“I did a lot for you over the years,” Harry said, letting his smile fall when the wedding photographer left. His arm fell away from my shoulders too. “If you want to leave, leave after the wedding. Have the decency to suck it up and pretend.”
“Fine,” I said, coolly. “I’ll put on a smile for you.”
Harry sighed in exasperation. “I’d like to think you’re still my friend and will forgive me once this day is over. This wedding has been stressful.”
I lined up behind Harry while we watched the wedding guests file into the chapel. I could feel dirty looks and glares burning holes into the back of my head from the other groomsmen. I closed my eyes as I prayed for the next hour to fly by. I didn’t want to be a part of this charade any longer.
Once the doors to the chapel closed, we waited for the planner to arrive to tell us to walk down to our places. A few minutes stretched by in intense silence. I shifted my feet anxiously while I waited for the planner to pop up cheerfully as she always did. Except, she never came, and hushed whispers were filling the church.
The doors to the chapel opened up. I leaned forwards to look over Harry’s shoulder to see a flash of magenta fabric. One of the bridesmaids. She rushed down the wedding aisle amid all the whispering.
“What the fuck?” Harry whispered, leaning out to also watch. “What is she doing?”
She turned on a black heel, clutching her small bouquet of flowers, and headed directly toward us. The expression on the girl’s pretty face was plain as a hot summer day. She stepped into the side room where we stood.
“Where’s the wedding planner?” she asked.
“Not in here,” Harry said, shortly. “What is it? What is going on?”
“Are we doing this wedding or not?” Jacob called out, clearly irritated with the stall. “What’s the holdup? I’ve got things to do after this.”
She looked apprehensive when she looked up at Harry. “I can’t find Molly. She isn’t here.”
Chapter Two
Molly
Ashburton, England
There were very times in my life that I was superstitious. Today, on my wedding of all days, I believed in those terrifying and gut-wrenching signs. There was an abandoned cemetery next to the church. Many of the headstones had fallen over from years of decaying, like the bodies and coffins beneath.
Alice Jackson, my wedding planner, had insisted that there wasn’t anything left besides the headstones. They had moved everything to a proper place, but I had done my research because I couldn’t shake the feeling off.
The buried dead were unwanted beneath those tumbled headstones. No one ever claimed them, and they were left behind in case there ever was a day that someone wanted to visit. While the church itself was a beautiful wedding venue in Ashburton, I knew it would be a sign of something unpleasant to come.
A soft and warm hand clasped mine. I looked down at the freshly manicured fingers before looking numbly up at Peyton—my best friend, my maid of honor. She knew the meaning of true and hard friendship. That much I was grateful for even after what she told me.
“I’m sorry,” Peyton said, and her perfectly contoured face stretched into a guilty grimace. “I debated on telling you about it—”
“I’m glad you did,” I said, and I was grateful for her honesty. God only knew that I didn’t have much honesty around me. “I was about to marry that douche bag. I’m glad you said something to me about last night.”
“I tried to tell you earlier, too. You were so wrapped up in getting ready. This was the only time I could find you alone without the other bridesmaids around.”
I squeezed her hand. My own bouquet of flowers had fallen to the ground after what Peyton had told me. I picked it back up since they were beautiful flowers. It didn’t seem fair to ruin perfectly good flowers for no reason.
A part of me cautioned to not ask for the details, but I was brimming with disappointment. I needed to know what Peyton had seen specifically.
I traced the soft petals of one of the flowers in the bouquet. “What did you see exactly?”
Peyton sighed as she looked at me sadly. “I couldn’t sleep with the time change, so I went for a walk past the pub. That’s when I saw Harry with her outside. They were kissing each other.” I flinched inwardly. “I was going to confront him, but his groomsmen were there. They were all encouraging it. I don’t know where the best man was, but they went inside. That’s when I went up to the window to watch them disappear upstairs to what I assume was a room.”
“There are rooms you can rent above the pub,” I said, distantly. “They had rented them, so they wouldn’t have to drive around drunk.”
“I guess that’s probably the smartest thing Harry did that night: not drive around these tight streets.”
I smiled a little. It was Peyton’s first time abroad. She hadn’t even batted an eyelash when I called for her to come to England for a week for the wedding. Giving her tours around Ashburton and Devon had provided a distraction from the sick feeling that I was about to make a big mistake.
I stared down at the lacy and white skirts of my wedding dress. There were a few grass stains at the very bottom from walking outside when Peyton had burst into the tiny room to tell me what she had seen.