Page 33 of Three Reckless Words

I lift my head and see my face the way it looked the morning of my wedding.

All artificially primed and pruned, every stray hair on my body obliterated, my eyebrows and lashes and lips more overdone than an Egyptian mummy mask.

My nose tingles when I touch it, still sore from removing every blackhead it’ll ever have.

My cheekbones feel like they’ve moved to a different zip code.

I think the whirlwind treatments from those stylists Mom brought in ruined me.

I still don’t look completely normal.

When I see my face, I don’t see Winnie.

I see a porcelain doll, everything they wanted me to be.

Oh, Mom was delighted, though.

She touched my back so softly that morning and crooned in my ear,Winnie, you look radiant! You’re going to make him so happy. But can’t you smile a little?

No, Mom.

Hell no.

You’d have a better chance of getting a girl to grin when she’s on death row.

Shaking my head, I look at the black bag holding the torn remains of my dress. I still haven’t dragged it outside to the trash where it belongs.

Guilt is weirdly powerful.

That gawdy thing cost over ten thousand dollars—yes, my stomach churns just thinking about it—and maybe I shouldn’t have cut it up like a paper snowflake. If it was intact, I could’ve donated it, at least.

But aside from it being the most uncomfortable dress I’ve ever worn, it really was a prison suit in white.

Desperate times.

Desperate measures for erasing a cruel symbol of what they almost forced me to do, and I can’t feel too bad about tearingthrough the beautiful silk. Why not when I just cut the rest of my life to ribbons?

And because I must hate myself and I want to rub salt into a fresh wound, I read through some of the Twitter posts about my ‘big day disaster.’

DCToiletScrubber: The look on the senator’s face with his noodle of a son stranded at the altar #WeddingFail #EmberlyPatilla

Lilmeatballgirl84: OMG. OMG still cannot believe she left him on their WEDDING DAY??? Is she on drugs? #WeddingFail

Tungstentastesgoodsometimes: Holy f_king wedding fail. Winnie Emberly does NOT know good dick. I would DIE for a ride on that stallion.

The last inane post just had to include a photo of Holden with his million-dollar grin, looking all handsome in a navy suit, his dark-blond hair combed back.

His sharp face beams its ‘I’m better than you’ energy at the camera.

His favorite expression I’ve seen a thousand times.

Several people comment with fire gifs and a large dog drooling.

At least the hashtags haven’t hit the main trending lists.Yet.

I mean, it’s not like Dad or Senator Corban are A-list celebrities.

Sure, Dad was elected to his second term and he acts like everyone in Missouri knows who he is, but that’s not actually the case. He can walk down the street without being mobbed. You ask the average person about Carroll Emberly, and they’ll give you a puzzled look unless they’re a huge election dork or a high-powered lawyer.

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