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)
“You didn’t have to come here,” I say.”
“Don’t,” she says. “Besides, Delia wouldn’t want you to go through this alone.”
She’s not wrong—in fact, the more I get to know my future wife, the more I’m realizing she seldom is.
.
Slade—
In 365 days, we’re going to be married. In my younger years, I’d hoped by this point we’d be exchanging love letters instead of hate mail. Ha! Next month is our engagement party which will kick off this entire shit show, and since we’ll be spending more time together from now on, these letters will no longer be necessary. (Were they ever though?)
All of this to say, this is my final letter to you.
The end of one era … the beginning of another.
Here’s hoping this one’s better.
Campbell (age 23)
Campbell—
Don’t you ever get tired of hoping for things? It’s such a waste of time.
Slade (age 24)
Slade—
Okay, I meant for that to be my last letter to you, but since you asked a question, I wanted to respond. No. I never get tired of hoping. It’s important that you know that about me as we go into this marriage. I will always hope for the best, even when things are at their worst. It’s just who I am.
Campbell (age 23)
21
Campbell
“Oh, Campbell.” My mom gasps as my bridal attendant fastens the final button and fluffs my veil. “You look so beautiful, I could just cry.”
She’s being dramatic per usual, but I, too, could cry.
Albeit for different reasons.
“What? What is it?” she asks when she notices the expression I’m wearing beneath the curtain of tulle covering my face.
My lower lip quivers. Crying on my wedding day wasn’t on my BINGO card. I thought I’d be indifferent if anything. Masking. Putting on a good face so I could get through the day. But now that this day is actually here, it’s not at all what I expected.
“What’s going on?” Stassi takes my other side, placing her hand on the small of my back. “What’s wrong?”
Tenley and Elise glance up from the other side of the room, their conversation turning abruptly silent.
“Girls, could you give us a moment, please?” Mom asks.
My bridesmaids usher out into the hall in their matching lavender dresses, my attendant, hair stylist, photographer, and makeup artist close behind them.
Mom lifts my veil and gently places it behind my back. “You’re supposed to be walking down the aisle in ten minutes. Julio just finished your makeup. Now is not the time to do this, Campbell. I’m telling you, whatever you’re feeling, push it down. Deal with it later. Six hundred people traveled from all over the world to watch you two exchange vows. Don’t embarrass yourself.”
Her stare is frigid and her lips are terse against her teeth.
Instead of motherly advice, I’m getting a warning.
“He hates me,” I tell her, holding back a brutal sob that wants to escape. My chest burns as I hold my breath until the sensation subsides. “He has always hated me … and he always will. I can’t do this. I can’t marry him. I thought I could, but I’d rather—”
The slap catches me off guard.
I lift my hand to my cheek which only slightly stings since she was sure not to hit me hard enough to leave a mark, but I’m stunned nonetheless.
My mother has never struck me in her life.
“You’re marrying him,” she says. “Pull yourself together and get over it, Campbell. You don’t have a choice.”
“I don’t need my inheritance.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Mom throws her hands in the air. “You can’t honestly expect to announce this at zero hour …”
She continues ranting and pacing, but I tune her out.
Last month when Delia passed, I hopped on a plane as soon as I heard. Within hours, I was at Slade’s house—our house—waiting to comfort him the minute he walked through the door. While he let me hold him and keep him company through the week that followed, not once did he soften. I gave him some grace, of course. He’d just lost his mother. But it was the conversation we had after the rehearsal dinner last night that solidified everything for me.
“I’m never going to love you,” he told me as he stole me aside on our way out. “I’m never going to be able to give you what you need. I’m never going to be the person you want me to be. I think you deserve to know that. I just don’t want you going into this with your hopes up.”
While hope shattered in my heart like a million tiny shards of glass, I wore my best poker face, remaining stoic and appearing unaffected.
“Tell me something I don’t already know,” I told him. “But I have to ask, is there someone else?”
“No,” he told me without pause, though for all I knew, he could’ve been lying. Despite all of our letters and all the time we’d spent together, I still hardly knew the real Slade.