I thought the hardest part of my wedding day would be keeping myself from crying as I looked in the mirror. I never imagined it would be surviving what happened next.
My wedding day was supposed to be perfect.
But I didn’t know it would become the thing people whispered about years later. However, at that moment, all I knew was that my hands were shaking so badly I had to clasp them together just to stay upright.
I remember standing in the bridal suite, facing the mirror, breathing through the tightness in my chest.
My dress was already on.
It was made of ivory lace, fitted at the waist, and it was everything I had dreamed of since Mark, my fiancé, proposed.
My makeup was finished, soft and natural, my eyes lined just enough to make them pop. My hair had taken almost two hours.
The stylist settled on fresh, loose curls woven into braids, pinned carefully so they framed my face and held the veil just right.
“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “You’re okay.”
“You’re more than okay,” my maid of honor, Jenna, said from behind me.
“You look stunning!”
I smiled at her reflection. “If I cry again, please tackle me.”
She laughed. “Deal!”
The door opened without a knock.
Linda walked in as if she owned the room.
Jenna’s shoulders stiffened.
Mine did too, but I kept my voice polite.
She wore a powder-blue dress and pearls that matched the ones Mark had once told me she wore to every important event in his life. Her lips stretched into a smile that never quite reached her eyes.
“There she is,” Linda said. “My future daughter-in-law!
I just wanted to see you before everything starts,” she added, glancing around the room.
Her eyes landed on my hair and stayed there.
Just nice. Not beautiful or radiant, but nice.
“Thank you,” I said anyway.
She stepped closer. Too close.
I caught the sharp scent of mint, then heard it.
Chewing. It was loud, deliberate snaps of gum.
“I won’t stay long,” she said, still chewing in between. “I just wanted to give you a hug.”
That alone should’ve warned me.
The thing was, Linda had never hugged me before.
Not once.
And I’d never seen her chewing gum before that day.
The truth was that Linda had never warmed up to me.
In fact, when her son proposed, she spiraled. The woman cried, but not tears of joy: they were from thinking it was too soon because I wasn’t what she pictured for him, and I didn’t come from the right background.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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