Nuptials

Chapter 5

Thursday 13th October 2016.

Owen and Amelia sat in awkward silence at the breakfast table, the only sounds being their spoons hitting their bowls and Rosie babbling as she sat in her highchair. Ryan sat comfortably and quietly next to his sister, enjoying his scrambled eggs. Occasionally, Owen would steal glances at Amelia, at her stoic and uncaring demeanour, and he longed to address whatever issues they were having so that they could just go back to being happy.

"Is everything alright?" he asked, trying to be discreet to not attract attention from Ryan about their tension.

Amelia paused, her eyes moving from her bowl of cereal to glare at him. "Why did you think I was drinking?"

Guilt flooded him as he frowned in shame. "I don't know, I just thought that you were upset about Cristina coming to the wedding, and that I didn't tell you." She didn't respond to his statement, choosing to go back to eating her cereal. "Is that it?" he asked when he realised, she wasn't going to talk.

"I invited Ryan to our wedding," she mumbled. She could see him tensing up and, although it was petty, she enjoyed the fact that he was getting upset about it.

"Why did you invite him and not consult me first?" he asked, clenching tightly onto his spoon.

"May I remind you that you invited your ex-wife to our wedding without consulting me either," she bitterly said to him. His face got red with frustration at her declaration as he tried to figure out a comeback.

"I don't have a child with Cristina," he stated, "Not to mention the fact that we have no unresolved feelings between each other." He looked at Amelia accusingly, watching as she stood up from the kitchen table.

"Are you sure about that?" Amelia wondered aloud, her pitch high, "Your feelings looked pretty unresolved when you two snuck into that conference room yesterday."

Confused, Owen asked, "What are you talking about?" Amelia sighed and rolled her eyes, not in the mood to play this game with him.

"I have to go shower," she said, walking off before she could give him a chance to figure out what was going on. Owen could barely register the last five minutes; their argument had happened so fast. Then he remembered that she'd mentioned something about him being in a room with Cristina, and everything suddenly clicked.

"Amelia, open the door," he called, banging on the bathroom door. After about ten seconds of consistent knocking, she finally relented, opening the door to reveal that she hadn't even undressed yet.

Owen raised his phone to her eye level so that she could see. "This is what we were in the conference room talking about."

"I don't understand, what am I looking at?" Amelia asked, squinting as she stared at the photo.

"It's your wedding gift," he explained, and it was then that it clicked. Her eyes lit up while he explained. "It is an inoperable tumour patient that she brought from her hospital." She looked up at him, tears brimming in her eyes.

Looking back at the scans, she muttered, "Your wedding gift was a tie tack."

"Why are we still having this conversation about Cristina?" Owen asked, his blue eyes begging for her to speak the truth. She wanted to tell him that she didn't feel secure as a part of his life, but she knew that probably wasn't entirely true.

"Why are we still fighting about Ryan?" She could see the look of disappointment in his eyes as he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"He comes around and asks you for money and you give it to him," he justified, "That's why we're fighting about this. Because you make poor decisions like giving away your money to a junkie, and you just invited that junkie to our wedding!"