Page 141 of Beautiful Scars

I roll my eyes and sigh as I wash my hands over my face. “You ever open one of those before?”

Sarah shakes her head.

I beckon with my fingertips. “While I think matching shiners on my wedding photos would be super cute, I’m not going to take a chance at losing an eye.”

* * *

“Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind!” me and Sarah belt out. Then we’re dancing around the kitchen’s granite countertops, waving our wooden spoons-cum-microphones as Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” lulls before the next verse.

Which is right when the intercom buzzes. “Pizza!” Sarah yells, tossing her spoon on the counter as she rushes past me, her bridesmaid dress flapping around her knees. I’m wearing a bridesmaid dress too—Sarah nearly had apoplexy when I tried to wriggle into my wedding dress—but it’s much baggier than hers.

I hope whoever’s dress this is doesn’t notice the splash of champagne I messed on the bodice. I trail behind Sarah, but I pause on the threshold of the mansion’s massive double front doors, watching her dark green dress merge with the night as she races down the gravel drive to fetch the pizza from the gate.

A cool wind chases past me, and I hurriedly step back as I suppress a shiver, patting the curlers in my hair. We decided my hair should be in soft curls tomorrow, which is roundabout when Sarah ran off to fetch curlers from her room.

She runs back with two pizza boxes stacked in her hands, and I take one and follow her into the living room where we left our second bottle of champagne for the night.

Music blares out of the room’s sound system as we dive into dinner, taking sips of champagne straight from the bottle.

We’d been playing a random list from one of the built-in music channels on the house’s cable. When the music goes off on some weird tangent, Sarah grabs the controller and turns down the volume, devouring another slice of pizza as she starts scrolling through the selection on the massive flat-screen television.

“Did you hear everything?” I ask her. When she pauses mid-chew and frowns at me, I add, “The stuff Kill said before he left.”

Her eyes immediately dart away. “A little.”

I put down what’s left of my pizza slice and wipe my hands on a branded serviette. “You think I was too hard on him?”

Her eyes are back on me in an instant. “It’s not my place—”

“I say it is.” I wave at her. “So. Go on. Tell me. Is he right?”

She puts down the controller, washing down her pizza with a swig from the champagne bottle. “It seems complicated. I mean...I don’t even know—”

I shake my head. “You think it’s fine for him to go shoving his nose where it doesn’t belong? Telling me what I should and shouldn’t be doing about my own—” My voice breaks, and I grab the champagne bottle out of her hands, chugging at it as if something got stuck in my throat. “It’s not right, what he did.”

Sarah looks down. “I don’t think that’s why you’re angry, though.”

“What?” I swipe the back of my hand over my mouth. “Of course it is!”

She nods, but then shrugs. “I think he caught you off guard with how much he cares, and you don’t know how to feel about it.”

“Cares?” I spit out. “That’s not him caring, Sarah. That’s him being in control all day, every day, over every fucking thing in his life. Even me! And I’mnotin his life.”

She frowns at me. “But you’re getting married tomo—”

“Not for real, Sarah!” I slam down the champagne. If we hadn’t been manhandling it so much the past half hour, I’m sure it would have boiled out like a volcano. “The wedding’s got nothing to do with this. It’s about him and his lack of fucking boundaries. I mean, who does that?”

I’m distantly aware that I’m shouting, but Sarah doesn’t seem to mind. She just raises her voice too. “Yeah, I dunno, Meisie. Who goes out of their way to find the daughter of the woman they love?” She throws her hands in the air. “Who does that?”

“He doesn’t love me.” This comes out a snarl. I drag the champagne bottle back to me and down as much as I can before the combined force of gravity and the carbonated liquid causes champagne to squirt out around the mouth of the bottle. “Heownsme.” I stretch my arms wide. “Big difference.”

“Of course he loves you.” She grabs the bottle, but I don’t let go. “And you’re a damn idiot if you can’t see it.”

“Then why does he keep me locked up, huh?” Sarah tugs the bottle, but I pull right back, hauling her closer. “If he loves me so fucking much, then why am I still his prisoner?”

She blinks, her mouth going slack. “I dunno, Meisie. I dunno,” she mumbles. And just like that, her eyes well with tears. “If he loves me, why does he treat me like shit?”

“Sarah...shit.” I peel her fingers off the bottle and put it down on the coffee table beside us, dragging her in for a hug. She starts sobbing into my shoulder. “Shh.” I stroke her hair, resting my chin on the top of her head as I wait for her to cry herself out.