Twenty-Seven
Lucy was hiding in the library, looking out the window at the soccer field transformed into a wedding venue complete with flowers, ribbons, rows of white chairs and a trellis altar straight out of a Pinterest post. There was going to be a lot of I do-ing and ring bearing and til-death-do-us-part-ing and Lucy was pretty sure she was over it.
She counted every breath in an effort to stay upright, to stay focused and smiling and to not dissolve into a snivelling pile of snot, which is what every nerve in her body was clamoring for her to do.
She tugged at her dress, embroidered with flowers and lace and hope. She wasn’t a bridesmaid, thank God, but she still had to look nice even though she longed for her pajamas and floppy slippers. Her hair was in a loose updo with curling tresses brushing her shoulders, and she had even managed some mascara and eye shadow. Her hand drifted to her clutch, a small purse that matched her dress, matched the day, matched the reeking odor of happily-ever-after that permeated her entire world today… and her fingers found the small box tucked discreetly inside. The urn Sarah had given her.
She wrapped her hand around it and closed her eyes.
“I am so, so, sorry,” she whispered fiercely.
“It’s a big day, ain’t it?” Tom appeared out of nowhere. Startled, Lucy jerked her hand out of her purse and turned to see the groom tugging on the lapels of his tux with his hair slicked back and no sign of the signature ball cap that had contributed to his odd suntan. His very white forehead gleamed in the light pouring into the big school windows.
“You feeling all right?” she asked, hoping no one would ask her the same question. Hiding in the library, hoping no one would find her, hoping she could stay there at least until the honeymoon was over, but here was Tom, asking questions.
“Oh yeah, absolutely,” Tom’s voice echoed in the open space of the library. “Yeah, I’m… uh… I’m not supposed to see her, eh? Before? Like, she’s gotta be a surprise, so I came in here so I don’t jinx it, right? They said I’d jinx it if I saw her before… didn’t they?”
Lucy smiled at him, even though it cost her several breaths. He was lovely. Loud and anxious and so wondrously alive. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him.
“Aw, not you too, Miss Lucy,” he moaned, grabbing her hands and pleading. “Every friggin’ woman in the whole damn place is after crying and carryin’ on! You know what I mean?”
Lucy snorted, gathering herself with supreme effort. Weddings weren’t something to cry over, she thought. There were bigger things worthy of bigger tears.
“Tom,” she said, straightening her shoulders. “Do you love her?”
He froze. He looked like he’d just been asked the only question he knew the answer to.
“Hells yes, Miss Lu,” he said. “I’ve loved that woman since she were twelve years old and spitting spit balls at the back of me head in this very school.”
“And does she love you?” Lucy felt like a priest at confession, but she needed to know. How did you know? How did you know you were making the right choice, for the right reasons?
“Well,” Tom huffed, looking fleetingly terrified. “She’s already talking about babies, Miss Lu, and here she is, agreeing to wear my ring… and my name…” he blustered.
“And I’ve seen the way she looks at you, Tom,” Dorian said, entering the library at just that moment and giving Lucy a quick glance. She glared at him, silently daring him to touch her.
“She does have a look, don’t she?” Tom agreed, looking relieved that some testosterone had arrived in the room. “Yes, I believe she does love me. Poor woman.”
Tom shook his head solemnly and Dorian laughed. They clapped each other on the shoulder and Lucy had to turn away to hide her tears. She realized she very much wanted Dorian to touch her, bet or no bet. She would sell her soul to be the woman he hoped she could be, but her soul was a dark and ugly thing, and not worth fiddler’s fart.
Mumsy would agree.
“I’ve come to tell you it’s time,” Dorian said, grinning at Tom. “Your bride is waiting.”
Lucy stepped back and watched them from a safe distance across the room. She was afraid that she would launch herself at Dorian if she got too close. That she would burrow into his arms and never resurface. Afraid he would smell the whiskey on her breath. Afraid he would know he had lost and he’d be more upset about losing his hundred dollars than losing her.
He deserved so much more.
“Time,” Tom echoed, tugging on the sleeves of his tux. Lucy wished someone had thought to apply some foundation to his white forehead, but she doubted that it mattered. Jo loved him, bad suntan and all.
“You ready?”
“Yes.” Tom’s voice was so firm, so positive and without hesitation that Lucy almost smiled. Smiling hurt more than crying, so she decided to stick with tears.
“Lucy,” Dorian said, bringing her back toward him with his voice. “Ida might need you to help with her flowers. She’s determined to carry her dwarf axe in her free hand, and I think Jo is a little worried she may try to smite someone half-way down the aisle.”
Lucy shook herself, remembering that she should be with the women, helping the bride to feel confident and beautiful instead of hiding here with the shadows and the silence and the dusty bits of her dead fiancé. She nodded and slipped quickly out of the room, dodging Dorian’s hand as he reached out to touch her.
She was certain she would dissolve if Dorian touched her.
She felt cold all the way down the hall and out the doors to the tent where the bride waited. Cold, separate and alone.
✽✽✽
Ida stomped down the aisle as only a beard-less dwarf can stomp, tossing rose petals to the right and left and swinging her dwarf axe like a censer in need of incense. Lucy took a seat at the very back of the rows of chairs, carefully avoiding sitting near Dorian. She had tried to appear very busy until the last minute, then slipped into the back row, avoiding his gaze as he looked about for her from his seat on the opposite side of the tent.
She had visited the bar twice, ducking in behind the tent and sneaking a drink away from the prying eyes of the wedding guests, downing them in one long sullen gulp behind the tent. She could feel the warm fire lighting her up from the inside as the ceremony began, but instead of soothing her like she expected, the alcohol merely burned inside her chest, igniting a fever of regret, shame and anger.
Not the best gifts to bring to a wedding.
“Where’s the Frankincense and Myrrh when you need them,” she muttered to no one in particular. At least Ida was fulfilling her role, she thought.
Thinking of Ida filled her with remorse.
She shifted sideways in her seat and inhaled a swift slug from the flask she had hidden in her clutch.
Beside the ashes.
Of her dead fiancé.
Lucy tried to follow the service, but her mind wandered and she found herself drifting to thoughts of goats, and gardens, and angry Irish matriarchs.
“Ye’ll never get on wi’ that, now will ye?” Mumsy’s voice was hushed and intense. Lucy’s eyes widened and she groped for an appropriate response. “Wedding woes and whatever’s wrong?”
Lucy wondered if she actually made up her mother’s alliteration. But, naw.
Mumsy wedged herself beside Lucy and refused to budge when Lucy complained. “Ye’ll no be ruinin’ the day, lass,” Mumsy hissed, trying to lever Lucy to her feet and push her away from the cheering crowd.
“Is it over?” Lucy asked, craning her neck to see past the people but Mums refused to stop shoving her away from the seats and up the slight incline to the school.
“Aye,” Mumsy huffed, her wee Irish lungs working overtime to remove Lucy from the celebration. “And ye’d best remove yerself before…”
“Looocy?” Ida’s voice drifted over the sound of clapping and the gentle hiss of rice falling on the newly married couple. Lucy blinked, forcing Mumsy to stop as she dug her heels into the sof
t earth.
“Lucy, no,” Mums said. “The last thing that wee bairn needs to see is you in this state. Now, come on, move.”
Lucy’s mind moved in slow motion, scanning the crowd. She thought she saw Jo and Tom, skipping down the aisle as people cheered and clapped, tossing rice and love like nothing mattered in the world except the love of these two people.
Lucy tried to find her voice to call out to them, but suddenly her attention was drawn to Ruby and Sven, arm in arm, smiling and laughing as Sven caught Ruby in a giant embrace that built an entire culture around them, complete with its own language, government and economy. The economy of Love, from which Lucy was forever barred from trading.
She pushed against the locomotive of Mumsy, gaining traction when she saw Dorian, smiling and laughing as he watched the newlyweds dancing out into their new lives.
“I need to see Dorian,” she mumbled into Mumsy’s hair.
“No, me love,” Mumsy insisted. “Ye need to let it go. Let it go, child. Please, for the love of god, just let it go.”
“I’m worth a hundred bucks to him, Mums. He bet he could fix me, and he couldn’t and I have to apologize.” She pushed weakly against her mother. “Not worth it. Not worth it.”
Lucy stopped fighting. She sagged against her mother like a rag doll that had just lost it’s stuffing. She lifted her tired head and saw Dorian looking at her across the crowd, Ida lifted grinning in his arms.
He smiled as he looked at her, but then his face clouded and darkened and she knew he had truly seen her. Seen deeply into her twisted soul. Dorian glared at her, turning Ida so she wouldn’t see the wreckage of Lucy that had appeared with the ghost of her memories.
Seen every sip and shot and whiskey-inspired moment.
She moaned and sobbed and allowed Mumsy to guide her, sniffling, into the schoolhouse where she hoped she would simply expire before she hurt anyone else she loved.
She loved Dorian.
And she loved Ida.
And those were her final thoughts before darkness claimed her and she remembered no more.
Twenty-Eight
Waking was a bad idea and she wondered why anyone had ever decided to do it in the history of mankind. Especially waking with a goat sitting on both eyeballs. But then she remembered that Goat lived outside now. In its own pen. Safe and secure.
Built by Dorian.
She groaned. The pain in her head was nothing compared to the pain in her soul. She rolled over, willing herself back into sleep with grains of rice from the wedding pressed painfully into her cheeks where her tears had stuck them the night before.
She tossed and turned. It wasn’t yet daylight, and she staggered out of bed, pressing herself against the window to see if anything was moving in the dark. Nothing.
The tent still stood in the moonlight. The chairs still arranged in rows and the flowers still hanging from the trellis like they would bloom again the next morning.
She had missed it, she congratulated herself.
No. She hadn’t missed the wedding, she remembered. She’d gotten drunk and Mumsy had removed her before Ida could see her staggering and slurring her words. But Dorian had seen her. She shivered as she remembered the cold look in his eyes as he turned away from her with Ida in his arms, protecting the little girl from Lucy’s failure as a human being.
She had promised him she would stay sober.
She had lied to Dorian and failed Ida and now all that was left was to… sprinkle Jeff’s ashes and get on with her life.
She leaned against the window, debating the wisdom of getting on with her life and finding it wanting.
She missed Ida.
She missed Dorian.
It was still dark outside, and even darker inside, but she shuffled down the hallway toward the library. She paused outside the library door, the tiny fountain in the hallway offering her a place to lean while she gathered her resources. There was a light seeping under the door. She craned her neck to listen and was sure she could hear the tapping of keys.
Dorian.
She eased the door open, her heart swelling with gratitude that he was awake, that he was here, that she could explain to him why she had messed up and how it wouldn’t happen again and they could all go back to just being sober and happy. She didn’t care that he had made a bet on her, how could she when she had failed? She would atone, they would move on. Not doing that anymore, she thought, pulling her tarnished mantra back off the shelf and dusting it off.
The floor groaned slightly beneath her feet and his hands stilled over the keyboard. He had his back to the door, his desk lamp creating an island of light in the dark room. Lucy saw a pile of gym mats and blankets near his desk and realized he had made a makeshift bed for Ida.
She swallowed. Because she had been too drunk to put Ida to bed herself. Because he had wanted to keep Ida as far away from her as possible.
Shame burned in the back of her throat like she had drunk motor oil.
“I’m working, Lucy,” he spoke quietly but his words brought her up short. “Go back to bed.”
She hesitated, feeling like a little schoolgirl being chastised by the teacher.
“I need to…” she began.
“Go to bed, Lucy,” he said more firmly. “Sleep it off. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“I don’t want to sleep,” she said, taking a step further into the room. She had to explain. She had to gain his forgiveness. They had to be able to start over.
“And I don’t want to talk, so you’re shit outta luck,” he said, still not turning around.
“Dorian,” she whispered.
He spun around so quickly in his chair that she staggered back a few steps in surprise. He rose to his feet and glanced at sleeping Ida before walking across the room, forcing Lucy to back up through the door and back into the hallway. The pale moonlight leeched the color out of the walls and she felt transparent in the face of his anger.
“What do you want, Lucy?” he demanded. “You want to apologize, or explain, or make excuses for your behavior? You don’t get that chance Lu, do you understand? Do you know what it would have done to Ida if she had seen you last night? Do you understand that she trusts you, and you would have shattered that trust the moment she saw you in that state?”
It was if he couldn’t say the word.
Drunk.
“Do you understand that I trusted you?” he pressed her against the wall without touching her. She lifted her chin, grasping at the threads of her self-defence as they fled into the darkness.
“Sarah came, and I got upset,” she began, but he didn’t let her finish.
“So, every time you get upset, you’re going to get hammered? Is that what a relationship with you is going to be like?”
“I just…”
“No, Lucy. No,” he backed away from her. “You’ve had a horrible thing happen in your life, and it has hurt you. I understand that, and I can make room for that pain as you work your way through it, but I will never, never put that little girl in a position where your pain is going to hurt her. Own your pain, Lucy. Own it, feel it, bear it however you must but you cannot move forward in our lives if you are going to force us to bear it for you.”
She stared at him, his face pale and fierce in the quiet hallway.
They stood silently, Lucy trying and failing to find any words to either redeem herself or to agree with him. Her heart was so full and so sore, and she knew suddenly and irrevocably that he was right. She had wanted someone to share her pain, and her drinking had been a way to shoulder it onto her back without ever sorting through the baggage to see what it was made up of.
Dorian sighed, a quick exhalation through his nose before he turned and went back into the library, closing the door behind him. She stood for a few more minutes until she heard the soft clicking of the keyboard once again.
Own your pain, she thought.
She walked silently through the school hallways, pacing out her breaths, measuring her thoughts,
until finally exhausted she tumbled back into bed just as the sun began to rise.
***
She knew it was past noon when she cracked her eyes open and rolled over, her mouth dry and her throat raw. She could hear voices coming from outside and she knew people had arrived to take down the wedding tent and pack up the chairs.
She should go down and help.
She staggered herself upright, surprised that her head seemed to be screwed on straight despite a tight kink in her neck. She peered out the window to see Sven’s truck loaded with chairs and several people carrying bits and pieces from the soccer field. Dorian’s truck wasn’t in the parking lot. She scanned the field, wondering if he had moved it, but it was nowhere to be seen.
A darting stab of concern energized her and she pulled on a pair of shorts quickly, desperate to see him and to see Ida. He would forgive her today. He would listen to her and everything would be okay.
She stopped still in her tracks in front of a canvas bag full of books sitting dead center in the doorway to her room. Balanced on top was a manuscript of printed pages, with a note pinned to the front page. She stood blinking for several seconds, wondering if she could just leap over the obstruction and continue with her day… a day that would include Dorian being his normal warm and funny self. Maybe they could go swimming, or make muffins, or just sit and watch the chickens. She wanted her day to include anything except what she knew was signified by that pile of books and handwritten note.
Dorian was gone.
She was still standing rooted to the spot when she heard Ruby coming down the hall, calling her name. She raised her eyes to her best friend as Ruby appeared in the hallway outside the door, the bag of books like a crime scene between them.
“Oh,” Ruby said, in typical Ruby way, imbuing a single syllable with both empathy and perception. “He’s gone then, is he?”
“He can’t be gone,” Lucy said, all evidence to the contrary. She remembered their conversation in the dark last night, but she didn’t remember him saying good-bye.
“He can and he is,” Ruby said. “But it looks like he’s left you with some homework.”
Love on the Rocks: A Heartswell Harbour Romance Page 16