Anything but Ordinary (18 page)

ou’ve got to try this risotto, Bryce,” someone was saying. Bryce was vaguely aware of a fork floating in front of her. She took it and set it on her plate.

“You’ve got to try it!” the voice said again. A perfumed head tilted in front of her. Zen.

Candlelight sparkled off of her loose curls. “Lost in space?” she said.

“Yeah,” Bryce replied.

She popped the ricelike pasta in Bryce’s mouth, an explosion of taste. It was delicious. Overwhelming.

The restaurant was painted in a warm red-orange color, filled with candles and mirrors and dark wood. In the light, everyone—Zen, Mary, the brunettes, Greg’s parents, Gabby’s mother—looked like they were blushing. All the tables in the tiny restaurant, except for the booths by the wall, were combined in a long line where the wedding party sat.

Greg’s parents, Jim and Lisa, were to the right of Gabby, next to their sons. Greg sat there, folding and refolding his cloth napkin into different shapes, seemingly oblivious to everyone around him.

Next to Greg was the broad-shouldered line of his fraternity brothers, including the tousle-haired Tom. He had given her a small wave when she walked in.

On the left side was Gabby’s mother, then her grandparents, speaking mostly Spanish, and the bridesmaids. Gabby was radiant at the head of the table.

This morning at the rehearsal she wore her pearl-colored heels with a pair of jeans and a loose linen tank, hands shaking as she held a practice bouquet of prairie flowers that Mary picked from the church landscaping. Greg stood across from her, hair still bed-messed, and they muttered back and forth, quick, repeating, stumbling over the words like they were back in elementary school giving a book report.

Tomorrow the bridesmaids would meet early at the stone-carved church, to help Gabby get ready. The ceremony would start at 4 p.m., and after it was over, the hundred guests would go in caravan back to one of the lavish conference rooms at the Opryland Hotel. They had invited mostly family and friends from Nashville. Only a few other Stanford people were flying or driving in. The reception lasted from “6 p.m. till ?” the invitation had said, like it could go on forever if they wanted it to.

As she thought of the invitation’s question mark now, Bryce imagined it like the birth and death dates for famous figures from history or civics class. Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968). Occasionally, you would look up someone who was still alive, and the dates were open-ended (1950–?).

Bryce’s dates ended in a question mark, too. But not for long.

She wondered with a funny pang if Dr. Warren knew the approximate date of her death. Why stop at a wedding rehearsal? They could have a funeral rehearsal, too. She would test out the coffin, hear everyone say nice things, make sure they picked the right music. She laughed to herself at the thought, though it made her stomach turn.

Just the other day she was standing in the Saks dressing room with Gabby, trying on her bridesmaid dress and dreaming about her own wedding. And now…Bryce couldn’t help it. More tears gathered in her eyes.

One of the brunettes leaned in, her manicured hand holding bread dipped in olive oil. “Save your tears for the toast, honey. A crying maid of honor always kills it.”

No one had told her she had to make a toast. Maybe Gabby would let her off the hook because she knew how bad Bryce was at public speaking.

Elena, Gabby’s mother, excused herself from a conversation with Greg’s parents and approached their end of the table.

“Bryce, darling,” she said, squatting down, her dark eyes shining. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” Bryce said, composing herself.

The clinking of crystal sounded over the din. Gabby stood up, a glass of red wine in her hand. Elena smiled apologetically at Bryce and retook her seat.

As everyone brought their conversations to a close, Bryce glanced in front of her and realized her wineglass had been removed. That was thoughtful of them. But at this very moment, she wished they hadn’t been quite so thoughtful.

“Mary, pour me a glass of wine, okay?” Bryce whispered as Gabby began speaking, telling the story of her and Greg’s first date.

“But I thought—” she whispered back.

“One glass isn’t going to kill me,” Bryce said, pursing her lips.

“Are you sure?”

Zen, trying to listen to Gabby’s speech, snatched the bottle, filled a generous glass, and placed it in front of Bryce. Mary shrugged and went back to listening.

“—and then, it was just like a movie. We had climbed down this cliff to an empty beach, and I didn’t care that we were lost, or even that my pants were dirty.”

The table tittered, the women among them wiped their eyes. Gabby had them in the palm of her hand. Bryce pushed out a real smile for her friend. Her lovely, entrancing friend.

“All I could see was Greg. And it’s been the same ever since. To my darling husband-to-be, and to all of you!” Gabby finished, raising her glass. Bryce followed the rest of the table and raised her own, taking a sip. Her first glass of wine. It tasted like spicy, sour juice. She took another sip.

Suddenly, Zen was grabbing Bryce by the elbows, standing her up. “Maid of honor!” she cried.

“I don’t have anything,” she said in a low voice.

“Just say what you feel right now,” Zen whispered.

Bryce floated above the faces in the dim light. Greg’s groomsmen looked at Bryce, their polite smiles like carbon copies of one another, their toned arms crossed over their chests. Greg fiddled with his risotto. Bryce tightened her hand around the stem of the wineglass.

What she felt. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here.”

She stopped. That was supposed to sound like she was
actually
happy. She pushed on. “I remember the first time I heard Greg and Gabby were getting married.…” The sips of alcohol were swimming to her stomach like they had on that day at Los Pollitos. “We were at a restaurant and I had just, you know, come home. And I was happy for them.”

Lies. Gabby’s face twisted into a smile, trying to keep back tears.

“I’m happy for them now,” Bryce continued.

Their lives stretched in front of them, and behind them. Bryce’s life was another day gone.

“And I will always be happy for them.…” Her life was draining by the minute, by the second. And so was her blood. Isn’t that what Carter said? Draining from her brain.

People were starting to fidget. Bryce swallowed her nerves. She should get it together. She didn’t want to leave them with this impression of her. These sniveling, stumbling words. She took a deep breath.

“Gabby and Greg have been a blessing to me. They’re my best friends. As you know, it’s been an eventful few years for all of us.” Scattered laughter. Bryce paused, looking into her glass. She looked up. “It’s been amazing to have them around, to remind me of how great our pasts were. But I know the future’s going to be even better. To Gabby and Greg,” Bryce finished, because she didn’t know what she was supposed to do at the end. She didn’t know anything about any of this, and she needed some time. She needed more time.

Elena stood up and raised her glass with everyone at the table. Bryce set down her wine with a splash and made a beeline for the bathroom.

It was dark inside the small, tiled room. She couldn’t find the light switch. She shuffled through the space, feeling tile after tile. Why couldn’t she find one freaking light switch? She heard her own heavy breathing, scattered with sobs.

Someone turned on the light.

“Are you okay?” It was a man’s voice. Greg.

“Yeah, I just need to wash my face,” Bryce said tensely.

“I don’t like it either, Bryce,” he said, stepping farther inside, filling the room with the smell of cologne and his wine-stained breath. He looked toward the main room, and back to Bryce.

“Hear me out,” he said. Bryce ran her hands under the water, her vision blurred. She could feel his whispers on her neck. “I can’t stop thinking about us. I think about my life with Gabby, and I think about what my life could be with you, and I always choose you. Always, and I always will.”

Bryce turned off the water. Paper towels. Where were the paper towels? Greg turned her around and took her shoulders, breathing in her face. His eyes wouldn’t leave hers, and she caught them, a blazing blue. He loosened his grip.

“Bryce, I don’t believe you want this to happen any more than I do, so let’s do something about it!”

“I’m not going to change my mind.” Bryce shook him off and dried her hands on her dress. “And if you really didn’t want to be here, you wouldn’t be here.”

He stood in the doorway, blocking her. “What do you mean?”

Bryce stood facing him, looking him straight in the eye. “I mean that if you really didn’t want to be with Gabby, things would never have gotten this far. You wouldn’t be at the rehearsal dinner the night before your wedding.”

He said nothing. He backed down from the doorway. “I can’t do it, Bry.”

“I asked you this before, and I’ll ask you again.” Bryce kept her voice low, under the din of the restaurant. “What do you want?”

“Honestly?” Greg grimaced. “I don’t know.” He hung his head.

Bryce didn’t like to see him this way. She had cut herself off from him, but she had never stopped caring. He wasn’t happy, she could see that.

She took his cheeks in her hands, not because she wanted him, but because she wanted him to do better.

“It’s not just your life you’re deciding here, it’s Gabby’s, too. And she deserves to be happy. She deserves her fairy-tale prince.”

He just nodded, solemnly. There was wetness in the corners of his eyes.

She dropped her hands from his cheeks. There was nothing left in Bryce but heavy tiredness. She felt sucked dry. Emptied.

She walked past Greg’s slumped figure, but before she hit the doors, she turned around. “You were going to be happy before me. Now be happy after me.”

Outside she watched the traffic for a taxi. After several cars, she saw one speed through a yellow light a block away. With the hollow jolt of death in her, Bryce walked in front of the hurtling car.

Two feet in front of her, the cab screeched to a halt. “Are you crazy?” the driver yelled out his open window. “You wanna get killed?”

In answer, Bryce got inside and asked him to take her home.

he next day, Bryce woke up. What a miracle. Call the president.

During the ride home last night she had started laughing to herself about the ridiculousness of it all. The car pulled up to her house and she took out her money, laughing. She collapsed on her bed and laugh-cried herself to sleep. The driver must have thought she was out of her mind.

Well, she
was
out of her mind. Technically, since a little more than five years ago, she was.

Bryce had fallen asleep in her dress. She changed into sweatpants, washed her face, grabbed her red gown in its Saks bag from her closet, and asked her mother for a ride.

Her mom greeted Bryce like it was any other morning, absently flipping through a design magazine. Dr. Warren must not have called them yet.

“Good luck, baby,” she said when she pulled up to the church. “We’ll be there for the ceremony.”

“Bye, Mom,” Bryce said, and kissed her on the cheek.

She refused to let her thoughts drift away from the wedding. Did she have her shoes? Yes. Did she remember how to walk down the aisle? One, together. Two, together. She approached the church’s heavy wooden doors through the warm morning haze. They creaked open, and Bryce stepped into the velvety hush.

A silk white ribbon hung from the pews on either side of the church’s center aisle—Gabby’s path to the altar. She and Greg would stand between two huge, mounted bouquets of white roses. Beautiful. Bryce veered off to the right, to the side room where everyone would be getting ready.

At first she thought the beige room was empty; then she saw the bride sitting in the far corner. Her dress was thrown haphazardly across a chair, its full, creamy length on the carpeted floor like spilled milk.

“Hey!” Bryce called. “Where is everyone?”

Gabby didn’t look up. Her hands stayed folded in her lap, hair falling around her face. Bryce walked over and kneeled beside her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t,” Gabby said quietly from behind the curtain of her hair.

“Don’t what?”

She pulled back to face Bryce. She didn’t look like herself. She looked like a wax version of Gabby, a permanent scowl on her tear-stained face. “The wedding’s off.”

“Oh!” Bryce let out a little cry. “Wha—why?”

“I don’t know, Bryce,” Gabby said quietly. “Why don’t you tell me?” Her voice was tight, like coiled springs.

Bryce stood. An anvil dropped between them. An unmovable, unchangeable truth.

“I wish I had told you,” Bryce said, backing up. Gabby followed Bryce with her eyes.

“How
could
you?”

“It was a huge, giant mistake.” She was yanking the words out, pulling them like string, and none of what she was saying could ever be right.

“Which time?” Gabby’s voice was like ice.

“What?”

“Which time was it a mistake?”

“Every time,” Bryce said automatically.

“He still loves you.”

“No, he doesn’t. I told him to make you happy.”

Gabby’s eyes narrowed, her lip still trembling. “Too late.”

Bryce wanted to disappear somewhere, blend into the air or the water.

Gabby got up, too, stepping away from the chair with her arms stiffly at her sides. Her feet scuffed the white patch of fabric on the ground.

“You’re standing on your dress,” Bryce said, feeling tears well up. She had ruined everything.

“Don’t be an idiot.” Gabby laughed bitterly.

The room was so silent then. So quiet. Bryce could hear cars pass by outside.

Gabby broke the silence, staring at the floor. “I guess since you haven’t left yet, I could ask you why, but I think I kind of know why.” She looked at Bryce with a small, sad smile, her eyes still narrowed. Bryce didn’t understand.

Before she could muster up a reply, Gabby continued. “He was still yours, in your mind, wasn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” Bryce said, shaking. She clenched her jaw, trying to control it.

“I feel sorry for you,” Gabby said. She spoke slowly, drawing out each word.

“Don’t,” Bryce said. “It was my fault. I don’t know what—” She stopped. She wished she could stop saying that. She didn’t know
anything
. And it seemed like she never would. “Listen,” Bryce said, collecting herself.

“I don’t have to listen to anything.” Gabby jumped on Bryce’s words.

“I’ll be gone.” The words rushed out of her. “I mean it. I’ll leave you alone. You guys could work things out.”

Gabby shook her head. “It’s too late, Bryce.” She gathered her dress in her arms and walked past Bryce to the door.

“Gabby, please,” Bryce begged, but she didn’t know what she was asking for. Gabby stopped in the doorway. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” she said.

Her footfalls echoed in the empty church, and the door swung open, creaking, and finally shut.

Soon Bryce left, too, leaving her gown on one of the pews as she exited through a side door. She didn’t call her mom to pick her up.

The day was gray, her mind was gray.

None of it was hitting her, but not because she wasn’t letting it. There was nothing left of her to absorb the impact. Bryce had done all the damage she could possibly do, and now everything was in pieces. Sometimes Bryce had to pause in the middle of a parking lot, or on someone’s lawn, and wrap her arms around her stomach. She was falling apart, and the pieces were going to float away from her. Her arm would fall off first, then a leg, her head would drift up to the sky like a balloon.

The long, dry walk ended, and Bryce was home on River Drive, standing in front of the big blue house. Her fingers and toes were numb, and her limbs ached from tiredness. Her family was inside, laying out their clothes for a ceremony that wouldn’t happen.

Bryce took a deep breath.

“Forgive me,” she said out loud to everyone. To her family. To Carter. She walked up the sidewalk with the last ounce of energy she had left. All she wanted was to curl up under a blanket and hope that time passed quickly.

Forgive me.