February 27, 2010

Song: Sleeping Sickness by City and Colour

People were fluttering around, barking orders, and aligning things out of place. Out of the the whole scene, orders being filled, flowers being organized out of the scatter they were delivered in, petals cascading, and blanketing the walls, she felt like the only thing that needed fixing. In her mind all of this was suffocating her, the walls of the church closing in on her, clutching her within its grasp and refusing to let go. She was just a pawn in this whole scheme. The idea of marrying this man was still so foreign to her, so horribly ghastly. Repulsive even.

She quickly ran back to the bridal room for some peace. Her mother had left to check on the men. Her breath started coming in gasps, her heart accelerating. The world around her spinnning, she couldn’t focus with the anxiety, fear, and panic seeping through her bones down to the core of her soul. She was familiar with this, after all it was her third panic attack of the month. It all started when she had to stop seeing him.

Roughly six months ago her parents came to her privately and told her of their friend’s son that became involved with the wrong people. He was well past all the things they had gotten him into, but his bank account took the brute of his mistakes. She was confused why they were telling her this until they came right out, and demanded her help. They told her she had to marry him, just until he gets back up on his feet. For days she kept to herself, she knew she had no choice in the matter and she would have aquiesced a little easier if it wasn’t for her boyfriend of nine months who she was madly in love with.

Of course when she told him he was enraged. She promised she wasn’t doing it willingly, and that once this guy “got back on his feet” she would annul the marriage, assuming it wouldn’t take long, and then her and her boyfriend could go back as it always was. She didn’t realize how naive the plan sounded, and most of all she expected him to wait for her. Her parents informed her she had to stop seeing him completely, no contact whatsoever to make the marriage look real. That was her breaking point. Instead of the anger she expected from him, she got his pleas, his tears, his begging. He was completely heartbroken. He told her once she walked out his door, she could never come back. If she married this “punk” he could not wait for her. It wasn’t with a heavy heart that she left. She exited his apartment that day completely broken.

She hadn’t heard from him since.

Her cries were muffled by her hand, hoping no one would hear her in the halls of the church, but alas, perhaps someone did because she heard the door creak open to the room she occupied. Wiping her eyes she quickly composed herself, and looked up. She gasped. It was not her mother, whom she had been expecting. The man that stood in the doorway was dressed in a white button down, and black pressed pants. His hair was a reddish-brown color that glinted off the lights making him look devilishly handsome. He stepped foward, and after a nod from her he took a seat on the couch next to her. His green eyes were clear with honesty, warmth, and a bit of trepidation.

“I’m sorry,” was all her offered for a few moments. She stared at him incredulously, her thoughts in an incoherent haze. “I know you don’t want to do this, and it’s incredibly selfless, and noble of you. I only hope to ever have your forgiveness.” He paused and took a deep breath looking intently into her brown eyes. She felt naked with the way he was staring at her, not in a leery way, but as if he could see the deepest pit of her being. “Your incredibly beautiful if I may say so. I just came because I wanted to let you know that I hope we can find some common ground. I would like to…get to know you, and I hope in time we could have a real marriage.”

Her heart started stuttering even more in her chest. It felt like it was about to burst. “What are you asking?”

His looked down for a moment, then reconnected their gaze with his emerald eyes. “I want for us to actually try. I want to see if we could actually work.” He hastened to explain himself more thoroughly. “Not for the money I swear to you.”

As he smiled hopefully at her she admitted to herself the way one side of his mouth lifted higher than the other was charmingly adorable.

“I can’t promise you much, but I can tell your a very sincere person.” She licked her suddenly dry lips. “A-and…I could give it a shot.”

Looking into his kind, green orbs she felt a small chunk of her broken heart heal, and expand for its possible new occupant.

I hurriedly dressed in my ‘going to the wedding’ dress and grabbed all the other bags hanging in the closet as well. After last night, I wasn’t going to risk it, sure Alice must know something I didn’t. This dress was casual and cotton, very nice for the hot and humid August morning we were enduring. I found myself tugging at the skirt, though, wondering why it needed to be so short.

No sooner had I done up the last button than Emmett slammed open the door. “Alice gave me an order to be sure to get your other dresses, just in case you ‘forgot’ them. I am, under no circumstances, allowed to let you talk me out of them,” he laughed as he reached for the pile of bags in my hands. He looked me up and down once before giving me a soft kiss on my cheek. “It’s supposedly too early, but welcome to the family lil’ sis. I’m glad it’s you he’s marrying. I doubt anyone else would put up with him, and us, half as well.”

I felt tears prick my eyes as I took in the huge, at one time intimidating, man in front of me. I could tell that as the years passed we would be having loads of fun together. “Thanks, Emmett. That means a lot,” I said, fighting back the tears that threatened.

“Oh, now don’t cry. I don’t want Itsy Bitsy to kill me for ruining your make-up,” he said, gently wiping away a tear with his massive paw. I sniffled a few times and nodded. He stuck out his arm and led me to the jeep where he hung the bags on the back rail, securing the hangers with duct tape.

I jumped in the seat next to him, Rose had gone on ahead with their two children, their oldest would be our flower girl, and was helping Alice with final arrangements. Emmett took off at such a speed that I wondered if he had at one time trained with the space program. Geez, and I thought Edward drove fast! I held on for dear life, glad I was going to be doing my hair at the church since it was now blowing out the window and tangling with the hangers and duct tape overhead.

Fifteen minutes later we arrived, and I pried my fingers from their white-knuckle grip on the seat. Alice met us there, and quickly hopped into the back, impressive in her five-inch heels, and untapped my hair and the dresses from the roll bar. I gave her an impish look. “Looks like this dress survived, Alice,” I mocked.

“Oh, really? Stand up,” she commanded, and I hopped out of the jeep, right into a mud puddle. The muck splashed up around my feet, filling my shoes and turning the light blue fabric brown around the bottom. “That’s three,” she sang as she jumped off the back onto perfectly dry ground. How could I possibly hit the only mud puddle in the state of Texas during a drought? That’s when I noticed the gardener’s hose leaking down the drive, pooling right under my feet.

I sloshed up to the church, kicking off my shoes and gratefully receiving the towel Alice handed me to dry off my legs before going into the priest’s office. He allowed it to be used as the bride’s chambers for dressing since it had a full length mirror behind the door. Renee came running up to me with wet washcloths and began to try to wash my legs as I walked to where we would be changing. “Mom,” I whined, “can’t that wait until I stop moving at least?”

“Oh, Bella, honey, you never stop moving. Why do you think I’ve learned to do such a good job on the run?” I had to admit, by the time we reached our destination I was clean, even if the dress wasn’t.

Alice, Rose, Renee and Esme went to work on my hair. Rose was breathing out threatening about Emmett for making it so tangled on the drive over, but I actually just sat and enjoyed being pampered. With them all working in concert it didn’t take long for them to do the braids, make the curls, and affix the pins holding up the front as most of it was allowed to cascade down my back. As I glanced at the clock I heard a soft knock on the door.

“Bella?” I heard Edward’s voice from the other side, “you are there, right?” Aw, he thought I might have ditched him! I ran quickly over to the door.

“Yes, Edward. Fifteen minutes,” I hinted. Of course that was only until the start of the ceremony. “Actually, it’s probably another ten hours for what you want.”

“No, Bella, that’s not true. While I do want that, what I’m looking forward to the most will happen in fifteen minutes,” he replied. “I’ll be the one by the preacher.”

“I’ll be the one in white,” I responded.

“Only if you shut up and get over here,” Alice ranted. I could hear Edward’s laugh mirroring my own as I whispered goodbye to him and submitted myself to being dressed.

Before I knew what was happening I was standing outside the doors to the chapel, one arm looped through my father’s, hyperventilating. My dress was a little long, since it had been hemmed to fit the short heels and I was in flats, but I was sure I could manage. The real problem was the flower girl. Maria had taken her assignment for placing the rose petals on the aisle very literally. She took a step, took out one petal and placed it carefully on the ground, stood up, took another step, and repeated the process. I began to wonder if anyone had bothered to measure the length of her stride and counted out how many petals would be needed for her to reach the end. I no longer thought I would be married in fifteen minutes. At this rate, an hour might be pushing it.

I watched as each member of the wedding party flowed out of the vestibule and into the chapel with all the speed of molasses in January during an El Nino year. I could hear them all chuckling at the precise way Maria was placing the petals, commenting that she would probably end up an engineer.

Finally it was my turn to escape the vestibule. I think the organist breathed a sigh of relief over being able to play a different song. Still, she played the wedding march at half speed in order to keep time with little Maria. I grabbed my skirt in my right hand to lift it slightly so I wouldn’t step on it. I should have used my left, but my dad was holding it too high. The problem was that even though I wasn’t stepping on it, my dad was.

Every thirty seconds we took another half step and I heard another tear. Step, rip, step, rip, step, rip. I leaned my head over with a smile, “Dad, you’re stepping on my dress,” I said in a quiet whisper before remembering another problem. Years of shotgun practice had made him deaf in his right ear. I tried to tug my skirt out from under his feet, but that only succeeded in tripping him up. By the time I finally made it to the end of the aisle, at least one-quarter of my skirt was torn away from the bodice.

Luckily, the preacher realized what was happening from my struggles and sent one of the altar boys running. When I handed my flowers off to Alice she simply whispered, “That’s number four.”

I would have retorted, but little Maria let out a huge yawn, and I could see her eyes closing. I reached for her, but was unable to grab her before she fell off the stage. Apparently it was enough to wake her up, as she bounded right back up and stood stock still.

I finally turned to Edward and saw the altar boy slip into his hand the thing I wanted most, a box of safety pins.