I was trying to wrap my head around the story Will Oh told me. My entire life changed in a matter of minutes, and I was trying to figure what to do.
Phil’s bitter disappointment surged and crested on our ride over to the church. I wanted to reassure him but I was still trying to harness my thoughts in the midst of a tempest that was blowing through my mind.
When I slipped my hands into my father’s, he marched into the church without looking back at me.
My wedding party has just walked down the aisle and my mind is still like a snowed out screen.
Then my song cues up.
I picked this song for my processional so that he’d be with me as I made the most difficult walk of my life.
Now, I realize how silly that was.
Carter has always been my muse. But, he’s not here.
He’s not mine.
And the only person who can put an end to my misery is me.
The veil of guilt I’d spent the last two years behind obstructed this simple truth. Thanks to Will and what he told me in the library, that’s gone.
With that certainty woven into the very lining of my heart, I slip my arm out of my father’s and stop where I am.
Whatever else he may be, slow on the uptake isn’t one of them.
It only takes him half a step to notice.
His shoulders draw back and he his ribcage expands with the breath he draws before he swivels on his heel to look at me.
His expression is calm, and unequivocally angry.
“You will not do this.” His wolf like, ice blue eyes blaze with remonstration and narrowed in warning.
Fear clogs my throat and I let it. I don’t pretend not to feel it. I don’t try to push it away. I make room for it, right behind my conviction. And just like that, fear is no longer in the lead.
“The only way I’ll make it to that altar is if you drag me. And I know you don’t want your friends to see you do that.” My voice doesn’t quiver, my determination doesn’t waver.
Instead, my courage grows.
He strides toward me, and then halts suddenly when he realizes the photographer is with us in this vestibule.
His cheeks puff out, and a flush sweeps across the rise of them. I’ve never seen from him rattled.
“How much do you want?” he asks hurriedly.
“How much what?” I feign confusion.
“Money. How much?” He asks stiffly.
I scoff and shake my head. “How small your world must be for you to believe with such certainty that entire lives can be bargained away for something as fungible as money.”
I stole that line from Will. I had to ask him what fungible meant, and when he said, “In essence it’s anything you could replace without anyone knowing the difference.”
I learned in the space of seconds it took him to explain it what I failed to understand properly all these months. – I was giving Duke invaluable, irreplaceable gifts — years of my life, legitimacy, financial security all in exchange for, something I could get anywhere.
But Will didn’t seek me out to give me relationship advice. He was seeking atonement.
I wasn’t sure that I’d been able to give him that. But he gave me my freedom in exchange. What he told me ensured that I will never marry Duke. Not now, that I know what he’s done.
“Stop talking in riddles and name your price,” my father growls, leaning toward me.
The church door opens and Phil sticks his head out. “Hey, is every—” he stops when he sees the tense standoff taking place.
“Get those fucking cameras out of here,” my father snarls at the crew that’s hovering nervously around us.
They don’t need to be told twice. They scurry outside.
“Liz?” Phil calls.
“Phillip, go and ask our guests to wait a few minutes. Your sister needs a few minutes,” my father snaps without looking back at him.
“I need a lifetime. I’m not going in there. I’m leaving,” I tell my father.
He clenches his jaw, his expression that of someone whose chewing glass and trying to pretend it’s not cutting their mouth.
“Let me get rid of the guests. We can have the ceremony in private.”
I laugh. “You can do what you want. Nothing could make me marry the man who’s responsible for my brother’s death.”
He blinks, genuine surprise flickers across his face.
“What are you talking about?”
“Shit,” Phil says and looks over his shoulder quickly. “Duke’s coming down the aisle. The best thing for everyone is for this to not end with a loud scene,” he says.
I nod in agreement. “Can you get me out of here?” I ask him.
“Liz, what the fuck?” Duke explodes through the door, his face is mottled red by fury.
He comes to stand in front of me, so close I can smell the perfume of whoever left the smudge of pink lipstick that’s still on the corner of his mouth.
God, he’s such a cliché.
I step away but keep my eyes on his so he can see that it’s revulsion, not fear, propelling me.
“You can go straight to hell,” I snarl at him.
“Elisabeth, you owe us an explanation, now,” My father demands angrily.
I don’t take my eyes off Duke. “Will Oh was here,” I say.
“So? What does he have to do with anything?” Duke’s eyes bulge with anger.
“I know it was you who called James that night. He was talking to Will and told him what you said.”
Duke’s face pales and he takes a step back.
“He’s lying.” His eyes swing to my father and grows even paler.
“You told James that I was hurt and your car had a flat. You lured him to his death. And when my father blamed me, you didn’t say a word.” I deliver the accusation with a challenge, daring him to deny it.
His anxious gaze darts to my father, and he grows even paler. I glance at my dad. He’s glaring at Duke, his expression ice cold and furious.
Duke’s cheeks go from pale to florid and he rears back in indignation. “You bitch,” he snarls.
“That’s better than being a vile, mediocre man who has to drug girls for sex and marry them for money.”
Phil snickers and the covers it with a cough. I don’t take my eyes off the pit viper standing in front of me.
“You will regret that,” he hisses.
“Elisabeth, stop this nonsense,” my father snaps.
“I answer to Beth. And didn’t you hear what I said?”
“Yes, and it doesn’t matter. You owe me,” he growls.
“You motherfucker,” Phil’s oath is low but dangerously dark and my father narrows his eyes at him but doesn’t say anything.
“Liz, this is a misunderstanding. Let’s go ahead like we planned. You promised,” Duke pleads.
I turn my contempt filled gaze on him. “My brother is dead because of you. But I’d rather starve than let you profit from it.”
Fiona and my grandmother step out of the sanctuary, now.
“What’s going on. People are getting antsy,” my grandmother’s terse question is barbed in anxiety.
They all have so much riding on today. I’ve never been so happy to disappoint anyone in my whole life.
I’ll look back on this moment and marvel at how calm I was on the edge of my life.