Page 22 of Our Big White Lie
So now we had rings. Family heirlooms, no less.
We had a date. We had a venue.
I met Tori’s gaze, wondering if she saw through to my nerves.
Holy crap. We’re really doing this.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tori
When Ava and I had put on her great-grandmothers’ rings, I’d admittedly felt a little weird. This whole plan looked good on paper, but now there were precious family heirlooms involved. Of course I would give the rings back to Ava after her mom passed, but it still felt strange. Like maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew, and this was going to blow up in my face somehow. Either people would find out and think we were awful for doing this, or all this bad karma we were racking up would come back to mightily bite us in the butt.
I wanted to believe we weren’t really racking up bad karma. We were doing this for all the right reasons, weren’t we? But we’d both grown up being told that lying was bad no matter what. Even as exceptions had been added to that over the years—like protecting someone’s feelings or hiding a surprise—it was still hard to shake off the worry that we were doing the wrong thing.
The cat was out of the bag, though, and the only thing worse at this point than Gail finding out was us telling her we were canceling the wedding. We’d made the announcement andstarted making the arrangements—nothing left to do but see it through and hope nobody got hurt.
That meant going through all the motions, which was why, at noon on Saturday, we were meeting with our moms, her aunt, and my sister at Lynnette’s Bridal Boutique. Time to try on dresses.
Weddingdresses.
As Ava drove us into town, I asked, “Is it weird to… Well, to feel weird about this part? Trying on wedding dresses?”
“I think it would be weird if we didn’t feel weird about a lot of it.” She glanced at me, forehead creased. “Do you still want to go through with it?”
“Yeah, of course. I… I think bailing would be a disaster at this point.”
She made an unhappy sound and nodded. “Yeah. It would.”
I chewed my lip. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see it being this hard to?—”
“It’s not your fault,” she said softly. “I know where your heart was when you suggested it. And once I stopped overreacting to it, I got onboard too. I think… I mean, maybe we just underestimated how much it would affect us, you know?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
Ava glanced at me again. “Are you okay with this part? Wearing a wedding dress?”
I thought about it, then shrugged. “I think so? Like I’ve never been one of those girls who fantasizes about being a bride. I don’t feel all that sentimental about this being my one and only chance to wear the dress, you know?” I paused. “What about you?”
She pursed her lips, gaze fixed on the road. “I did fantasize about it as a kid. But that was just the little girl who wanted to wear pretty dresses, I think.” She tapped her nails on the wheel.“But it does have some meaning, you know? The white dress at your wedding. The one you’re only supposed to wear once.”
I studied her for a moment. “So we’re… punching that once-in-a-lifetime ticket for a fake wedding.”
Wrinkling her nose, she nodded. “Exactly.”
My stomach somersaulted. “Are you okay with that?”
“Are you?”
“I asked you first.”
She laughed softly, adjusting her grasp on the wheel. “I think I am? Like I said, I’m not super attached to the idea. I guess it’s just one of those things that I had to stop and think about.” She quirked her lips. “There’s probably going to be a lot of that.”
“Yeah. Probably. And… I agree. I’m not really attached to the white dress thing either.” I paused. “I think it just makes this feel… real? Not real like we’re really getting married, but like we’re really going through with this. If that makes sense.”
She was nodding before I finished. “It makes sense. Definitely.” She paused. “We don’t have to go with the traditional dresses.”
“What do you mean?”
