Episode 2
1197 Words
Christina must be dreaming.
When she wakes up the next day, she isn’t laying in her creaking bed and the loud fan above her is gone. Her family’s farm is not too far from the window and over the years, she’s gotten used to their music, but strangely there’s no animal here. No music.
Worst of all, she is not back in her room.
Christina is in a hotel room. She can tell by the height of the building as she gazes through the window. The room is painted white and loosely decorated as most hotel rooms are. She looks under the sheets.
Shit. She is n***d.
The memories of the last night start rushing back in. she ran away from home. She entered the Vintage Hall. She kissed a man. She can feel the disgust in her throat as the memory comes in.
What the hell was she thinking?
The rest of the night comes in bits. The long conversation she had with the young man. The drinks. How they drove to the hotel. The long kisses. The bedroom. Then, blank.
She doesn’t remember anything past that. She is way too drunk to remember.
“Oh! God. Father really is going to kill me,” she thinks. She had only planned to sped the evening out and return home before anyone noticed, but she’s been gone past 12 hours now. Someone must have definitely noticed her absence by now.
There is a movement in the bathroom. It must be the man she spent the night with. She doesn’t even know his name. She feels so cheap. She has never done anything this daring before.
She can’t stand the man finding her like this. she quickly gets off the bed and gets dressed. She grabs her bag and all her belongings and run off the door.
When she gets out, she hails a cab and goes straight to her family house. As expected, the whole place is in disarray. Relatives have taken to the streets, looking for the kidn*pped bride. Nobody had the mind to think she absconded.
When they find her, safe and unharmed, they take her straight to her father.
“How dare you?” Mr Wilfred greets her with a slap across the face. She expects it. “Do you mean to put our family’s name to shame?”
Christina doesn’t respond. She also doesn’t apologize; she has nothing to apologize for.
“Where did you even go to?”
Before she can reply, Mr. Wilfred throws his hands up, refusing to hear anything from her.
“No. I don’t even want to hear it,” he said. He is that type of father who thinks his precious little daughter is perfect, and any negative thing about her or her body leave him with wild repulse.
“Go to your room now and you are not allowed to leave until the wedding,” he declares. “That privilege is gone,”
Instantly, she is escorted back to her room. Her mother and several relatives come at intervals, trying to get information out of her, but she had done this long enough to know that if she just keep her face down and look sorry enough, they will eventually leave her alone.
When the night comes and Christina is left alone, she can’t help but burst into a fit of laughter. She can’t shake the look on her father’s face. It was all worth it.
When the laughter dies down, she remembers her kiss from the other night. The stranger’s lips were tender and sweet. She had never had a kiss like that before. Everything about this man had mesmerized her from the moment they met and she wishes…
“No,” she stops herself again. The last night encounter is just what it is. A wild night of freedom before her entire life is snatched away. Soon, she will be married to a total stranger, into an unknown family and there she will spend the rest of her life as a dutiful wife and mother.
The thought fills her with dread. She suddenly feels like running off into the woods and never returning home. But she has nowhere else to go.
“Must listen to father,”
Besides, maybe her new family will be good and she will be happy forever. Even if she is not, she at least has that one good night to cherish forever.
The day goes by fast and the wedding day finally comes.
Her mother is the happiest woman alive. She dresses her up and gives her several family heirlooms, narrating the ancestral history on each one. Christina doesn’t understand half of it.
Her father walks her down the alter with a proud smile. She makes such a beautiful bride, and watches as everyone turns their head in amazement. Her father has a wide smile on his face; Christina has never seen him grin so much before.
“Thank you,” he whispers to her as they get to the altar. Somehow, her father’s softness makes the whole thing worth it. She doesn’t have no doubt again.
She looks up and sees her fiancé, Sommons, for the first time. Mr. Wilfred is right. He is from her childhood. Simmons’s deep blue eyes are dreamy and he has a beautiful smile that makes Christina feels at peace. He wears a thrift suit, but his farm bred build keeps it fitted. He looks like he would look good in pretty much anything.
Perhaps this whole affair isn’t as bad as she thought it would be.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi,” she replies. “You… want to do this?” she manages to ask.
“I’ve waited my whole life for it,” he says with a sincere smile.
The priest walks in and the event starts properly. After a few words of advice for the couple, they take their vows.
“Do you Simmons Troussard take Sophia Wilfred to be your lawfully wedded wife?” he asked. “Do you promise to love and cherish her, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, for better and for wors, and for forsaking all others, keeping yourself only unto him, for as long as you both shall live?”
“I do,” he says without hesitation.
The priest asks the same of Christina. She takes a second, but finally, she replies, “Yes, I do,”
“If anyone has any objection, speak now or forever hold your peace,” the priest announces.
No one really expect a response to an invitation like these, it is just a formality, but just then, a voice catches them off guard.
“I do,”
Christina recognizes this voice. She has only heard once before. It was…
“Oh! No,” it dawns on her. She suddenly starts breathing heavily. Her well sculpted face sweating hard under the air condition. She slowly turns, praying to any god that that will listen for her suspicions to be wrong.
But to her shame, it is him. It is the man she kissed at the party.
- Writer
