BRING THE CEO DOWN!

Ara’s POV There are several things that a bride is supposed to feel on her wedding day. I felt many of those things. Happiness, joy, love. Yet something was wrong on my wedding day. It was not me. I was dressed like every bride should be, with the perfect dress, the perfect makeup, the perfect bouquet. I was dressed the way I was supposed to. Yet something was missing. It was Fabian Lewis, my husband-to-be. It was nothing like it seemed. My husband would be at the wedding, he didn’t jilt me. I was actually getting married. My groom was in attendance. Fabian was dressed in his suit, looking too dapper, too smooth for me to ignore. It was on his face, his expression that the problem lay. He was angry. He looked frustrated. He did not look like a man who wanted to get married. I was getting married to a man that I loved with all that I had, but that man did not love me back. “Smile, Ara, you have been waiting for this day forever,” my friend Tricia said. Tricia was my bridesmaid. I remember how she told me these same words when we were doing the makeup. I could see my brown hair that had been curled and styled to perfection, my apple-shaped face, with my small grey eyes, looked little like it did most of the time. It was enhanced. I felt beautiful, I still feel beautiful. My friend Tricia dressed in her pink bridesmaid dress, my friend who knew everything that I went through, everything that I was going through. She told me that it was okay, that I should smile. “Can’t he at least pretend?” I asked, no one in particular. It was just my show of displeasure. I was just so happy, yet the man that I was happy for, the man that was supposed to be my joy, was angry, he was frustrated. He looked like he could not stand the fact that he was getting married to me. The knowledge of that did not sit well with me at all. No matter how much I tried to ignore it, that I tried to say that it was okay, that Fabian would change with time, that he didn’t know it, and he would fall in love with me. It still was so hard to let go. To imagine that I did not see the grimace on his face. To pretend like it didn’t hurt me to see him so. “I don’t think he can,” Tricia said. She sounded angry at him, good. I didn’t like that everyone loved Fabian. He was my brother’s best friend as a child, and I have watched him grow since then. I have known him all my life, from when I was in diapers, to when I was in pigtails, to when I fancied just black, and then when I went to prom. I have known him for so long that I can not point out when I fell in love with him. It most probably was somewhere between the ages of nine and twenty-one. So when my father’s will read that I would have to get married to Fabian Lewis, the man that I loved, I did not object. I didn’t cry and say how unfair it all was, I didn’t say how I was way too young to be getting married. I was even a little happy. My father and Fabian’s father had been business partners of sorts. They were even friends, so it was not a surprise to me that he would want to join his company to that of his very close friend. What was surprising was that he gave the company to me, his second child, and only daughter who had no idea how to run a corporation or how to run anything at all. He did not leave the company to his firstborn, my brother, Fabian’s best friend, Quincy Erikson. I asked several questions but got no answers. There were no answers to be given. It was simply what my father wanted. I missed my father, and for a split moment in the almost empty church, the wedding was simply by invitation, I did not want to get married, I wanted my father to reverse the will, to give the company to Quincy, so that my husband to be, my fiancé, Fabian would not seem so grim, so shaken, so angry. I wanted the dress, the flowers, and all the people to go away just so I could see him smile. “I want him to love me,” I said again to my friend. It was time for me to walk down the aisle. My brother was here, and Fabian was standing at the other end looking formidable and angry. The walk almost scared me, like I was walking to meet a lion. Yet it was a lion that would not cause me harm, not because he did not want to, but because he cared. Tricia looked at me. She looked so sad. “He will love you,” she said. I figured it was because of my face. Maybe something in my eyes told her that if she said something different, I would have run away. Maybe I would have, maybe I still will. “Shall we?” Quincy asked. He looked begrudged, which was not so surprising. He was letting his only sister go. He was also giving what he believed to be his birthright away. I could not blame him at all. I put my hand through his and walked down to meet the most threatening lion. The closer I got, the more I saw Fabian’s face, how threatening it was, how angry. As I got even closer and closer. I realized it was not threatening, I only saw it was such. His expression was angry, and even more so, it was sad. Fabian was sad and resigned about what was going to happen, and I almost wanted to flee then. If I loved him, I would let him go, would I not? Yet I was too selfish. I am. I would never let him go. I loved him too much. I told myself that it was my father’s dying wish, that he would be angry in his grave if I did not follow through, yet I knew very well that it was done for my very own benefit. I wanted to get married to Fabian, so I did just that. Fabian was told by the priest to remove my veil, and he looked like the embodiment of anger, of frustration. He looked the priest straight in the eye, and it almost seemed like he would say no, but he begrudgingly removed the veil. I figured that if his own father were here, Adrian Lewis, so caring so kind, he would push Fabian right there in the church. He might even make him smile just because of me. My favorite uncle. It was so sad that so many people that I loved were gone. Without the barrier of the veil, I could see Fabian better, well. He was glaring at me. He was looking up at me in disgust. He wanted me to know that the look was just for me, not for anyone else but me. What did I do to him? What did I do to deserve this hate? This is anger this frustration? Why could he not just love me? Why could he look at me and not see happiness? Why will I never be enough for him? Why can’t he love me? The words went through my head, spinning and spinning until it felt like I was about to fall. The priest was saying the vows now, and it was up to her to repeat what was being said. “I Ara Erikson, take this man Fabian Lewis as my lawfully wedding husband, to love and to cherish, in sickness and in health, till death do us part,” I said. As I said it, the anger that I felt, the sorrow, it all evaporated, and all that was left was the love that I began with. He would love me. He would love me even more than he loved himself. I just needed one year. I would make him love me, I would have him love me, and everything would be fine. It was time for Fabian’s vows, and by then, I already convinced myself that he loved me. He just didn’t know it yet. I was sure that I would make him love me. It was time for Fabain to say his vows, and he looked at me, his eyes burning with anger, and he began. “I Fabian Lewis take Ara Erikson as my lawfully wedding wife, to love and to cherish, in sickness and in health, till death do us part,” he said. He sounded like he did not mean any word of it, yet he said it. The fact that he actually said the words was enough for me. I knew that he would mean it one day, even if that day wasn’t today. “And now you may kiss the bride.” This time, it was the priest who spoke. Fabian looked absolutely disgusted, like he couldn’t believe that would be asked of him. To kiss me? He looked at me like I was garbage, trash to be thrown away. All that time, I was standing with my heart heavily beating against my chest. I was waiting for him to finally come close to me, to kiss me. I could not even bring myself to cover my eyes and wait because it seemed then that what I was waiting for would never come. It felt like the longest two minutes of my life, but Fabian finally leaned in. He leaned in, and his lips slightly touched my cheek. In such a way that anyone could tell that he did not want to kiss her lips. “I do not want to marry you,” he said in her ear and then stood back straight. He was looking at her again. I knew that he did not want to marry me, very well too. Yet I deluded myself that he might change his mind. That was enough to set me back. Those words broke me first.