sleep tonight.”
“I see.” I stare at the table, then my hands. I have turned to stone, even as my heart races in my chest. “We’d need the generator for only an hour.”
“An hour?” Nouria laughs, but she seems unnerved. “Have you ever been to a wedding? Outside? At night? You’d need lights and heat and music. Not to mention all that we’d have to do to get the kitchen going that late, and distributing food— We never got around to making a cake—”
“I don’t need a wedding,” I say, cutting her off. I sound strange even to myself, nervous. “I just need an officiant. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
“I think it might be a big deal to Juliette.”
I look up at that.
I have no worthy response; I can’t speak for Ella. I’d never deny her a real wedding if it’s what she wants.
The whole thing feels suddenly doomed. The day after I proposed to Ella, she was attacked by her sister, after which she fell into a coma and came home to me nearly dead. We were supposed to have been married this morning, except that her dress was destroyed, and now—
“Postpone until when?”
“I’m not sure, if I’m being honest.” Nouria’s nerves and apprehension are growing louder now. I try to meet her eyes, but she keeps glancing at Castle, who only shakes his head. “I was hoping maybe we could look at the calendar,” she says to me, “think about planning something when things are less crazy around here—”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Of course I’m serious.”
“You know as well as I do,” I say angrily, “that there is no guarantee things will ever calm down around here, or that we’ll ever be able to get this situation under control—”
“Well, right now is a bad time, okay?” She crosses her arms. “It’s just a bad time.”
I look away. My heart seems to be racing in my head now, pounding against my skull. I feel myself dissociating— detaching from the moment—and struggle to remain present.