To Have and To Hold

Chapitre Un

The voluptuous bride was leaning over the edge of the elegant stone bridge, mascara streaming in black waves down her face, threatening to throw her ungodly ring into the water's depths below. If she were to lean any further, her ginormous skirts would be a flutter in the wind as she fell over.

Before I make myself sound like a huge jerk, I know that weddings were supposed to be stressful. Tears weren't a far reach. But this wasn't the sort of crying where a tissue could save the mascara. No, this was the splotchy neck, swollen eyes, rivers of snot kind of crying. The Ugly Cry. The Oh-Bleep-What-Am-I-Doing Cry.

It was a horrible sight, truly. But I couldn't stop from feeling a little entertained. If that didn't explain my awful character, I didn't know what would.

"Annabeth," one of the girls from the gaggle of bridesmaids called to her. "Come down, Annabeth. Come off the ledge."

But Annabeth, the bride who was hiccupping on the icy breaths—because, seriously, it was thirty degrees and we were all standing without coats on, trying to calm this crazy-show—shook her head, her perfectly coiffed curls sticking to her cheeks. "No, no, I can't! I can't do this!"

In response to her words, the gaggle gasped, as if they had all been signaled by a cue card or something.

Though I was wearing the ungodly wedding dress—because lime green was in—I was distinctly set apart from that group. Probably because they were all acting as if throwing herself over the three-foot ledge was going to result in anything other than a twisted ankle and a soaked wedding dress.

Although, to them, that probably was the end of the world.

One of the bridesmaids turned around, only one eye coated in eyeshadow. The one eye found mine, narrowing in a black slit as she took a step toward me. "Alice," she hissed in my direction. "Stop staring as if she's a form of entertainment and do something."

I lifted my palms from where they'd been hugging my elbows. "What do you expect me do to, Jasmine?" I asked her. "If she's not going to listen to you, she sure isn't going to listen to me."

"She listens to you," she said, and her stilettos clacked on the concrete as she stepped before me. "She values your opinion."

"Values my opinion," I repeated, feeling as if I tasted something bad. My eyes lifted to where the bride choked on a sob, burying her head in her arms, which had to be freezing resting on the stone bridge. "I barely know her."

"You've known her for the past five years," Jasmine said, and rolled her eyes. "You're in her wedding. You know her and she listens to you."

She kept enunciating certain words, as if I were a child, and it was starting to get me irritated. Especially because I was freezing my butt off. "If I attempt to tame the beast, will you lay off?"

Jasmine swatted at me, none too gentle. "Your personality is so sparkling, you know that?"

I didn't say anything in reply, because she wasn't wrong. I mean, I'd call myself an empathetic gal, but there was something about this overload of drama that made me want to turn the other way and run. But running wasn't an option, not in these hooker heels.

The gaggle of bridesmaids parted like the Red Sea for me when I approached, as if I either had leprosy or they were too afraid of what I might do to bring Annabeth away from her ledge of despair. It wasn't like I was about to start grabbing fistfuls of hair.

"Watch this trainwreck," I heard one of the bridesmaids huff, and instantly recognized her voice. I didn't even have to turn.

There were some voices one instantly recognized. Like the voice of their lover, or the sigh of their mother. Or, you know, the voice of your mortal enemy. Christi Gafferton, sister of the groom, stealer of boyfriends, was mine.