Don't Kiss the Bride

All morning Jude has been swearing up and down that once this is over, I’ll feel much better and I’ll realize all this worry was for nothing.

I hope he’s right, so I can finally rest my mind. My anxiety has been in overdrive all week.

But then Lisa Rottworth walks into the waiting room—Paige’s ultimate BFF and right-hand mean girl. Don’t ask me how Lisa got into the cool crowd with a last name like Rottworth, but somehow, she pulled it off.

Lisa glances at me with total disinterest as she and her mother take the seats across from me. I chose to be comfy today and wore black leggings, sneakers, and a white hoodie. I didn’t bother putting makeup on. Lisa must not be here for surgery because she’s decked out in full-glam makeup including fake eyelashes, high-heeled boots, skinny jeans, hoop earrings big enough to do acrobatics in, and a cashmere sweater. Being popular must be exhausting. Who wants to look perfect every moment of every day?

She’s probably getting an Invisalign.

My eyes shift to Jude, who’s at the reception desk checking me in because I felt too shaky to stand there and fill out paperwork and answer questions.

I am now greatly regretting that decision.

“You’re the policy holder?” the receptionist asks loudly.

“Yes.”

“And what is your relationship to the patient?”

Jude clears his throat. “I’m her spouse.”

My breath is sucked out of me like a vacuum.

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

The woman’s eyes dart to me, studying me from behind her bifocals as I offer her a weak smile. Pursing her lips, she gives Jude a judgy side-eye before she jams his insurance card through the reader.

My heart rate speeds to a thunderous gallop as I attempt to ignore Lisa’s stare, which I can literally feel from across the room, drilling into me like a psychotic woodpecker.

This can’t be happening.

At the front desk, Jude is paying my co-pay with the cash I gave him to do so, and the receptionist is going over the basic discharge instructions with him. Finally, she hands him written prescriptions for my antibiotics and painkillers.

I risk a peek at Lisa, and I was right. She’s on high alert, spine straight, phone in hand, her attention laser-focused, shifting from me to Jude, gathering information.

Information I already know she’s going to broadcast to Paige and the rest of their group.

“You’re all set,” Jude says, taking his seat next to me.

“Thanks,” I whisper, swallowing hard. I feel like I’m going to be sick even though I haven’t eaten since yesterday.

He grabs my hand, squeezes it in his reassuringly, and I love how naturally it comes to him to hold my hand, and that he’s not afraid to be mushy in public. But now is the worst possible time and place.

“Relax,” he says, his voice soft. “Once they put you out, you’re not gonna feel a thing. You’ll wake up thinking you blinked, and we’ll go home and Netflix and chill.”

He’s trying to make me laugh—using our silly joke about Netflix and chilling.

But Lisa doesn’t know that we don’t Netflix and chill in the hooking-up sense, and her fingers are already flying furiously over her cell phone keyboard, no doubt detailing this juicy gossip.

My empty stomach rumbles with nausea, churning with waves of panic.

I’m going to be put to sleep and have my teeth cut out of my head.

The doctor is going to put all kinds of stuff in my mouth, while I’m asleep.

I might not ever wake up.

I might wake up in the middle of the surgery.

I might choke. And die.

Blood might drip down my throat, into my stomach.

Lisa Rottworth is going to ruin my life.

“You’re shaking like a leaf,” Jude says, leaning closer to me and brushing his lips across my hair, right over my ear. “Try to relax. You’ll be okay.”

Was that the click of Lisa’s cell phone camera?

Resisting the urge to smack him, I pull my hand from his. Seriously, of all times for him to decide that now it’s okay to be touchy-kissy, he has to do it right here in the middle of the waiting room in front of Lisa Fucking Rottworth?

In any other place on the planet, I would love the affection and the comfort. I’d be savoring it, tucking every detail into my mind to daydream about later.

But not here, in the damn waiting room in front of Lisa Freakin’ Rottworth!

The door leading to the exam rooms swings open. “Skylar?” the young nurse calls in a cheery voice. “We’re ready for you.”

I stand on shaky legs and cross the room, glaring venomously at Lisa, who’s whispering to her wide-eyed mother.

“We’ll come back to get you when she’s recovering, Mr. Lucketti. It’ll be about two hours.”

Damn it to hell. Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, now Lisa knows my husband’s name.

Jude was right. Dr. Katz hooked me up to an IV and asked me to count backward from ten. I got to seven, and that’s all I remember. I wake up with my mouth stuffed with cotton and the nurse smiling at me.