Page 139 of Ruined Vows

She shoves her chair back and stands.

“I never made you any promises!” Tears flood down her cheeks. But I still hear her devastating whisper, “I never told you I loved you.”

Guards grab my arms and wrench me backward, but I fight for one last glimpse of her.

“Goodbye,” she calls, and I fight harder.

Just one last glimpse?—

Just one last?—

One of the guards knocks me over the back of the head, and all I see is darkness.

FIFTY-FIVE

KIRA

“Well,I suppose that’s the best it’s going to get,” Carol says, looking at me critically in the mirror after the makeup and hair people have spent hours plucking and painting and spraying.

Her disappointment is clear on her face as she looks down at me in the designer dress that had to be let out at the last minute in order to fit my new size.

Naturally my mother wouldn’t let me wear the gorgeous gown my friend designed and created for me. Drew told me in his new scary threatening voice to humor her and wear the dress she wanted.

Not that she’s pleased now that I’m in the damn thing. “This just isn’t the way it’s supposed to fit.”

She frowns and reaches out to try to tug at the gown even though I’m so strapped into the damn thing it’s not going anywhere. “I told you to stop with the carbs. But what have you done instead? Gone and gainedweight. Are youtryingto make your father and I laughingstocks in front of the entire congregation?”

“What are you even talking about?” I jerk away from her hands yanking at the back of the gown. “How does what I look like make you a laughingstock?”

Carol gets up in my face. “Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. You always were a little pig. From the time you nursed and I had to slap your face when you got too greedy.”

My mouth just drops open. “We’re not even Catholic.” It’s a lame reply when really I want to ask,why are you such a bitch?

“I always thought we should borrow that one for the Commandments.”

“I bet you did.” I turn away.

Now it’s Carol’s turn for her mouth to drop open. I see her in the mirror. “Did you just talk back to me?”

You know what? I’msodone with her shit. I’ve got a psychopathic husband-to-be who’s holding me hostage, and I’m wearing a god-awful, ill-fitting dress so I can walk down the aisle and sign my life away for one of misery so the man Idolove doesn’t end updead.

What power does my bitch of a mother really have over me anymore?

“Yes. I did.” I spin back to her and put my hands on my hips. “I should have talked back to you a long time ago. You’re mean, and you bullied me about my weight my whole life, which is so fucked up! I’m only two years into therapy and I’m probably gonna spend my whole life trying to undo the fucked up shit you conditioned me to believe about myself.”

Her mouth opens and closes, then opens and closes again. Finally she spits out, “I can still cut you out of the inheritance!”

I stand up taller.

“Do it,” I snap. “But I don’t think you even have the power. Women have no power in our family, do they? Which is why there’s an asinine clause in there that I only get to inherit my trust when I marry who the family says I should. Which really means it’s up to Daddy.”

I get right up inherface. “Because that man never listened to you a day in his life, and it’s probably why you ended up so goddamn hateful.”

She lifts a hand to slap me, but I catch her wrist.

“Stick to slapping babies,” I hiss.

She jerks back as if I’m the devil herself, and I let her go.

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