Page 101 of Fall For Me
It doesn’t need to. I’m already locked in. Someone else’s will is taking over, drowning out my voice.
I stand in the center of the room, staring at the dress.
My vision tunnels. The edges go dark and fizzy. My chest constricts, the phantom pressure of a corset I’m not even wearing squeezing my ribs until each breath is a fight.
I’m back at the church with bobby pins stabbing my scalp, and Matt’s mother adjusting my veil.
I call Liam, but his phone goes straight to voicemail. He must be in the air.
Okay. Fine. I’ll handle this myself. But how? By accommodating his mother? By fitting into the shape of what’s expected?
I can’t. I can’t do it again.
It’s not the party, the dress, or the cake. It’s that I can feel myself starting to fold. The instinct is still inside me, alive and ready, waiting for this kind of pressure to rear its ugly head.Weeks of trying to find myself again, and it takes one afternoon to whip me back to the woman Matt made me.
Is this what it will always be with Liam? His family’s money, his family’s house, his family’s plans—and me, somewhere inside all of it, shrinking to fit? I have feelings for him. But I want to express them in my own terms, at my own pace. Not like this.
What do I do?
Someone knocks on the door.
“Yeah?”
A woman in all black walks in and guides me to the chair in front of the dresser. I sit because my legs won’t hold me. Another woman follows her and unpacks a case of makeup. Brushes sweep across my cheeks. Fingers twist my hair. Bobby pins slide into my scalp, each one a painful memory.
The panic builds in waves, each one cresting higher than the last.
I watch my face in the mirror change as they work. Foundation smoothed over my skin. My cheekbones carved higher with a brush. My lips glossed into compliance. I sit still and let it happen because these people are just doing their job. It’s not their fault.
But the more my features morph into those of a porcelain doll, the more I realize I’m not ready to stand in front of a crowd and recite vows that aren’t mine.
It feels wrong for completely different reasons than it did with Matt. But wrong all the same.
I can’t breathe.
The stylists finish. They help me into the dress and seal me in, the bodice tightening around my ribcage. Boning digs into my sides.
They plant me in front of the full-length mirror and coo their approval before leaving me alone.
Despite the slightly less constricting dress and more romantic hairstyle, I don’t see myself. I see the woman from a month ago. The one standing in a chapel dressing room, suffocating in silk, staring at her own terrified face, and knowing she couldn’t go through with it. She spent two years disappearing and called it love.
But what I feel for Liam is not that. It’s so much more. Whatever is blooming between us deserves better than this.
Another knock comes at the door.
“Mrs. Rockwood?” The event planner’s voice is crisp and efficient. “Your husband has arrived. We’ll begin in ten minutes.”
Liam is here. He’s back from his trip, and he’s walked into this spectacle his mother created without consulting either of us.
Ten minutes.
I turn away from the mirror. The room I’m in has French windows facing the side of the garden.
I stare at those doors.
The last time I ran from a wedding, I had to climb through a stained-glass window in heels and nearly broke my neck. This time, at least, the exit is at ground level. I kick off the shoes they gave me and put my sneakers back on.
I text Liam instead of calling because if I hear his voice, I’ll stay. And staying would break me in a way that I don’t know how to fix—it would break us.
