The TwELFth Before Xmas

Day 12

👰🏽‍♂️Darla

I grab my cell phone, capturing this magical moment before my life changes forever.

The flowers in the wedding hall are splendid and carefully arranged alongside the aisle I will soon be walking. I want one last look at the décor before the room fills with guests. There is something magical about a silent, empty, decorated ceremony space. It’s filled with possibilities of love, friendship, and a promise of forever.

The ceremony space is pure in its solemn watchfulness. Day after day, a witness to expressions of devotion as it looks over couples trusting their forever to someone they think is worthy of their love. Promises will be spoken and received. Jewelry will pass from one hand to another, exchanged through tears of joy, and the hungry click of cameras will capture special moments that surprise the happy couple in the best way.

Later on, laughter will be shared, drinks poured, good food eaten, hugs and kisses shared, and well wishes spoken. If we are lucky, wedding cards with kind words of advice will wrap around cash, gift cards, and re-gifted items. Wild hips and arms will swing in drunken dancing until the witching hour.

I’m Darla Carver, soon to be Darla McQueen. Today is my wedding day. Preston, my man of honor extraordinaire,  meticulously makes sure today is perfection, including the date. Christmas is Peter and I’s favorite holiday. We decided to get married twelve days before Christmas to count down our anniversary every year.

You probably think it’s cheesy, reader, but it’s not. It’s Peter’s and my; it’s our special thing.

“Darla, there you are, honey, come on,” Preston, my man of honor, is unsuccessfully trying to drag me back to the hotel suite for the getting-ready pictures. I wanted to take it all in before it passed by in a blur of activity.

“Darla!” Preston bellowed with his hands on his hips.

“Ok. Just a minute Preston, I want to look at the -”

“No. Come on now. You will not be a basic bride and run three hours late. I have a life outside of your wedding day, honey!” Preston rolled his eyes and popped his tongue.

“Ok, meanie. I’m coming,”  the smile on my face was genuine for my best friend. He was right. I did not want to run late.

After what seemed like a very long photo shoot of me with my bridal party in our robes, flutes of orange juice and champagne are passed around accompanied by fruit slices, grain crackers, and cheeses. As we rehash old memories, there is lots of laughter, happy tears flowing, and lips smiling.

The final touches to our hair and makeup are on the agenda next. Christmas-themed manicures and pedicures are checked and re-checked for any minor imperfection. Now we are bustled into our wedding attire while the photographers and videographers painstakingly capture every genuine and set up moment and emotion.

I even did a sexy boudoir shoot to gift my husband to be. Shhh, reader, it’s a surprise.

This day was shaping up to be the best day of my life.

“OK, ladies, let’s get a few bridal party shots with the bride. Just in case the snow gets worse after the ceremony. We are going to go to the lobby. There is an interesting alcove that will make for some unique pictures,” The paparazzi group of photographers led the way out of the bridal suite.

I am still in a daze. I am here with my most important family and friends, about to marry the man I adore enough to share the rest of my life. He wasn’t my soulmate, but we make a good pair—same goals, ambition level, and opinions. Everyone said so.

Am I settling?

Maybe a little.

As my bridal entourage crossed the lobby, my eyes made contact with an unusual pair of green eyes set inside the chiseled face of the most beautifully handsome man I have ever seen.  I stumbled slightly. The voluminous material around the bottom of the fit and flare dress caught on my heel. Luckily one of my bridesmaids caught me as the man just stared at me with a slight judgmental shake of his neatly braided platinum blonde-haired head.

That was awkward and a tad embarrassing.

“Let’s get everyone lined up,” The photographer’s assistant ordered. They were lining us up in a staggered configuration; this is the shot that will most likely find its way into top bridal magazines.

I noticed one of the bridesmaids was missing. What was her name? Kelly, I think, was a woman picked by the groom’s parents. I didn’t know her that well, but Peter’s parents said they grew up together, stuck at the hip until they were ten years old. His mom convinced me to add her to my bridal party as a favor to them.

Her family had moved away but had recently returned to West Brooke Landing, a posh gentrified city thirty miles from Serene. Kelly was the only thing not originally in our meticulously prepared plan. Peter had to hurry and find an extra groomsman. Luckily he had lots of friends.

Peter and I have our eye on a condo in the upscale city of Serene. We had a coed bachelor and bachelorette party at the high-end Glisse nightclub and partied in one of the famous Looking Glass rooms. It was a 6-month wait to get in, and it had been a spectacular night. I had old family money, plus I owned a successful beauty and fashion line. Peter came from a lucrative financial advisor background.

The photographer looked at the photos and said, “I thought you had eight bridesmaids. I am counting only seven.”

One of the other girls in the bridal party mentioned she overheard the missing girl say that she had to make a pit stop in the restroom.

“I’ll get her,” I volunteered, needing a quick break. “She probably is feeling like an extra wheel since she doesn’t know us.” Random strangers congratulated me and snapped my photo on the way back across the lobby. Down the hall to where I figured the closest restroom was, I came across that same beautiful platinum-haired man with delicate yet sharp features and fair skin, looking out of the large windows at the bustling holiday crowds.

The snow outside lightly fell and covered the holiday-decorated downtown in a white, cold blanket of holiday cheer. The West Brooke Landing Tower Hotel is a spectacular showcase of high style for the coming holidays. It was a perfect place to sit and drink cocoa while people-watching. He turned, leaving his post by the window as soon as I got close enough to speak. His eyes reminded me of fresh evergreen neon pothos leaves. A cool shiver passed through my body as our eyes meant once more. I stepped directly in his path.

“Excuse me, have you seen a brunette in a mint green dress come this way?” I put my hands in the hidden pockets and touched my cellphone. For some reason, the small action comforted me.

He looked at me for a moment. He seemed to be considering whether I was worth answering. Then looked around curiously as if I had the insane audacity to be speaking to him.

Interesting. How is this bride of man able to see me? Edlin thought.

What was so confusing?

‘It was a simple yes or no question,’ I thought. ‘Pompous prick,’ I thought before deciding to move on.

He spoke just as I turned away from him.

“Yes...but she went into the men’s restroom. She probably didn’t take the time to read the sign. You would think she would have figured out her error by now,” His tone indicated that she was daft.

“Thank you, sir,” I say as I head down the hall. A cool sliver from the unexpected pleasantness and slight accent in his voice tingled down my spine.

“You make an unexpectedly beautiful bride. Good luck on the happiest day of your life!” I know he meant it as a compliment, but it seemed almost like a backhanded slight, and honestly, a little ominous.

I had no worries. Everything was going to plan. Months of stringent planning culminated in today. A day, so far, expertly executed, with the help of Preston, who had a backup for every backup. Absolutely nothing was going wrong on Preston’s watch.

I reached the door and hesitated. I mean, it was the men’s room, for gosh sake. I am wasting time just standing here, and besides, men and women share bathrooms all the time. More places have unisex bathrooms these days; what’s the big deal? I pulled on the heavy door and my attention gravitated to the right in a lounge-type area.

Peter raised his head from between this woman’s legs and promptly shoved himself into her. I  couldn’t move for a moment until my fingers slid across my cell phone. I quietly took it out and recorded them. This way, there was no way he could lie and make it look like I was some crazy bridezilla.

Tears streamed quietly down my face as he whispered how good she felt, but they had to hurry up before anyone missed them. My heart tore right down the center as I struggled to find my breath and remain composed.

“Don’t rush on my account, Peter,” I said, waiting just long enough to get their facial reaction and turning on my heel, bursting out of the men’s room and running back down the hall. Tears exploded from my eyes and fell like waterfalls down my cheeks.

I barely registered the beautiful man who had sent me down the hall to my wedding day ruination, watching me curiously.

Was that concern on his face?

I got to the lobby and announced there would be no wedding.

“The wedding is off!” I shrieked in tears.

Preston bulldozed past me with a murderous glint in his eyes in the direction I had just come.

I sent the video clip to the hired photography team, set up in the ceremony room, with a message to play the clip and turn up the volume immediately. I was less than fifteen minutes away from marrying that cheating asshat.

This is not happening! We planned almost everything together.

Peter asked me to marry him. I didn’t rope Peter, Peter, fucking cheater, into marrying me. I was okay with just being a couple.

With tears cascading down my face, I grabbed my hooded cloak. The cloak was supposed to be used in the following photos and ran through the reception room. You may be denying me a perfectly planned dream wedding, but I was going to have my cake and eat it too. Grabbing a precut slice of wedding cake, shoving it in my mouth then, swiping my middle finger through the green icing from the bottom of the cake to the top, I shot a green icing bird at the photographer, who followed me unscrupulously snapping pictures. There would be no fixing that cake or our relationship.

I continued running. I ended up out into the lightly snowing afternoon, my ridiculously high custom heels slipping on an ice patch; because, why not?

I wasn’t mad about falling.

I face everything head-on and with bravery. I would be a little bruised and battered but would rise stronger. I was already falling lower than I ever had in my life. What was one more little trip? My perfectly scheduled, safe, and best-laid-planned life was predictable and a little boring. This incident would be something I would look back on one day and have a good laugh. Today, however, was not that day.

No dear reader, I was terrified! When I looked through teary eyes and saw myself gliding into the path of an oncoming bus. There was nothing to grab onto or slow my motion. There would be no rising from this fall.

This is it.

I am literally and figuratively getting fucking ran over twice in one day. My dream wedding day!

I close my eyes. I feel the tears freezing in my eyelashes and down my cheeks. I will not scream or rage against the dying of my light. Bracing for the inevitable impact, I go to my happy place in my mind.  I will die a jilted bride in a designer wedding dress, hit by the Route-12 downtown city bus.

©️~Venis Nytes

Song Inspiration

Happiest Day of My Life ( From “Favola”) - Gala

Cheater, Cheater - Joey, and Rory

Cheater - The Vamps

The Meetings of the Waters - Fiona Regan

Face Full of Snow- Steven Bolar

City of the Dead - Eurielle

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