Once Upon a Heartbreak

by Cassie Rocca

  Zack, who was approaching with another dress in his arms, looked at her from head to toe in silence. Liberty intercepted his gaze in the mirror and felt her skin tingle with the obvious appreciation she read in those dark eyes.

  “Yes, she looks like her… the blue of the dress looks just the blue of the Snow Queen’s,” he said, with a fleeting smile in the direction of his daughter.

  Liberty hurried off the platform. “Well, I’ll take this one, then. Everyone likes it, it was my childhood dream and apparently I look like a character out of a fairy tale.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to try on anything else?” asked Zoe. “You don’t seem particularly convinced.”

  “Take your time,” said Clover, appearing behind her. “A wedding dress is an important purchase.”

  Zack stopped her and handed her a rather bulky dress that seemed almost to glow. “Try this one on.”

  “I don’t see why I should,” muttered Liberty, who was almost champing at the bit to get changed back into her normal clothes.

  “Please do – I’m really curious to see if the one I’ve chosen looks as good on you as well as I think it will.”

  His voice was soft and enveloping, it reminded her of melted chocolate. To resist that call was almost more difficult than to deprive herself of real food.

  The temptation to see herself through Zack’s eyes, wearing the dress he had chosen, was strong. But the fear of feeling the emotion that she hadn’t felt when trying on the previous clothes made her hands shake.

  “It looks beautiful!” said Zoe approvingly.

  “Come on, try it on” smiled Clover, looking at her with a tender expression. “What does it cost you to try?”

  Liberty took the dress from Zack’s hands and headed for the changing room.

  “We’ll get changed and come and give you our opinion, if you need it,” her friends shouted after her.

  “If I need you, I’ll call you,” she told them. She wanted to be alone while she tried on that last dress. Hiding her feelings from Clover and Zoe was getting increasingly difficult.

  She carefully took off the previous dress with the help of the assistant, then let the woman help her put on the second one. It was a model with a corsage bodice entirely embroidered by hand and sprinkled with tiny diamanté pieces that reflected the light delicately, without being too showy. The inner stays helped the bust to stay in position down to her waist, from which a wide tulle skirt covered in small pearls with a discreet but effective train fell.

  It was almost identical to the dress she had liked so many years ago.

  She didn’t know if Zack’s choice had been accidental or whether it was meant to send her a message, but it didn’t matter.

  She felt as though she was going to cry.

  “Oh, it’s really beautiful on you,” the assistant complimented her, turning her towards the mirror. “It’s beautiful, but it’s sexy too – that tight corset shows off your bosom and your waist, and the fluffy skirt gives you a regal and romantic look. Your boyfriend has really good taste! He really knows how to make the most of you.”

  Her boyfriend… Her throat tightened painfully and her vision blurred. That dress was wonderful and it made her feel beautiful – beautiful and seductive, just as she had always dreamed of being. Now she understood why brides dissolved into tears when they found the right dress: it was an emotion that hit you as hard as a punch in the chest. “Could you just give me a moment?” she asked the assistant, her voice hoarse with emotion.

  “Sure, shall I wait with the others?”

  “No, I… I don’t know if I’ll come out … I just need a moment.”

  When the door was closed behind her, Liberty went back to staring at herself.

  That was her, her physique and character matched to perfection. There was no coldness in her face, her eyes were lit by powerful emotions, her physique was enviable. She had always wanted to be like that – beautiful, happy and in love on her wedding day – and she actually did feel like a bride. She could easily imagine herself walking down the aisle in that elegant and princely dress.

  It was unique, absolutely perfect. And it was totally wrong. Zack wanted to see her with that dress on and she trembled with joy now that she had it on. But it wouldn’t be him waiting for her in the church.

  On hearing the door open slowly, she furtively wiped a tear away and kept her eyes lowered. “Help me take it off, please,” she murmured, fiddling with laces on her back.

  Zack’s scent enveloped her, and she raised her face suddenly to meet his gaze in the mirror, and saw him standing behind her, intent on staring at her with a strange emotion in his eyes.

  “Why are you here?” she murmured.

  “The assistant said you were a little agitated,” he replied. His voice sounded slightly strange and he tried to clear his throat. “You really do look like a fairy tale.”

  Deliberately ignoring the compliment, which had made her heartbeat speed up alarmingly, Liberty continued to fiddle with the laces of the corset, anxious to get out of that dress. It was dangerous to keep it on – it made her feel too vulnerable.

  “She thinks you’re my boyfriend, that’s why she told you. I’m sorry, you should have sent Clover or Zoe.”

  “Well, she knows now that I’m not the lucky one,” Zack said, gently moving her hands away from the laces. “I had to tell her.”

  Was that regret she could hear in his voice?

  Liberty searched for his eyes in the mirror. “Why?”

  “When she said you weren’t sure you wanted to come out, I told her that I would come in and try to convince you, and she looked horrified. She thinks this is the right dress for you and she didn’t want me to see you wearing it before the wedding. I had to reassure her about it.”

  “Would you ask her to come in? “Liberty stammered, absurdly disappointed that the assistant now knew that she and Zack were not a couple. “I want to take it off. Would you mind asking her to come back in here?”

  “Let the others see you, Lib,” he begged, clasping her wrists to keep them away from the back of her dress. “You look beautiful.”

  So agitated that she felt as though she was suffocating and on the verge of tears, Liberty jerked her hands free. “I am not going to wear this dress to marry Justin!” she exclaimed. “So it makes no sense to show it to everyone.”

  “Why don’t you want to wear it? It looks like it was made just for you.”

  It was made just for us!

  “Please… I can’t breathe…” Liberty moaned, her voice breaking. Zack moved closer, placing his hands on her bare shoulders.

  He was too close to her. She could feel the warmth of his body, the light touch of his hands on her skin. She saw herself in the mirror, her blonde hair on her shoulders, the loosened corset that was on the verge of slipping off, revealing her full breasts which rose and fell in agitation. Her face was flushed and she was biting her lower lip with her teeth.

  He had never seen her like that before. Zack reluctantly moved his hands to the laces and began to loosen them. His breath caressed her bare skin as she was slowly undressed.

  He froze when the dress was completely open, his gaze fixed on the smooth skin of her back. Liberty held her hands tight to her chest to keep the bodice from slipping off… and to stop her heart from bursting.

  “Is it because I chose it?” she heard him murmur.

  “This isn’t the Liberty that Justin fell in love with,” she replied.

  Zack put his hands on his hips and looked at her for a long time in the mirror. “Is that what you want?” he asked. “A sham marriage, Justin… and the woman you are, with him?”

  Liberty couldn’t hold his gaze. She bowed her head slowly, and Zack took it as assent.

  “You shouldn’t get married to Justin in this dress,” he said seriously, kissing the side of her face, then stepped back and left the room, leaving her hands clasped to her chest and her eyes full of tears.

  Back in the atelier,
protected by her informal clothes, she was welcomed by an attitude of resignation. Clover and Cade were thanking the owners of the atelier, Zoe and Eric putting on their jackets, while Zack and Candice were at the door, ready to leave.

  It was evident from their faces that the party was over way too soon, because of her.

  With a smile of apology, Liberty once again thanked the assistant who had helped her with her clothes and promised to come back with clearer ideas. The woman was very kind and strangely sympathetic, which made her suspect that she had sensed more than she had wanted to reveal.

  At the door she said goodbye to her friends and Candice, then glanced quickly at Zack, who was looking at her with an unfathomable expression on his face. “I’m sorry for making you come for nothing, I’m not the kind of person who’s into wedding dresses, Clover and Zoe knew that.”

  “You probably don’t know what you want to be that day,” he replied with apparent calm. “In any case, there are a lot of other details that I need to know in order to prepare the cakes, so call me as soon as you can, or just come to the bakery.”

  “I’ll let you know.” With a wave she turned away from the group, flagged down a taxi before they could offer her a ride and went home.

  *

  Justin was there when she arrived. The presence of her boyfriend annoyed her, because she felt that she needed to be alone with her thoughts, but soon she began to feel grateful for that distraction. After all, she would soon become his wife, so she had to get used to having him around every day, since they would no longer be living in two separate apartments.

  Justin was stretched out on the sofa, intent on studying some documents, reading glasses on his nose with the composed air of the perfect lawyer, despite not being at work. Tall and blonde, he had the mature and serious charm of a confident forty year old, and for a moment Liberty remembered that she liked him, that they were a stable and well matched couple and that she was happy to have him beside her. But the sensations she had felt at the atelier – seeing herself dressed like a princess, being mistaken for Zack’s girlfriend and feeling so close to him during those brief moments in the dressing room – kept on tormenting her.

  “You were quick,” Justin smiled, reaching out to take her hand. Liberty leaned down distractedly to receive a chaste kiss on her lips.

  “I couldn’t find anything that suited me,” she said, sinking into the armchair in front of him.

  Justin shrugged. “I’ve never thought of you as the type to follow the latest fashion.”

  “Exactly,” she replied, ignoring the guilt she felt at that lie. All those white clothes had awakened the romantic in her and now it was difficult to go back to playing the cold, indifferent woman.

  “Don’t feel obliged to choose a dress that would only be a waste of money. It’s really sweet of your friends to try to help you with the wedding preparations, but they are so different from you that you just risk confusing your ideas.”

  “How do you see me?” asked Liberty, on an impulse. “What kind of woman am I for you, and how do you think I should present myself on our wedding day?”

  Justin looked up from his papers and peered over the lenses of his glasses. “I think that you’re smart, serious and mature, not interested in formalities and a lover of practical things, so I think that you’d be most comfortable on your wedding day wearing a sober dress – one that you could even wear on other occasions. I can see you as a bride who’s happy with the step she is about to take, but… well, certainly not as emotionally unstable as my sister! Jan has already called me twice today, sounding like she was on the verge of hysteria and absolutely terrified that the day will be a fiasco that will disappoint all those present.”

  “Janet wants a dream wedding, and she wants to amaze Thomas so much that she leaves him breathless,” Liberty murmured, clutching her knees to her chest.

  And that’s how a bride should feel on her wedding day.

  Justin shook his head, grinning. “Thomas loves her, she doesn’t need to amaze him by spending thousands of dollars on a single day of celebration.”

  “And what about you?” asked Liberty, almost in a whisper. “Do you love me?”

  She saw him blink rapidly and turn to look at her. “What kind of a question is that? Do you think I’d be marrying you if I didn’t care about you?”

  “You’ve never actually said it, in all these years.” Liberty looked at the intricate carpet design at their feet.

  “Neither have you. But we’re not the type of couple who go in for all this greeting card schmaltz and get hysterical over a wedding. We’re a couple with both feet firmly planted on the ground,” said Justin, trying to catch her eyes. “What is it, suddenly you need certainties?”

  “No. I just thought that next to Jan and Thomas we are going to look like a very ordinary couple – maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to have a double wedding.”

  Justin took a deep breath, put down his documents and stood up. He came over to her and stroked her hair. “Hey, don’t you go getting yourself into a state too. The wedding is going to be perfect, even if Janet does end up being a bit more showy than you. But then that’s how it is, you two have totally different personalities.” He rolled his eyes and chuckled. “If she finds out that you don’t want to get married with her anymore it’ll give her a nervous breakdown, and that will probably end up giving me one too! If you love me, spare me that, please!”

  His amused tone didn’t manage to infect her, but she gave him the semblance of a smile. “I’ll try and avoid having any more marriage anxiety.”

  “Great – shall we go to bed then?”

  “You go, I have to write for a while,” she lied. “I’m behind with work today and I want to catch up.”

  Once she was alone, Liberty began to pace up and down the room, more agitated than ever.

  She had hoped to erase some of her doubts by asking Justin those questions but instead she felt more confused and scared than ever. A wave of anxiety clutched at her stomach, forcing her to go into the kitchen and open the window.

  The view of the Brooklyn Bridge and the lights reflected in the river always managed to calm her down. That evening, the full moon made the view even brighter and more enchanted, and Liberty lost herself in admiring its beauty. Her thoughts flew to her client, Michael Santiago, and to the romantic marriage proposal he’d wanted to make to his girlfriend by that same bridge and under that same moon. Who knows how disappointed he must have been when it had been greeted by her coldness! His dream hadn’t come true the way he had hoped. What happened next? Were they still together, or had he realized that Olivia was not the right woman for him?

  And is Justin the right man for you?

  That question made her moan in frustration. She hated having these doubts.

  What did she hope to achieve by tormenting her boyfriend with pointless questions? Had she hoped it would boost her self-confidence? None of those thoughts had ever bothered her before that damn weekend in Cape May. Having them now, a few weeks before the wedding, was absolutely ridiculous. And yet she was feeling more and more agitated.

  She dragged herself away from the view of the bridge and looked around. On the shelf next to the fridge, a paper bag with a pastry shop logo on it caught her eye. It was completely out of place in her loft, and she stood staring at it for a long time. Justin must have bought something sweet to eat for breakfast – it wasn’t the first time he’d done it. But she had never paid much attention to it before.

  Had she noticed it now because the wrapper inevitably reminded her of Zack? Or maybe because she felt drawn to it?

  Almost without realizing it, she went over to the kitchen counter and opened the bag, breathing in the smell of icing sugar. There were two donuts filled with raspberry jam, Justin’s favorite. He always bought two of them out of politeness, just in case she decided to eat one with him, but inevitably ended up taking it away with him after her categorical refusal. Every time she watched him eating, she felt a mi
xture of conflicting emotions: envy, anger, frustration and fear.

  Desserts were a dangerous temptation – they could be addictive.

  Exactly like Zack.

  But the donut was there for her and no one would criticize her if she decided to eat it. The next day she would go to the gym to burn it off and then go back to living her life without sugar. Zack, on the other hand, would be much more difficult to get rid of if she allowed him back into her life, where her feelings were as strictly regimented as her diet.

  She pulled out the donut, absently enjoying the softness of the sugary dough. She was dying to take a bite of it: by doing so she would taste, for a moment, her old life. She had done everything possible to get rid of those habits, but now, after seeing Zack, she began to wonder if it was really such a bad thing to give in to pleasures from time to time.

  A bite of the donut or a kiss from Zack. Only those two sins could satisfy the immense emptiness that she felt in her heart that night.

  She finished the donut in a few seconds.

  While the sweet taste of raspberry jam and icing sugar delighted her taste buds, her eyes filled with tears.

  All the sweets in the world wouldn’t be enough to fill that emptiness, and she had always known it. The only thing that could replace food was love – that sense of belonging mixed with desire that only two people really and totally in love could create. And it was obvious that she would never have that by marrying Justin.

  Not while her heart remained attached to those foolish old adolescent dreams.

  A feeling of nausea began to take hold of her. She poured herself a glass of water and sat down at the table, resting her forehead against the cool wall.

  She had to stop thinking about Zack and get him out of her life. She certainly wasn’t any happier since she had seen him again! She probably hadn’t been happy before either, but now the feeling had grown unbearable.

  For her own physical and mental health, she had to get back to being detached and indifferent as soon as possible. But before going to bed, closing her eyes and hoping that she would be able to turn the page the next day, she had to give vent to her sadness.