Page 11 of Ugly Duckling
I should be excited to marry him.
I should be a lot of things, but I was none of those things.
The ceremony itself was uneventful.
We got married, he kissed me, and we went to our reception.
I was in a thousand yards of tulle and lace, and we were about to cut the cake.
“Jackson,” I said carefully. “Please don’t shove my face into this cake.”
His eyes twinkled. “I would never.”
“I’m serious,” I reiterated. “Please, please don’t do that. I don’t want wedding cake in my face. They spent an hour on my makeup.”
He snorted. “Why did they bother?”
My stomach sank.
He was always making those passive-aggressive comments.
I looked away to blink away the tears that immediately gathered in my eyes.
“Time to cut the cake!” Rocky cried out.
I turned to get a glimpse of Jackson staring at Rocky longingly.
I knew he thought she was gorgeous—she was. But he didn’t have to be so obvious about it.
For the fourth time since I’d officially tied my name to his, I asked myself what the hell I was doing.
I shouldn’t have married him.
But it was done now.
I couldn’t take it back.
Jackson caught my hand and pulled me to the table where our huge, four-tiered cake sat.
“Ohh, this smells good,” Jackson said.
I shouldn’t have fallen for it.
But, like the complete imbecile that I was, I bent down to get a good whiff of the cake.
He was right, it smelled…
“Ahhhh!” I screamed.
Why was a screaming?
Because piercing pain had engulfed my eye and face.
I somehow collapsed onto the floor, and there were screams all around me.
“Oh my god!” I heard my mom cry. “Don’t pull them out!”
“She won’t lose the eye, thank God,” I heard my mother say. “But it’ll definitely affect her vision. She also had to have reconstructive surgery to her face, because one of the support sticks that was holding the cake up entered right under her eye. When she pulled away, though, it almost degloved the entire left side of her face.”
