Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
“I didn’t realize flowers could scream,” I tease. “But sure. Let’s go with the ivory and purple. Sorry—lilac.”
I force a smile, quickly running out of energy to amuse myself by resisting her at every turn.
Maybe it’s childish.
Okay, let’s be honest—it is childish.
I’m a twenty-four-year-old college educated young woman about to be married. I’ve been to both finishing school and a debutante ball. I spent an entire year living abroad in Europe when I was seventeen. I can speak three languages fluently and am currently working on a fourth. But since no one else dares to give my mother an ounce of any kind of guff and I’m her only child, that duty lands solely on me.
“You two mind if I step out and grab an iced coffee?” I fight a yawn. The closer we get to the “big day,” the more sleep evades me. I’m lucky if I got four mediocre hours last night. “Addison, can I grab you anything? Mom?”
Annoyance flickers in my mother’s intense deep blue glare, but she says nothing. She doesn’t drink coffee anyway (it stains her snow-white smile), but I had to offer or else I’d never hear the end of it on the car ride home.
“I’m fine, but thank you, Campbell,” Addison says.
“Don’t be long, please.” Mom turns back to the florist, motioning with her hands as she describes her vision for my bouquet.
The jangle of the bells on the door as I exit sounds like freedom, and I drag in a lungful of damp late February air as I hit the snow-melted sidewalk. Maine winters are particularly never-ending, but today feels like the tiniest preview of spring.
The line at the coffee shop next door is at least seven people deep, maybe eight. I let an older woman go ahead of me before holding the door for a tired-looking mom pushing identical twin girls in a double stroller. She offers to let me go ahead of her once we’re inside, but I insist on taking my place at the very end of the line. Even if I weren’t stalling, I’d still let her go first.
Motherhood (unless you have a staff of ten on your payroll) looks hard as hell—twins or not. I imagine she needs all the caffeine in existence and then some.
Ten minutes later, I’m walking out, iced caramel latte in hand, when my phone chimes. I don’t need to look down to know it’s probably my mother wondering what’s taking so long.
But I check anyway.
Only it isn’t a series of question marks like I expected.
SLADE: Flight got cancelled. Coming in tomorrow at six.
I refuse to believe His Royal American Highness is flying commercial when he has a private jet at his disposal 24/7. Private flights get delayed all the time, but cancelled? Doubtful.
ME: [thumbs up emoji]
I’ve learned over the years, the fewer words we exchange, the better—especially when it comes to anything in written or texted format.
Thank goodness for emojis … doing the Lord’s work.
When I return to the flower shop, I find Addison and my mother in the back, paging through some photo album with ornate gold edges. The two of them are so deep in conversation about centerpieces they don’t notice me for a solid three minutes—long enough for me to mentally sing the newest Taylor Swift song in my head.
“Oh, Campbell, when did you get back?” Mom chuckles, her manicured hand splayed over her chest like she wasn’t just shooting me daggers fifteen minutes earlier. “We were just discussing centerpieces, and I think we should do a whole spray of lilacs at the bridal table and then smaller versions at the tables in the front, you know, where family and our guests of honor will be sitting.”
Addison nods, feverishly jotting notes in a pale yellow notepad. She flips to a clean page and continues scribbling as my mother waxes on about her ideas for the bridesmaid bouquets. Her handwriting is tiny but elegant, much like my mother.
“Sounds good,” I say before taking a sip of my iced latte. “Oh. Slade changed his flight to tomorrow.”
Her red lips flatten and she peers my way, squinting as if she’s attempting to read between lines that aren’t there. But she will find neither excitement nor relief on my face.
For years we went round and round on this whole arranged marriage thing. I even showed her how awful Slade’s letters were, illustrated how miserable we’d be together, painted pictures of how wonderful my life would be if it were filled with real love and babies born to two loving parents … but nothing I said or did convinced her or my father to budge.
If anything, the more I resisted, the more they doubled down on their convictions, keeping me under their thumb even more and micromanaging my whereabouts and controlling my extracurriculars in any way possible. They even went so far as to send me to all girls’ schools to ensure I wouldn’t be tempted to meet a boy and run off with him. When it came time for college, my choices were narrowed down to a handful of the only all-female universities in the country.