Those Damn Butterflies

Chapter Eighteen

The atmosphere in the room could have only been described as awkward and tense. My mom was sitting in the corner, a flute of champagne in her hand as she eyed me critically. Emma sat next to me, getting her hair done by one of the stylists Mel had hired. Another one was doing my make up.

Soft music was playing in the background but it did nothing at camouflaging all the hard feelings in the room. My eyes shot to the beautiful white dress hanging on the wall. My dress.

I was nervous. Today was the first day of the rest of my life.

I fished my phone out of the pocket of my trousers and clicked on my chat with Alex, my thumbs hovering over the keyboard. But instead of writing a new message I scrolled up a little and reread some old ones.

hey Riley, just wanted to let you know that I have some other business to take care of in SF, so you can't come unfortunately. I'm sorry. Take care.

She had written that a couple of days after our fallout and it was obviously a lie, but I didn't press on it. I was also a little impressed that she had had the maturity to uninvite me after everything that I had done, and didn't just leave me hanging.

It's alright. I'm sorry about what happened. Can we please talk?

There's nothing to talk about. I told you how I feel, you don't feel the same. Time to move on.

Alex...
We can talk about what happened, the mistakes we made.

That's where you're wrong. Falling for you wasn't a mistake, just believing you could fall for me too was.
And there is really nothing to talk about anymore. I hope you live a happy life.

I didn't reply to her message after that. Was it wrong for me to want to ask her to come to my wedding? Who cares? Not that I could ruin anymore in our friendship.

Just as I finished typing the question Emma snatched the phone out of my hands.

"Hey! What are you doing?" I tried getting my phone back but Emma held it out of my range.

"No way, dude." I frowned at her. "You don't get to treat her like that and then ask her to come watch you get married."

"Who are you talking about?" Came a slurred voice from the back of the room. My eyebrows immediately furrowed at my mom's try to become a part of our conversation. She was already drunk out of her mind.

I just ignored her. "Whose side are you on, Emma?"

Emma scoffed and crossed her arms. "This has nothing to do with sides, just with respect."

"What respect? It's my wedding, I can do what I want."

"You rejected her, let her move on."

I folded my arms in front of my chest as well. "But-"

Emma interrupted me. "No but. Leave her be."

After that there once again was silence in the room, apart from the the soft tunes of a pop song. A minute or so later my mom spoke up again. "Who rejected who?"

"Ri-" Emma started but this time I interrupted her.

"No one, mom. Do you want another champagne?"