Never Been Nerdy(78)

“I came to give up my role as the maid of honour.” There, I said it. Can I go home now?

Sera straightens up and moves to the sink, pinning me with a pissed-off stare that feels like she’s napalming my face. “Oh, yeah? What makes you think you have a choice in the matter? You’re the only family I have left.”

“What?! You’re not going to invite your parents, your brother? Who’s going to walk you down the aisle?” My mind’s reeling. What the what?

Sera washes an apple and takes a crunchy bite out of it. She stares at me while she chews, and I hate, hate, hate how much we both feel like strangers to each other.

“Hunter’s trying to convince me to invite them all, but I only want people there who are going to be happy for me. And they don’t fall into that category.”

“Why don’t you pick someone else for the job of M-O-H? We both know you don’t want me there that day.”

She shakes her head and takes another bite, deliberate and slow, like I’m not stepping on hot coals and a bed of nails this whole time trying to figure us out.

“That’s the thing, K. I never thought this was going to happen to me, and now that it is, there’s no one else I can see being with me that day. So that puts us in a little predicament, let’s say.” She leans onto the counter, all business as usual. Hell, who is this girl, and when did she become such a badass?

“I want you to tell me what the real reason why you’re acting like such a bitch. The real reason, K, no tip-toeing around it. I haven’t heard from you in a whole month. Dean’s seen you more than I have.”

I pull in a deep breath. I don’t want to do this right now. Can’t we just skip this part?

“That doesn’t matter. I don’t want to be your maid of honour, Sera. Pick someone else. Hey, pick Zoe! She’d be thrilled!” I tell her, referencing a friend of mine that I used to work with until I transferred departments. Come to think of it, I’ve lost touch with her the past few months, too.

Good job, K, alienating yourself was never so easy. Maybe you should call her up, get back in touch. Be a better person.

“Zoe’s not my best friend. You are. Pick up the slack and tell me what’s wrong.”

I’m shaking my head, left and right, over and over again. “No. I’ll be bad for you that day. I’ll… I’ll bring you bad luck, I’ll be bad mojo for your marriage. I don’t want that on my head!”

Sera narrows her eyes. “What bullshit is coming out of your mouth? I know you believe in the whole bad luck thing you think you have but it has no bearing whatsoever on how I feel about spending the rest of my life with Hunter. Could you stop being so fucking selfish?”

“Selfish!? I’m trying not to be, for once in my life! I’m trying to tell you that I’ll be bad for you that day, that I won’t be a good person to be around.”

“Because you’re lonely.”

I shake my head, but the words spear through my heart anyway. “That’s not it, Sera. That’s not it at all. I just don’t want to be there; you’ll be miserable because of me. Trust me on this.”

“Do you smell that? That’s the continued stream of bullshit that’s ruining my new and improved kitchen.” Sera waves a hand in front of her nose and crinkles it.

I’m getting nowhere fast. Why can’t she just listen to me and do what I tell her to?

I take off my Loubis and walk over to her in the kitchen. I don’t know, but she’s holding herself straighter, taller, like she’s proud of herself. The whole transformation has thrown me off – she’s not the person I knew. She’s this new and improved version, the outside now matching the inside and I don’t know how to act with this superhero version of Delos.

“You’re starting to tickle my rage bone. Stop being a bitch and let me out of this.”

Sera smirks. “No. Tell me what’s wrong. Then maybe I’ll consider it.”

My blood races through my veins and my inner furnace is stoked to a fever pitch.

“Just listen to me, for once. Listen. I don’t want to be at your wedding. I couldn’t stand being there.”

Silence, golden, pure and heavy silence.

Then, “Tell me why,” the words are dipped in poison and expelled in frost. Jesus Christ, what have I done?

“Because I can’t look at the both of you and wonder when it’s going to end. I wouldn’t be able to look at you, all dressed in white, all beautiful and perfect and wonder when the bastard is going to break your heart for good and I’m going to have to fix you.”