Page 16 of When Sinners Hate
“Not the one?” Margaret asks.
“Apparently not.”
We continue through the next few dresses. Margaret buttoning, tying and pulling me into each of the chosen gowns. My body feels like it’s on autopilot – going through the motions.
There’s been little or no reaction from Abel. And even Wren looks fairly bored with the parade of white. Until the final dress.
“This is my favourite,” Margaret whispers to me, and I finally look at the narrow mirror in front of me.
It’s beautiful.
Elegant, classic and looks like it’s made to fit me and me alone. Emotion chokes in my throat, and I have to grasp my chest.
Lace and pearl embellishments decorate the fitted dress that hugs my curves and sets off my figure and my skin tone. I twist to look at the back, laced up to perfection by Margaret’s experienced hand.
“This is the one.” She pats my hand and moves to the curtain, opening it for me.
This time, I glide to the centre stage, and I have to suppress a glimmer of a smile that’s threatening to break free across my face. As I stand and wait, I’m embarrassed that a part of me hopes they like this dress as much as I do, and internally I scold myself for such a reaction. Hope is dangerous, especially in a situation like this.
Abel and Wren are in conversation when I come out, and Abel barely gives me a passing glance. Wren looks more closely, and her smile has a softness that wasn’t there previously.
“This is my favourite,” she proclaims, but addresses her comment to Abel.
He takes a second glance, but he doesn’t look me in the eye. “Whatever you say. You’re in charge, Wren.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to scream at them – if I’m to have any say in the dress I’m to wear to my own wedding, regardless of it being a sham or a fake wedding. But after last night, everything has shifted. It’s become a wedding of hate over family responsibility or loyalty, and I’m weary of Abel and what he’s capable of now. That doesn’t diminish the fact that I still want this dress and not something that Abel or Wren decide I should wear.
Wren looks at me.
“This one,” I say, careful not to put any enthusiasm in my tone. It'll probably ensure this small thing is taken away simply out of spite.
“Oh, I’m so pleased,” Margaret announces from the sidelines.
“It is a beautiful dress.” Wren’s musing makes me want to scratch her eyes out, but I know she’s only playing her own part in this fucked-up affair.
I step down to change before anything further can alter. I’m also at the limit of what I feel I can endure without saying something. The goodness of this morning’s breakfast is wearing off, and the urge to be alone – to draw in on myself – is growing by the second.
As the dress fits perfectly already, few alterations are required, but we still leave it with Margaret for a final fitting a week before the wedding. Wren speaks to her directly, and I adopt the position of the dutiful bystander. Abel is more interested in something on his phone and takes a phone call away from us before we leave the boutique.
The conversation back home is as it was before – Wren runs over vendor details, plans, confirmations and the plans that are already in place with no second thought or consideration that I’m the bride, while Abel nods and agrees at particular points.
He seems distracted, though, and I wonder if I’m to endure another night like the last one this evening.
My eyes look to the vista we pass, and I search for strength I know I have – one that saw me through the abuse I suffered at the hands of my father’s ‘friends’. I was a child then, and knowing I’ve survived my past gives me courage.
After all, I’m not doing this for my father. I’m doing this for me. My plan. My ambition. And my revenge.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ABEL
Weeks have gone by. They’ve been the same as they’ve always been. Days and weekends have disappeared into the mire of cruelty we’ve chosen as our life. People have been disposed of. Women have been taken. Profit has rolled in. It’s all as unsurprising as the previous months. We’re a formula. A barbaric formula of necessity mixed with greed. Elias being six feet under proves that.
Staring at the ground, I picture him in my head as I've done since he died. It never would have happened if I'd been sharper. I wasn't, though. I was distant and distracted because of problems back here. And now the only thing I have left of that brother is dirt and bones. Shame. He would have been good for this marriage. Evil.
Vengeance is coming, though. In time.
The only thing that has swayed the monotony of normality is Dante and his newfound love. I stand and look over the view spread out across the valley. He deserves that feeling. He took the brunt of everything for years before I came back out. He did well at it, too, apart from the Mariana screw–up.Although, much as I hate the thought of it, the brutality of that night probably did her some good in the long run.