Chapter 1

A month before the wedding, my girlfriend and my best friend picked out the groom's suit for me.

I looked at the suit and said nothing.

"When you two sent me the pictures, this was the very first one I ruled out. I told you, I don't like white suits…"

Ned Pruitt, my best friend, was in the middle of trying the suit on. He cut me off, looking pained.

"Vivian, this is the one that looks best on a groom. It'll photograph incredibly. You really should learn to be open to new things."

Gabriella Henson was still circling him, hunting for angles, snapping shot after shot.

Only after she got a few she liked did she speak, slow and unbothered.

"Ned's build is close enough to yours, so you don't even have to go to the trouble of trying it on. You should count yourself lucky."

"Besides, with your taste, following your buddy is always the safe bet."

Before I could get a word in.

The two of them went right back to debating how to shoot the wedding day for the best photos.

If I didn't even get a say in my own groom's suit.

Then there was no real reason for me to be there on the wedding day either.

1

Neither of them noticed how low I'd sunk. They were absorbed in their photo plans.

"This angle, right here, this pose. Take a few more."

"When we post it to announce it, it's going to blow everyone away."

Ned directed excitedly, then leaned in close to Gabriella.

"Remember to shoot it wide."

The two of them were pressed close together, close enough that the staff from the wedding company sighed in admiration.

"Those two really love each other. He's handsome, she's beautiful. What a perfect match."

Ned heard that and shot me an awkward glance.

"You've got it wrong. I'm just the groom's friend."

The staffer apologized to me at once and even handed over a small gift to make up for it.

I couldn't blame them for the mistake.

Even standing off to the side, watching, I thought the two of them looked more like the couple.

The three of us had known each other since college.

I met Gabriella because Ned introduced us.

We fell in love because Ned played matchmaker, wrote the love letter, made the confession for me.

Even settling down in this city was because Ned said he didn't want to be apart from me.

So the three of us stayed glued together, inseparable, like conjoined twins.

But work kept me too busy. So busy that at some point, without my noticing, the two of them had shut me out.

"Vivian!"

Ned's voice broke into my thoughts.

"It's rare for a workaholic like you to have any free time. You're already here, so why don't you go ahead and try the suit on yourself?"

I looked at that suit, white from head to hem, and pressed my lips tight.

I didn't move.

They both knew perfectly well that when I was eight, my mother put on white and jumped to her death.

After that, I never touched the color again.

Before they chose the groom's suit, I told them over and over.

"I'm not asking for much. My only condition is that the groom's suit not be white."

Gabriella said she understood. Then she turned around and locked in the exact one Ned had picked.

Only because on him, it looked refined, dignified.

I tried, gently, to say I didn't want to wear it.

Ned was displeased on the spot.

"Vivian, I went through more than a hundred groom's suits and handpicked this one, and you're telling me you don't like it?"

Before I could answer, Gabriella's brow furrowed.

"Vivian Simmons, don't push it too far."

"These past few days, worried about eating into your work time, Ned's been up at dawn helping plan your wedding, picking the suit, so anxious you wouldn't like it that he compared them over and over."

"Even if you don't count the credit, at least give him credit for the effort. What right do you have to be picky?"

Her voice was thick with blame. Ned put in a word beside her.

"All right, don't talk to Vivian like that."

Gabriella had always had a temper, and once she started lecturing she couldn't stop.

But the moment Ned said one word, she'd shut right up.

He turned back to me.

"Vivian, this suit was bought three days ago. If you didn't like it, you should have said so sooner."

I gave a cold laugh. Bought three days ago, so why was I only hearing about it now?

No one had ever asked me what I thought.

Ned ruffled my hair, coaxing me the way you'd coax a child.

"So now."

"For my sake, after all the care I put into picking it, would you do me the favor and just try it on first?"

"If you really don't like it, we'll change the plan."

Gabriella's face was cold, her voice full of impatience.

"He's already gone above and beyond as a friend."

"If you're this hard to please, pick it yourself. Stop acting like some pampered prince everyone has to fuss over."

I lowered my head. I dug my nails into my palm until it ached.

All these years, it had always been like this.

At a tourist spot, I wouldn't drink the mango milk tea that gave me an allergic reaction.

But because Ned had lined up to buy it, my refusing it meant I was being difficult.

My stomach was weak. I couldn't eat spicy food.

Yet every time we ate out and ordered three bowls of noodles, all three came extra spicy.

I wouldn't eat mine, so I ordered another bowl.

And they said I threw good intentions back in their faces, that I had a temper, that I was impossible to please.

They only ever saw Ned's efforts and my fussiness.

Not one of them ever asked me.

Whether I wanted it at all.

Just like the groom's suit being forced on me now.

Everything I wanted to say, I had to swallow back down.

I gave a bitter smile. "Fine. I'll try it."