Page 68 of What's Left of Us

No dress.

No venue.

Twenty-four hours later, two of his friends, Michael Knight and Morgan Vaughn, meet us at the courthouse to be our witnesses. I’ve never met them before. Barely heard them talked about. But they’re there at a wedding that feels like a stranger’s. A judge who knows Lincoln marries us. We sign some paperwork. Take a few pictures that feel forced and awkward.

Within two hours, I’m no longer Georgia Del Rossi but Georgia Danforth.

A wife.

And it feels so…fake.

But I remind myself it wouldn’t feel real if it were Luca Carbone I was kissing to seal the vows I would be forced to repeat, no matter if I was in an expensive gown with a church full of people watching with feigned smiles.

I prefer it small. Intimate. That way, nobody can see the doubt in my eyes when I repeat those two words for the four other people in the room to hear.

I do.

The entire thirty-minute ride to a fancy steakhouse that Lincoln told his family to meet us at is spent thinking about what my father had said.

Whatever ridiculous fantasy you’ve made for yourself in this life would make her roll in her grave.

Maybe that’s why there’s a nagging feeling in my stomach again. I wish my mother could have been here to tell me it would be all right. That she was happy I had a choice. That she liked Lincoln as much as I’m starting to.

Don’t be naive, Georgia,my father had scolded me. What did he know about her death that I don’t? I’d spent the last decadeand a half mourning the woman for dying in a car accident, but why do I think there’s more to the story than he’s letting on?

Two days later, a black Escalade pulls up to the apartment building, but it isn’t my father who opens the door. It’s Leani, and in her hands is a box of belongings that had once been mine.

She gets out, her face looking…different.

Tired. Frail. She stares at the thrifted pair of jeans I got for fifteen dollars up to the plain tee with a stain on it that I got for two with disapproval.

My stepmother looks wary as she lowers the box to the ground. “You could have changed everything for us. I had hoped you would.”

Looking at me one last time, then at the building that’s a far cry from the mansion I grew up in, she shakes her head.

“Be careful, Georgia,” is her last warning before opening the car door. She gives me one last once-over with a deep frown settled into her face before letting out a shaky breath. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us now, but I know it will not be good. Use your new connections wisely. It’ll be the only way…” She stops herself.

She gets inside and drives away, her words making the hairs on the back of my neck stand.

In the box are clothes I tolerated once, some I even liked but couldn’t fit into my bag on my hasty exit, all cut and dirtied. Underneath them, a wedding dress. Probably an expensive one because they wouldn’t dare be caught dead buying something cheap. Not even to destroy it. The silk and lace portions that might have once been a beautiful gown are all torn.

There’s no note.

No explanation.

No threat.

But I hear the message loud and clear.

I betrayed them. Cut the final ties.

Luca Carbone be damned.

I am no longer a Del Rossi.

No longer an item to be bought.

And they won’t forget that.

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