Chapter 4

4: 4

"Sis, I only wanted to help you. Why did you hit me?"

Piers shoved me aside and tucked Peggy behind him.

"Are you insane? Peggy is your own sister!"

"Ivy Pruitt, you get more impossible by the day."

A few short years.

That was all it took for me to go from his precious flower to the madwoman, the poison, in his mouth.

I stumbled back a few steps.

Tears of regret fell.

If I could, I truly wished I had never saved him.

"What are you crying for? We never touched you!"

Once, Piers would have wiped my tears away like they were something precious.

Not now.

My tears couldn't reach his heart anymore.

"It's nothing. I just think it's pathetic."

"Tomorrow is our wedding. You two should go get ready."

Tomorrow was also, as it happened, the day I was leaving the country.

Only by sending them off could I slip away without trouble.

Piers said nothing.

He looked at me, his face uneasy.

He seemed to wrestle with it for a long while before he finally forced the words out.

"That's right, tomorrow's our wedding, yours and mine. But you've been in a bad way these past couple of days, you can't even manage a smile. If the guests see that, they'll only think you were forced into it…"

My tone stayed flat.

"So?"

He drew a heavy breath.

"Ivy, it's fine if you can't smile."

"Peggy looks like you. Let her stand in for you and go through the ceremony. No one will notice."

I had already given up on him.

And yet, hearing something this absurd,

my heart still tore open, raw and stinging.

Fine.

I wasn't planning to be at the wedding anyway.

If he wanted Peggy in my place that badly, then let them have what they wanted.

"All right. I understand."

The moment they heard my answer, the two of them broke into thrilled smiles.

They started sorting out the order of the ceremony.

And going out to buy the rings and the wedding clothes.

"Ivy, so you can rest, I'll just take Peggy with me to the mall to look at rings. Your fingers are the same size anyway…"

Piers finished and turned to leave.

Peggy skipped along behind him.

The two of them close and easy, like a real couple.

Leaving me standing there like a clown someone had thrown away.

All through the night,

neither of them asked what I thought.

As if the wedding gown really had been made to Peggy's measurements.

And the wedding too…

Early the next morning,

with heavy dark circles under my eyes, I packed my bags.

I walked out of the hospital.

Outside, the big commercial screen was broadcasting their wedding live.

On a raised platform paved with flowers.

Peggy stood at the center of the blooms in a diamond-studded wedding gown.

An even larger jeweled necklace at her throat.

And Piers, ring in hand, was down on one knee.

"Peggy, does this count as me marrying you once too?"

His eyes were red.

As if he thought their wedding had been won against all odds.

The last time I saw him cry like that was before the SATs, when I fell sick and got hurt.

Looking at my wounds, he'd sworn through blurred eyes to protect me, to love me for the rest of his life.

But nothing stays, and everything ends.

The figure standing there now could no longer line up with the shy boy in my memory.

Brilliant lights ringed the two of them in a halo.

The click of cameras mixed with cheers loud enough to lift the roof.

Like a tsunami closing over me.

I should have been heartbroken.

But I wasn't.

There was only a kind of relief, that it had all turned out just as I thought.

I looked at them one last time.

Then I took a cab to the airport.

On the way, Piers sent me a message.

"The wedding's almost over. Wait for me at the hospital like a good girl. I'll come pick you up."

I left him one line.

"Piers, let's break up. I hope you marry the girl you love."

Then I blocked his number and deleted him.

Once I was on the plane,

my heart slowly settled.

The roar of the engines filled my ears, and at last I was leaving the city that had trapped me for years.

I had loved here, deep in my bones, and I had hurt here until it tore me apart. Now all of it would scatter on the wind…