Father of the Bride

by Jennifer Dione

  'I doubt that's what she said.'

  'I know that is what she said because she said it right to me and I thought it was really fucked up because you were only trying to be a good friend to her.'

  'She is a good friend to me. I never knew you to be so selfish, so insecure, no nasty, and it's crazy that this is all just now coming out after almost ten years of dating. All it took was another man putting his hands on me. Let me ask you a question are you jealous of the man who touched me? Because if you are that is sick, and if you are you can go just where he went. To hell with a bullet in his head."

  'You're talking about me, I thought I was your best friend, I thought you were my soul mate. Is this how to talk to your soul mate?'

  'Maya is my only best friend and I am Maya's soulmate.'

  'So, you two are fucking over there?'

  'Why are you worried about it. Are you just mad that she is going to get my virginity before you do? All these years you waited around looking stupid and now my girl bestirred is going to get to taste and feel and touch and smell me before you ever do, and you never will.'

  'The wedding is off?'

  'Yes, the wedding is off.'

  That was the last thing I sent him and he didn't text me back. I showed Maya the text messages and she went through laughing, blushing, feeling bad for him, and gasping in shock at some of the things I had said.

  "It's like everything just came out. I'm so tired of him acting like a big baby. I'll never forgive him for only being concerned about my virginity when I could have been raped and killed. He just makes me feel like I'm a prize he has waited so long for me. Now he feels like he's entitled to it. Now he makes me want to go give it away to someone, anyone else."

  'Well according to those texts messages, you are thinking about giving it to me.'

  "I was just saying that to get under his skin."

  "You really had my hopes up, well if you ever change your mind, please, let me know."

  THE NEXT DAY I GOT a call from my aunt and she was livid.

  "Yely I told you if you were going to call this wedding off I needed to know first, and your also agreed that if you were going to call this wedding off or drop out of grad school that you were going to let me know first. So, what happened? Omar called me last night crying saying that you didn't want to be with him and that Mya now. What does he mean 'with Mya'? Does he mean that you are living with her now or what?"

  "Auntie I don't know how to explain this to you. I really think that it is too much to tell you over the phone so if you would like to meet me and Mya at the vegan Mexican restaurant we can talk about it then."

  "Why do you girls like that damn restaurant so much, oh my god, when do you want me to be there?"

  "As soon as possible. I have a lot of really good news for you and I really need to get it out."

  WHEN ME AND MYA GOT to the restaurant Yaya was already there. We asked the hostess for a seat with some privacy. My aunt kept looking back and forth between the two of us. She noticed we were holding hands and she rolled her eyes. As soon as we sat down at the table and the waiter walked away she started in on us.

  "Are you two really telling me that after twenty something years of friendship you are just now decided that you are lesbians and that you love each other and want to be together, two weeks before the wedding seriously? I can't handle."

  "I always knew that I was a lesbian and I always wanted to be with your niece."

  "You are so beautiful Maya, you can have any man you want. Why would you want to be a lesbian?"

  "So just because I am beautiful I can't be a lesbian. Are lesbians not beautiful?"

  "Maya please don't try to guilt trip me. I just want to know out of all the women in the world why my niece? Why two weeks before she was getting ready to marry her dream guy?'"

  "Just look at her, she's beautiful, smart as hell, a great dancer. She's independent, she knows what she wants out of life and she goes to get it. She has been the best friend any girl could ask for and I've been slowly falling in love with her over the years. I've waiting for her too see how selfish and self-centered Omar was so that she could dump him and I could finally have a shot. I wasn't about to break them up. I saw an opportunity and I took my shot."

  "I want to be sure that this is what I want to do, and I want to officially call the wedding off and end things with Omar." I said.

  "All this hanging out with your father is turning you into him, just like he ran from things that he couldn't handle or understand you are doing the exact same thing."

  "I am running away from things. I am running away from all the things that you want for me and all the things that you have tried to force on me over the last 25 years. The only things that you brought into my life and introduced me to was Mya and dance. Those are the two things I love most."

  "What are you going to tell me next that you are going to drop out of Grad school as well?"

  "Well, yeah, that is the next thing I was going to tell you. Maya and I got accepted into the Dance Academy and we are both starting in the spring."

  Yaya hung her head in disappointment, "If engineering was too hard for you should have just told me and I would have suggested something that was better suited for you."

  "Engineering wasn't too hard for me. I was excelling and had all A's and above a 4.0 GPA. My teachers loved me, all of my classmates were jealous of me. I was number one in my class."

  "So, what is it."

  "I don't want to be an engineer."

  'Why not?"

  "Auntie, I just don't want to go that route with my life, and I don't want to look back 25 years later and realize I made a wrong turn and it's too late to turn back."

  "You really think you are still going to able to dance in 25 years, you guys are already older than most of the girls in that academy anyway, aren't they all like sixteen or seventeen."

  "We are much more experienced. If you hadn't forced me to go to school for engineering when I was 17 or 18 I would probably already be a successful dancer by now."

  "You're blaming me? What you should have done was stand up for yourself and stop trying to live your life pleasing others all the time instead of just doing what makes you happy. I swear you are just like your mother. You make bad decisions and then blame the consequences on someone else."

  "Maybe I am like my mom, maybe I am a people-pleaser. Maybe I am making bad decisions or have made bad decisions. All of that doesn't matter now because from now on, I'm only doing what pleases me. Being with Maya and going to the Dance Academy is what is going to make me happy, OK?"

  "That's fine. I'm glad you finally grew some balls. I just wish you had done it before I spent half a million dollars on a wedding. Now is going to get married you two?"

  "I don't care who gets married all I know is that I'm not marrying Omar."

  "Fine. I really can't think of anything else to say. So are you girls going to eat or can we go?"

  "We are going to eat, but you can go."

  "Girls, please don't push everyone away. We can accept this, it's just the way you are going about it that is wrong. You owe everyone an explanation that has already bought their tickets to come to your wedding, spent money on a wedding gift, called off work for the weekend, and spent money on this wedding. You didn't spend a dime, but I did, and Omar's dad did, and we spent a petty penny. You need to think about that."

  "Fine auntie, since the rehearsal dinner is already paid for I will just come to that and explain to everyone then."

  "See you in two weeks, unless you drop out of that as well."

  I rolled my eyes and she left the restaurant and tore off in her car. Maya laughed. She laughed at everything and it made me feel better even though my aunt had made me feel like a misbehaving teenager.

  "Don't let her bother you. She has done that to you all your life."

  AFTER THAT REALLY TOUGH conversation with my Aunt I need to have a really tough conversation with my father. Mya and I decided to meet up with him. />
  I started off by just telling him that me and Maya were something like a couple now and he actually congratulated us.

  "I like him already." Maya said.

  "So, no wedding?" He seemed disappointed.

  "No not yet." I said and Maya looked at me but I didn't turn to look back at her.

  "Then I guess there is no reason for me to meet him."

  "I mean you can still meet him I'm sure he will be at the rehearsal dinner."

  "There is still going to be a rehearsal dinner even though there is not going to be a wedding?"

  "Yeah, I am kind of using the rehearsal dinner as an opportunity to let every know that the wedding is going to be called off."

  "So far you have good news, then bad news, do you have any more good news?"

  "Actually, I do."

  "Mya and I both got accepted into the Dance Academy."

  "Congratulations! I am so proud of you girls, when do you start?"

  "We're planning on starting in the spring, as long I can secure enough loans to pay for the tuition. Maya won the scholarship, which is great. She offered to pay for my tuition but it would pretty much take all her savings to do so and I couldn't do that. Especially since neither of us are working right now. Plus, I have to pay my aunt and Omar's dad back for the wedding and that is about four hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

  "How much is the tuition?"

  "A little over one hundred thousand dollars each."

  "That's not too bad. About six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. What if I gave you a small gift of about one million dollars, and you can pay your aunt back for the wedding, you can pay for your tuition, you can save some, maybe even get a new car, a house, whatever."

  "Daddy, are you being serious right now?"

  "I would never play with my baby girl's emotions like that. If I said it I meant it. I want to help you, I know that this is your dream. Everyone needs a little help to reach their dreams. I had a little help, so I'm just paying it forward."

  "I can not thank you enough Daddy! I can even pay my Aunt back for Grad school now. She made me promise if I ever dropped out I would pay her back every penny she invested into my education."

  "She knew from the jump that you did not want to go and that was her way of discouraging you from dropping out. You know what give me you're aunt's address. I'll send her a check for you. I know she thinks that I am a dead beat but I just want to show her how much I am not, how much I have my daughters back. Maybe in the past I did make bad decisions but I am working so hard to make up for those.

  "She said you like to run from things. She and Omar said that you are now teaching me to do the same."

  "You are nothing like me. You are brave, you don't run from anything, you run right into the face of danger. Someone who was a runner would not have run to help their best friend with no regard for their own safety. Someone who was a runner would not have stood up to your auntie, would not have told Omar how you feel. If you were a runner you would not have auditioned for the Dance Academy, would not have dropped out of grad school. You're not a runner you are a fighter. If anyone if teaching anyone anything here, you're teaching me o fight, and I love you for that. I'll owe you the rest of my life for that. Anything you want, anything you need, I will give it to you. I will deliver, with bells on."

  "I love you Daddy."

  Tears started to run down his face, I got up walked around the table and hugged him as hard as I could.

  'I love you too baby girl.' He choked out through tears.

  IT WAS THE DAY BEFORE my birthday, the day before the wedding, the day of the rehearsal dinner. I dressed in a pretty lace dress my aunt had gotten me for this day. I looked beautiful and confident but I was scared beyond any fear I had ever had before. I almost changed my mind about calling of the wedding. But getting married and getting it annulled a few months later just to save face would actually look sillier than just calling the wedding off before it even happened.

  Mya and I got into the car and we drove the long distance to the venue where the wedding was to be held. It was absolutely beautiful, all of the decorations were already set up. It was everything I ever wanted but not for the person I wanted it with. I thought about how my family was going to react to finding out that I was with a woman. I wondered how he was going to react to being rejected in front of his entire family and most of his friends. I started to feel sorry for him. Then I remembered that he didn't feel sorry for me when it mattered most.

  Maya reminded me that it didn't matter what anyone thought. This was our choice, our life,. No one was going to live it for us, whether it was good bad or ugly, we had to make the decisions that made us happy. I had to stop trying to please everyone especially when everyone could care less about pleasing me. I stood tall and I went into the chapel. My aunt gave me a look that said, 'Please don't do this'. She didn't want me to embarrass her. That's what it's always about. How she would look. She even wrote the speech for me for the rehearsal dinner, she wrote my vows, and the speech for me to give at the reception. I had thrown all of that away by now. I had also thrown away my something new, something blue, and something borrowed. The only thing I still had was the something old. It was the necklace Omar had given me ten years ago nearly to the day. The one I had never taken off. The one that I was now going to walk right up the aisle and give back to him.

  I didn't want to break his heart but I also did not want to live a lie. I just wanted to be happy. I wanted to grow old with Maya, travel together, and open a dance studio. I wanted to continue to build my relationship with my father. I wanted to maintain my relationship with my aunt and I still wanted Omar to be my best friend. I just could not let him be my husband. I was done pleasing everyone else.

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  Did you love Father of the Bride? Then you should read Blackberry Moon by Jennifer Dione!

  Malana, the estranged god daughter of the Emperor of Khatello, has never traveled anywhere besides the dirt roads of her familiar countryside or the cold stone streets of the city.

  The residents of Khatello have been forbidden to leave the island for generations and tales of a successful escape are unheard of.

  Even with her numerous and desperate attempts to reach freedom, for as long as Malana can remember she has lived as an outcast on her family's blackberry vineyard working the land, and doing her best to avoid her perverted father's advances & her grandmother's physical and mental abuse.

  When her god father is killed outside the gates of the Palace his cruel wife, Empress Oneka, insist that Malana was involved. She accuses her of having ties with the rebellion that has been challenging the Empire since before Malana was born.

  As Malana begins her search for the true assassin, she follows a path that leads her into a complicated love triangle, a shocking revelation, a new group of allies, and seemingly can only end two ways.

  With her never being able to escape the island or with her dying there.

  Read more at Jennifer Dione’s site.

  Also by Jennifer Dione

  Father of the Bride

  Blackberry Moon (Coming Soon)

  Watch for more at Jennifer Dione’s site.

  About the Author

  Jennifer Dione is the owner, founder, & debut author of Blackberry Publishing. What began as a love of reading and story telling has now developed into her very first book baby Father of the Bride. With another, Blackberry Moon, in the oven. She lives, works, and writes in Las Vegas with her four boys, & boyfriend.

  Read more at Jennifer Dione’s site.

  About the Publisher

  Blackberry Publishing was founded in March of 2017 by Jennifer Dione.

  Jennifer Dione
is the debut author of Blackberry Moon and Father of the Bride.