And the Bride Wore Black
“What a scandal,” they’d whisper on the streets. The priest who performed at his funeral, the weeping mother of the unlucky boy, murmurs of the townspeople gathered around the City Square. “Poor, poor girl.”
So, was this how it ended? The mother wept, the father remembering, acquaintances patted backs and extended condolences. We’re so sorry for your loss, the words seemed to hold some sort of snicker. And the bride said nothing.
Odd, how so many people look so deeply into the end, as if they forgot the beginning. So we look at a life, as ragged and despairing as it may seem, that collapsed- lost all emotion, any feeling, the element of surprise…gone.
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“He loves me,” she giggled, holding up her ring finger. “He loves me sooo much.” The diamond splendor glittered in the pale moonlight, sparkled in what light the burning lantern offered.
“He sure does,” I agreed in monotone. 10 times in a row-and counting.
“Did I tell you? When he proposed, it was like…” she started excitedly, beaming down at the engagement ring.
“You already told me,” I said flatly, interrupting her in an energetic retelling of how clean his shirt was, how elegantly the cake was placed in front of her dinner plate, the exact spot where that ring- that ring, that ring- was nestled into leaves of Godiva- “Godiva! Godiva, Becca DuGrey!”- and any other detail that simply required explanation.
She stopped abruptly. “Oh…”
Her voice trailed off. She looked absolutely crestfallen.
The quiet moment was long. I did nothing to stop it. I stood up.
“I have to go now.”
She looked up at me. “All right.”
There was something about that dead voice, dead tone, dead whatever that tugged at my heart long after I had left. She was so weak, I was supposed to be so strong. To not crumble at every despairing critique- unlike her. To be able to shrug off the twitters, the stares, the pointing- unlike her. I was power. She was not.
So how the hell did Marie get engaged before me? Before me of all people?
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She had always worn this hideous conch shell necklace, the same vomit-green turtleneck sweater. No makeup whatsoever was dabbed on her blemishes, the unmistakable shame of adolescence. It was worse during lunch, so distracting to carry on a decent conversation with a whitehead-covered countenance, where my eyes strayed to constantly.
No wonder she was so elated when Brendon Parker asked her out.
At first, I didn’t think much of it. What was one boy, one geeky boy worth compared to my pile of football players, basketball players, hell, even the track boys- all the males of my choice. It didn’t matter who I dated in the end. I dated them all.
Except for one.
Wes was the typical “emo-hottie”, one who carried himself with the air of an “undateable” self. Sure, he had the typical future-prostitutes draping themselves over him, but he sort of swatted them away.
I knew. I used to be one of those girls.
I knew the heartbreaking line of, “Let’s just be friends.”
She would be sitting with me, and I would be minding my own business at lunch. He’d catch my eye, raise one finger for me to come to him…
“Go,” she’d say through her mouthful of slimy-looking ham-and-cheese sandwhich. “Just go ahead.”
And it always happened the same way: me shooting her an apologetic smile, then when I looked back at her from my new spot by him, she wouldn’t be there anymore. I’d feel a twinge of guilt in my chest, which would be quickly forgotten in a record of 6 seconds.
“If you had a second chance for anything, what- or who- would you spend it on?” Wes-the-emo-hottie would ask during one of our random ‘talks’.
I was itching to say, “You,” but, instead I’d answer with something like, “Her,” and I’d guesture vaguely to where she had been sitting.
“Her?” he’d repeat. And I’d nod.
So, day after day, lunch always passed like that. My interrogation time.
Soon, the ache of my heart, the illusion that I could have anyone I wanted (shattered), eventually stopped throbbing so wretchedly. It still hurt, but not as much.
Maybe that’s why everything came as a surprise when out of the blue, she sprung back into my life and blurted out, “Brendon asked me to marry him.”
“You’re kidding me,” I said faintly, hearing my own voice echo in my ears,
my heart stopping. Or pounding.
Whatever it was, it hurt.
“Yeah, we were outside at this coffee shop-“ her chatter kept spilling out in breathless spurts, as if she couldn’t handle her inhaling-exhaling just yet. “-and I leaned forward and he leaned forward and then I looked down since I heard something clink against my plate, and he stared into my eyes and said, ‘Marie’…” she beamed. So proudly, like a mother watching her toddler finally flail and splash across the swimming pool, “…and, well, that’s when he asked me to marry him.”
I nodded vaguely. I had stopped listening after “Yeah.” It was like my mind had just automatically shut down, refused to allow comprehension, that dark bubble of dread welling up from the pits of m blackened heart. I swallowed hard. I should be happy for her. Right?
“Becca? Becca? Beeeehhhhcccaa.”
I rose up slowly, gripping the edge of my chair. I couldn’t trust myself not to fall. No one would be there to catch me. “I…I have to go now. Umm….I’ll tell Mom about you two. She should be happy that her youngest daughter is getting married.” And that the oldest isn’t.
As I stood up, the last words rushing out of my mouth, adrenaline seemed to trickle into my veins. My legs stood more firmly, my resolve strengthened. I was preparing to run.
“Becca, wait-“
But I was already running. I was flying, fleeing from truth, fleeing from the brutality of a broken, crumpled heart, the stitches torn again- fleeing from reality.
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“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“I wish I could’ve done something more to help.”
“He was a good man.”
Sober, grim faces brought the expression “four funerals and a wedding” to life.
Only, there was one funeral.
And no wedding.
“Why didn’t he tell me?” the was-to-be bride sobbed, burying her face into the shoulder of her would-be destined maid of honor. “Why? He was drunk and he was driving, Becca. Drinking and driving!”
“I’m sorry…” was all I could whisper, biting my lip so hard that the skin broke. Bitter, metallic crimson flooded my mouth. The sting of that tiny ounce of pain was drowned out in the excruciating pain of a loved one lost.
It’s odd, isn’t it? How “I’m sorry” becomes such a recycled phrase, reiterated so many times it seems to be pressed into your mind, your lips, your soul- becoming an automatic jerk, a reflex…
Small sniffles became tears, and those tears graduated into sobs. The sobs escalated to a long, drawn-out wail. The wretched bride hurled herself onto the lowering, creaking casket, beating the dulled wood with her fists. Thump, thump, thump, the people heard. Thumpthumpthumpthump.
“Why did you have to do this to me, Brendon? Why did you leave me?!”
And then they were edging closer, hands grasping at her dark cloak. But she continued to scream. “You were the only one who ever told me I was beautiful! No one else! Why did you have to…” her voice broke several times, then, like the pathetic last attempt of a bird trying to soar into the sky once and for all, she trailed off, emotions shattered so much that she slowly began to become numb. To her, the world had become just as dead to her as her cold, stone-dead fiancee.
I wanted to stumble forward, pull my best friend from the “aftereffects” of death, whatever that was, to shield her from the pain that she didn’t really know.
But, instead, I chose to slip silently out of the crowd, leaving the poor bride in the midst of the agitated parents, the disturbed crowd. “Too close for comfort” didn’t matter at the moment.
It was time for her to be strong- on her own.
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The 7 Wonders of the World should be knocked out of our list of "amazings". What should replace it is how realistic, how down-to-earth we are.
We have a title for everything.
What we call "bad" people, the people who disrupt our perfect, unsmoothed character of society are known as "criminals". For the piercing pain we feel in our hearts- "heartbreak". "Love" is the feeling of indescribable joy- even we put a label on something such as that- and, if it is true love, the always-fleeing icon of something that we really can't and don't understand.
So what do you call the average college girl who comes home at 1:00 in the morning to find her younger sister making out with her boyfriend?
I still remember the damp quietness, if you could call it that, as I pitted-and-pattered my way home, as I never strayed from that perfect single-file, imaginary line, as my ears tried to strain out the truly deafening silence broken by an occasional leaf crunching under my feet, or the metallic drops of rainwater dripping from the pipes running down the side of the college buildings. Everything that stayed silent in the early morning becomes so freaking loud.
"Marie? I just came back from the store, do you want chicken or shri-"
I stopped immediately as my eyes laid on a flushed, mussed-hair, shirtless-on-both-counts couple.
What. The fuck.
I remember my eyes flitting between Brendon, and Marie, then back to Brendon again. My eyes couldn't help but to skim down his shirtless self. Hm. He needed to work out in the gym some more, that complexion wasn't very becoming, and what was with that...that one pack?
And then when my eyes eventually strayed back to Marie, who had the sense to pull on her shirt when I came in. "Marie?" my voice croaked.
Chicken or shrimp instant noodle dinners seemed less appealing at the moment.
I straightened up, let my face harden into a mask of stone-smoothness, allowed my body to form itself into a more formidable being. "Marie, I need to talk to you. Privately."
I looked up in the kitchen, a coffee mug nestled between the palms of my hands as Marie shuffled in like an ashamed puppy.
"What do you think you were doing?"
The words were blurted out. I reached forward, took her chin into my hands, and lifted her face up. "Look up at me. What do you think you were doing?"
Her eyes were still downcast, and remained that way. "I stifheddeenkyouwere-"
"Clearly, Marie. I can't hear you."
She cleared her throat. "I didn't think you were coming home."
I sighed. Yes, of course she answered my question, like a good little Catholic schoolgirl.
"Marie. I'm not joking. What do you think you were doing?"
For a long moment, it was silent. Then she asked, "What do you mean?"
I sighed again, this time was the sigh of an older sister, assuming responsibility.
"Don't you know?" I crossed my arms. "Sooner or later, though I think it'll be sooner than later," I glared at her shortly, "he's going to ditch you. No, he won't remember the kisses that you two shared. No, he won't remember the dinners you've cooked for him, the holding hands, how you loved him and whatever else that you two did. Just drop it, Marie. You're better than him." I spoke. She listened.
Another moment of silence. Then, slowly, she glared up at me.
"What," she started saying heatedly, "gives you the right to slander my boyfriend like that? Huh? Do you think you can just walk in on us, making out, and call me out like a referee?"
She crossed her arms as well. This was just the beginning.
"For your information, Brendon loves me, and I love him," she said. "Don't you see? He's been the first person to ever love me, to ever say how beautiful I was, and to hug and kiss and hold my hand! What gives you the right to just waltz in and tell me that he's not "good" enough for me?!" She raised her hand for the quote marks.
"Marie, I'm just trying to do what's-"
"Oh, what's best for me? Is that what you're trying to do?" Her eyes widened, she covered her mouth in fake astonishment. "Oh, my, Rebecca DuGrey actually cares about her little sissy for once! Oh. My God."
My mouth was already shaped into a firm line, my voice rose as I fought and clawed and punched back verbally. "Oh, yeah? Well! If you didn't think that I cared about you in the first 19 years of your life, wait till you see me not care! I swear, you're going to go through Hell..."
"You know what, Becca? Guess what?" she pointed a finger at me accusingly. "You can just go to hell. I HATE you. I hate you, hate you, hate you, and I wouldn't care if I saw you burning right in front of my eyes on a stake and never die! You and your precious little "emo-boy" can go to Hell, too!" And she stormed off.
"I hate you" were the words ringing in my ears. Even after she left.
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I met Wes in front of the college library. Ironic, since that was where we first met. I ambled up to him, hands in pockets, the perfect picture- of devastated innocence.
“You’re supposed to be at the funeral, aren’t you?”
It was something everyone in the school knew, one of those stories that couldn’t help but to tell itself. I flinched at the point-blank frankness. Now, the guilt was starting to seep through the edges of my heart- like a poison, like an unevitable disease, something contagious.
“It was…it was too much.” I wasn’t lying; it really was. “I just couldn’t handle it.”
Shrugging, he looked off to the side, nodding somewhat agreeably. “I,” he replied quietly, “know how you feel.”
Of course he did. That is, he knew how I felt, since he didn’t even attend
Brendon Layne Parker’s- his own brother- funeral. God. How we torture ourselves, how we can inflict so much pain in our lives- more than ‘thine own enemies’. We are our own worst critics.
Everything became silent
Was this the time for impulses? To drop all guards, lower the insecurity, to silence the doubting voice inside me?
“Wes,” I said. “Wes, ask me that question about second chances. Ask me that again.”
“Becca-“ he started. I cut him off.
“Just say it.” My voice was strained, everything was starting to fall apart.
Sooner or later, I’d lose control and…and crash.
Wes sighed. “Okay…” Pausing, as if he was thinking back to that day when he first asked me that same question, he finally said, “Becca, if you could have a second chance for anything, what-“
Everything happened so fast, in that split second, from when I said, “You,” to when I turned towards him, in that moment as I leaned up and kissed him- everything seemed to happen when he tensed, then relaxed and finally, for once, let his guards down, his arms wrapping around my waist to when he kissed me back.
Finally. “You.”
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You thought that everything would end perfectly, didn’t you?
You thought that I, Becca DuGrey, would end up “all right”, my heart stitched back together (“This time, the stitches should hold, ma’am”), that we can end this story with a “happily ever after”, right?
Well, you’re right.
I did end up happily every after, for the most part.
But the bride, my own sister, didn’t.
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“We are here today, gathered in the presence of..”
A drop ran down the side of her face. She stirred.
“-these two beloved, Wesley Peter Parker, and Becca Madeline DuGrey…”
Everything felt so wet. So liquidated, no stronghold.
“Do you, Wesley Peter Parker, so swear to keep her in sickness and in health, to honor this sacred union, and…”
A frail hand feebly reached for that cold, hard stone. One finger brushed against the indented tablet, taking a small layer of dirt and dust with it.
“I do.”
The other hand groped for sharpness, the taker-of-life, yearned for the coldness and brutality. She forcibly carved the blade deeper into her flesh, gritting her teeth in denial of any physical pain. The drops turned into crimson streams of blood.
“And do you, Rebecca Madeline DuGrey, take Wesley Peter Parker for your husband, and swear to care for him, in sickness and in health, to honor this sacred union…”
Only a few more minutes now. Only a few more minutes until she was out of this pain, out of this heartbreak, out of the weak shell that, fittingly, housed such a weak spirit. It only took a death for her to break down into pathetic pieces.
She closed her eyes peacefully. She could feel the life slowly slithering out of her, to finally bring her to a better place. Where he was.
And with another stab, another thrust, another blossom of pain, the life fled from Marie Klein DuGrey.
“I do.”
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Thank you for taking your time to read this. Feedback and other such comments are appreciated. Again, this is part one out of the two parts (simply because I didn't have the time to type it all up >.<). I hope you all enjoyed this.
(Also, this has been moved from the other fiction thread. Hehe. Enjoy.)
--Serena <333
-This was a tad too good for me to go into critiquing without getting into the nitty gritty of absolutely EVERYTHING! So I apologise if it seems harsh, it's just me trying to help...
So, the main problem with this, and it's kind-of a big thing is it's uber confuzingness. I kind-of spaced off in the middle because I was simply too confused to try to keep up, so your reader looses intrest, and possible information neccesarry to the story.
Other than the confusion, it could be longer (which could actually help clarify some things). Go more in depth to the characters, show 
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