Empty Promises (The Promises Series Book 3) (8 page)

“Final touch,” she says, taking the floor-length veil that’s attached to a crystal clip and pushing it gently into my short hair. I’m thankful now that I took the time to put a little product in it this morning, with my attempt at a messy-beach hair style, or there’s no way the veil would stay.

“Wow, I had no idea that I could ever look like this,” I say, swaying the dress from side to side and marveling at my reflection. “Thank you, so, so much for this.”

My throat feels tight and I’m unexpectedly filled with emotion. I don’t want to cry, but I know if I blink right now the tears will come.

“You, my dear, are one of the prettiest brides I think I’ve ever had the pleasure of dressing,” Dana states with a warm, affectionate smile. It does nothing to dissolve the lump forming in my throat.

Suddenly, the reality of what’s happening hits me like a sucker punch to the gut. I’m sure it would knock me down if I actually had the ability to bend in this dress. I’m never getting married.

I’m never buying a house or fighting with my partner about what color blinds to hang in the bedroom.

I’ll never have a proud mother moment when my child takes his or her first steps.

It’s not fair!

I’m a good person; I deserve those things, or at least I deserve a shot at them. Don’t I?

“Emily, are you ready to show your mom?” she asks, oblivious to the internal freak out I’m experiencing, and it breaks me out of my own thoughts. I take a deep breath … well, what was supposed to be deep. It’s more of a shallow wheeze since I’m pretty sure my lungs have been relocated after trying on this gown.

“You think I could have just a second, please?”

I’m answered with a small knowing nod as she retreats back around the curtain and I hear her strike up a conversation with Mom. I allow myself thirty seconds of mourning for the life I’ll never have, and then put my game face back on. If I’m going to leave my mom with a memory of this, then it damn well better be a good one.

August 12
th
, 2013

Dear Diary,

I’ve had what you could term a surreal weekend. I spent Saturday trying on wedding dresses with my mom. It was one of those moments that restore your faith in humanity. Dad always has the news playing in the background, wherever he is, and it’s always filled with god-awful stories. People being murdered, terrorism, financial meltdowns, and natural disasters. Do the television networks have some sort of no-happiness clause where they’re not allowed to report on anything good? So yeah, in a world where you’re constantly exposed to shitty things, this act of kindness really touched me. Dana not only let us try on dresses, she let Mom take pictures, too, which is apparently against company policy. It was an emotional experience, but I have to admit, it was nice, even if a little bittersweet.

Sunday was hilarious, and it’s all due to Blair, Casey, and Brie. We arranged to meet for coffee and basically spent hours putting the world to rights and indulging in mindless gossip. It was great to feel healthy and carefree for a few hours. We were huddled in the far corner of The Grind, a small mom and pop store on the end of Main. It’s Brie’s new fascination; the coffee is excellent, but that’s not what has her driving past three different coffee franchises to get here. The new barista is smoking hot. Even though he’s not my type, I can still appreciate that he’s gorgeous.

When we noticed that he was working, Brie immediately volunteered as tribute! She never offers to get the coffee, so Blair, Casey and I all looked at each other like maybe we’d heard her wrong. She smirked and told us to watch and learn how to snare a guy in two minutes flat. The girl is the epitome of confidence, so we each made ourselves comfy for the show. She sashayed to the counter like she was walking the runway. Casey was muttering loud enough for just about everyone in the place to hear, “Work it, work it, baby, own it,” a la Kit from “Pretty Woman.” Blair and I were laughing through our cupped hands, and Brie snapped her head back to shoot us ‘the look.’

All her ass swaying weighed against her though. Literally! She carried on walking as she looked back to scowl at us and didn’t see that Barista Babe had moved around the counter with a tray of iced coffees for a group sitting by the window. One minute she’s like a panther stalking her prey, and the next, she’s teetering on her heels from the exaggerated ass swaying and is barreling towards the coffee god. I swear, it was like slow motion watching as the tray flipped, she landed, and then found herself taking a Frappuccino bath in the middle of the store.

Blair shot up to go help as Casey and I were pinned to our seats with belly crunching laughter. Brie was shrieking about how freezing the drinks were while trying to hold her shirt away from her skin. Barista Babe looked confused. It was like he couldn’t work out what just happened. He stood staring at Brie floundering about in a pool of coffee, like a kid who had just dove into the deep end of the pool before realizing he couldn’t swim.

By this time, Blair was bending down to collect Brie from the floor. At the same time, the guy finally managed to work out that he could move. He turned to help her just as Blair lifted her, and the back of her head made an impressive crunch against his nose. They both cursed in unison as Casey and I watched in morbid fascination. They immediately clasped their respective hurts, and Barista Babe paced around in a tiny circle with his head tilted forward as the blood began to drip.. Blair was still rubbing the back of her head but rooted to the spot as she muttered a nervous apology, and Brie was still sitting in a puddle of coffee. The older man who works the till rounded the corner with a handful of tissue and thrust some at the coffee god while dropping the rest to the floor to soak up the mess.

The whole event couldn’t have lasted more than two minutes, tops, but every time I think about it, I laugh my ass off. We left shortly after Brie returned from the restroom, where she’d attempted to dry her shirt under the hand blowers. She stopped at the counter on our way out to apologize to the Barista Babe, who was leaned against the back wall with two wads of tissue pushed up his nostrils to cap the flow of blood. His eyes were already starting to blacken and the “Don’t worry about it, accidents happen,” comment he threw at her didn’t really match the scowl on his face.

Undeterred by disaster, Brie decided it was the perfect opportunity to ask him out. She mumbled something along the lines of, “Let me make it up to you. We can grab a drinks some time … my treat?” The guy’s eyebrows shot straight to his hairline in surprise and by the wince the look turned into, I could tell the movement hurt. There was a really awkward long silence as she waited for a reply. The poor guy must have been intimidated, as me, Blair and Casey stood behind Brie—all watching the interaction. Don’t judge me, I have kind of a sick fascination with watching awkward moments play out. They’re like car crashes that you know you shouldn’t look at, but you just can’t summon the strength to pull your gaze away.

The guy shifted from foot to foot and then politely declined, saying he was flattered, but she wasn’t really his type. Brie being Brie, she drawls out in a sickly sweet voice that has the rest of us sniggering like the schoolgirls we are, “Sweetheart, I’m everyone’s type.” She says it so matter-of-fact, that if it were anyone else, it would have sounded completely conceited. Somehow she pulled it off without sounding like a douche.

The guy looked her square in the eyes, seemingly ready to decline her for a second time, then smiled and shook his head. He let out another wince and what sounded like “fuck” under his breath before answering her again. Only it’s not what any of us were expecting. In fact, even Brie looked a little shocked. He told her to meet him at seven after his shift on Wednesday and then disappeared into the back room.

Casey bumped shoulders with Brie and looked genuinely in awe. Blair leaned over to me and whispered, “Dude, am I missing something here? How did that just happen? We just totaled the store and, by the looks of it, broke his nose, and he still agreed to go on a date with her?”

“Oh, my gosh, look at the state of me!” Brie shrieked as we exited The Grind. She’d pulled her cell out of her purse to check her reflection in the camera. “I look like I’ve been mud wrestling and lost!”

“Hence, the reason why you now have a date Wednesday,” Case replied with a grin.

I shook my head in confusion because, after all that she’d still seized the moment. She took a leap of faith and put herself out there. She even did it with an audience for Christ’s sake, and it paid off. I need to rip a page out of her book.

Carpe diem!

HOLY SHIT, THIS was a bad idea.

“Blair, I think I’m having second thoughts,” I whisper shout over the buzz of the gun in the cubicle at the back of the store.

“What? No way, you can’t back out now! You’ve made me wait for hours while you’ve been looking through those books!” she whines and I let my shoulders drop. It’s true; she’s not even exaggerating. We’ve been in here two hours, and the longer we've been here, the more grown men I’ve seen leave with unshed tears in their eyes.
Crap.

“Emily?”

The guy rounds the cubicle and I’m filled with an overwhelming urge to run. Blair grabs my wrist just as I decide to make a play for the door.

“Here she is!” Blair shouts to Manzilla, and if I didn’t love her so much, I’m pretty sure I’d punch her.

“Thanks, friend,” I grind out, trying not to display my nerves too much. I stand and drag her up with me.

“Dude, I said I’d come with you, but I can't watch while they stick you with needles. I’ll faint!”

“Since when have you had a problem with needles?” I ask as I take slow, tentative steps towards the hulking mountain of a guy who’s now disappeared behind the cubicle again, coaxing her with me.

“I don’t have a problem with needles. I have a problem with blood. And, Em, did you not see that guy who just left? He’d been crying, no doubt about it. His eyes were all puffy and stuff.”

“Thanks for that. You’re
not
actually making me feel better about this!”

“Sorry,” she says sheepishly. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. Women have a stronger pain threshold than men. That’s why we’re they ones that suffer childbirth.” She shrugs and I laugh.

“Did you just make that up?”

“No, I’m serious. If guys had to go through it, they’d extinct themselves within a decade!”

“Valid point.” I stop and turn to her. “Please come with me? That dude’s scary,” I plead and she sighs and concedes. We round the corner and the guy gestures for me to take a seat on the big leather dentist-type chair.

“Take a seat over there, Tiny,” he says to Blair, pointing to a stool by the mirror. She throws me a look that lets me know she finds how he addressed her amusing. Blair’s not tall, but she’s hardly tiny. Then again, this guy looks to be at least six and a half feet tall; most people probably seem small to him. He’s built like a UFC fighter. Massive! The skin stretched over his bulging muscles from the bottom of his T-shirt sleeves to the beginning of his blue latex gloves is adorned with a million and one brightly-colored tattoos. They all blend seamlessly into one another. He’s like walking art.

The cubicle reminds me of the hospital; it smells of alcohol wipes. It's brilliant white and sterile, apart from some pretty sick drawings that have been framed with thick black acrylic and rest on a floating white shelf.

“Okay, I'm Gus. Star tells me you’re off treatment and want to get inked?” he says, looking over the paperwork that I’d handed back to the receptionist after spending an eternity filling out.

“Yeah,” is all I can manage to answer through the nerves closing up my throat.

“Your immune system back to normal?” he asks, looking up from the clipboard.

“Nope,” I say and smile weakly. “My neutrophil levels are high enough for this not to be a problem, though,” I quickly add. “I actually have a copy of my last blood count saved to my emails on my phone if you need to see them. As long as you’re reputable and everything’s sterile, I shouldn’t keel over and die on you,” I say with a wink, trying to alleviate some of the tension in the room.