Forever Lucy (Lucy & Harris 5)

I waved weakly as he walked out the door before being pulled back to the topic at hand. Little did I know that the venue was the easiest of all the decisions that had to be made then and there.

It was several hours before they left, with a list of things Natalie and Aunt Emmie could start the ball rolling on. They had been relieved when Harris told them we could wait until the following year to get married, but they still seemed in a rush to get everything sorted as quickly as possible. Apparently, even fourteen months was still a ridiculously short amount of time to plan a wedding.

I was exhausted as I closed the door behind them. My head ached from all the things I still had to make a decision on, and when I turned to find the binders still spread on the floor and coffee table, I was tempted to cry. Instead, I picked up my phone as I flopped ungracefully onto the couch and called the one person who I knew would have my back through this madness.

“Hi, Daddy,” I greeted, feeling myself relax as soon as I heard his voice.

“Hey, baby. What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing really. Mom just left. I missed you.”

“That bad, huh?” he said with a chuckle that calmed me further.

“It was a little intense,” I complained.

“I’m sorry, baby girl. To tell you the truth, it’s been a little intense for me to watch them put those damn binders together. We all knew for a few weeks now that Harris was going to propose last night, and those three have been meeting up to put those things together every weekend. Your mom has been practically dancing with excitement wanting to talk to you about this wedding shit, so she’s been yapping my ear off about it.”

“Really?” I whispered, suddenly unsure of the entire situation.

“Yeah, honey. Look, don’t tell her I told you this, but she’s felt guilty about how she took you confessing about the…the cutting…” He broke off, and I could hear how hard he swallowed, which only increased my guilt over telling them about my self-harming during the summer. He cleared his throat before he spoke again. “Planning this wedding for you is her attempt to make up for all of that, Lu.”

When I looked at it from that point of view, I could see that was exactly what my mom was trying to do. Earlier, it hadn’t exactly felt like that. If anything, it had kind of felt like both she and Natalie were trying to relive their own weddings through mine. But now that I was looking at it through my dad’s eyes, I could see Mom was trying to mak

e up for her initial reaction to the cutting.

The need to have Dad step in faded, and I pulled the phone away from my mouth to blow out a painful sigh as I tried to hold back my tears.

“Lu?”

I lifted the phone back into place. “Yeah, Daddy?”

“If it gets to be too much, tell me. I don’t know what I can do to help out, but I’ll talk to them. I promise you, baby, I won’t let them get out of hand. Just say the word, and I’ll take care of it.”

“Th-thanks, Daddy, but I think it will all be okay. I just overreacted because I was a little upset. I wanted to take a few weeks to just enjoy being engaged, and they swooped in the morning after and took over.” I grimaced. “But I can see Mom’s heart is in the right place. I get it, and I’ll let them have their fun.”

“Good, I’m glad you’re okay with this. Because I think it would have broken Layla’s heart if you didn’t want her to be a part of planning this with you. Things have been tense with you two, honey. I don’t like seeing my girls like that.”

“Me either, Daddy. I’m sorry Mom and I haven’t been as close as we were before…everything.”

“Hey.” Dad’s tone lowered, turning soothing and blasting me with all the love I knew he had for me. “That wasn’t your fault. Your mom knows she fucked up. She knows that she was in the wrong and that she hurt you.”

“N-no,” I started to interrupt, but I stopped myself. Because if I were really and truly honest with myself, I would admit that the way she yelled at me after my confession had cut me deeper than I could have imagined. From the first time I had picked up a blade and purposely harmed myself, from the very first moment I’d seen the drop of blood well up on my skin, I had been terrified she would react exactly as she had. And that was why I hadn’t told anyone what I was doing to myself.

“It doesn’t matter anymore, Lu. It doesn’t. All I care about is that you’re okay. And if, for any reason, this wedding planning makes you not okay, I want you to tell me. Got it?”

“Yeah, Daddy. I got it.”

I could hear the smile in his voice now. “Good. Glad that’s cleared up. Now, how about having lunch with your dear old dad tomorrow? I have to come into the city for a few things, so there’s no use coming out here for our normal Saturday date.”

“Just you and me?” I asked hopefully.

“Yup, just you and me. The boys are at Shane’s for the weekend.”

“Can we have Mexican?”

“Whatever you want, baby. I’ll pick you up about noon, and then we can eat and spend the rest of the day doing whatever you want,” he promised.

“You spoil me too much, Daddy.” But I was grinning.