CHAPTER 1
Elodie
We’re getting to that part. You know, the good part as far as weddings go. The part everyone wakes up for, and the one bit of the ceremony that isn’t a snooze fest. The in sickness and in health part. It’s only a few minutes away now, and after that, I’ll be in for a lifetime of marital shit. In the department of I do, I’m very solidly in the I don’t. As in, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life married to a man I don’t love.
Where is he? Where the hell is he?
He promised. If there’s one person I trust in the world more than Jeffers—okay, Jeffers is a dog, not a person—it’s Taylen. He’s a practical joker with a sharp, acerbic wit, and he’s my childhood best friend. He’s still my best friend. We tell people that we met in a support group for people who have meddling, eccentric grannies. He has an important role to play in my wedding ceremony today, so he better be freaking here.
Fuck my life with a dill pickle.
I’m starting to sweat, and I’m most definitely perspiring onto this ridiculous dress, which has ruffles and bows. It’s a monstrosity of eighties proportions. Mom picked it out. My dad picked the groom, so I guess that gave her dibs on the wedding dress. They either had it all figured out, or they rock paper scissored for it. Maybe they drew straws.
Where the H-E-L-L is Taylen?
We’re in a church, and right now, the pastor with the shiny bald head in the white robe is getting to the part that I am in serious need of being rescued from. No matter what I do—pass out, puke, or have my legs turn into actual sludge—I know I won’t be able to save myself. This wedding will go on even if I sprout nine additional heads or pull a flaming sword out of my ass. If the pastor goes any further, I’m going to end up as Mrs. Henry Martin Johnathan Chadwick Horton Peterson Jr.
Yes. As if it was necessary to stick a Jr. to the back of such an atrociously long name.
I’ll be Mrs. Henry Martin Johnathan Chadwick Horton Peterson Jr. for life. I’ll be a woman with approximately six hundred names. I’m clearly not so good with numbers, so how did I become a teacher, you might ask? Well, I’m good with what counts when it counts, and right now, standing here at someone else’s idea of a fairy tale wedding, minutes away from being forced to promise my life to a man I hardly even know, and the parts I do know, I don’t like, it’s not a good moment. So how did I get myself into this situation?
The long and short of it is that my parents are sinfully rich, and in the world of rich and not-so-famous people, I guess fathers like to choose husbands for their daughters. Or at least my dad did. He did give me a fair warning, though. He told me if I wasn’t married to some equally rich guy—handsome, rising star, old money, already a star, or someone with lots of new money even if it isn’t as good as old money but would still pass, and did I mention rich—by the time I was thirty, he was going to choose for me. Naively, I didn’t believe him.
That is until Henry Martin Johnathan Chadwick Horton Peterson Jr. showed up at dinner one night. The rest is, as they say, history. It’s been three years, but at least my parents put up with a longer engagement so we wouldn’t be complete strangers, although we technically still are. I think in the past three years since Henry got down on one knee at the very first dinner where I met him, we might have been in the same room all of three times, and usually only for a few minutes. It’s about all we can stand being in each other’s company.
Every single time I saw Henry, he wore a polo shirt and white pants. I half expected him to show up today wearing the same, but no. He came in a white tux. My parents took care of all the details for the wedding, so my bridesmaids are also women I barely know. I would never have wanted my real friends to be a part of this sham of a wedding anyway. Plus, I had plans all along to ditch it. Or is it trash and crash it? Well, whatever it is, I don’t care since I have no plans whatsoever of marrying Henry.
The pastor then turns to me and gives me the are you ready to promise your life away look. Henry’s already done his part.
This stupid dress is so soaked with sweat that it feels like it weighs a hundred freaking pounds. I think I might throw up. I’m also sure I might have to do this myself, even though I have no idea how I’m going to pull it off. Frockstickle. How will I get away without a getaway car? All my shit is with Taylen—my dog, my escape bag, my wallet, and a pouch of all the cash I could scrape together without raising my parents’ suspicions since they still have my finances on a tight leash.