“What?” I ask when I finally get some air. “What?”
“You got married,” Juliet says again. Quietly this time. The tone of her voice is serious, but it feels like a joke.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “No, that can’t be. We didn’t actually get married. It was just a joke. Please, tell me it’s a joke.”
While I have the tendency to talk and say everything that comes to mind in times of stress, Dylan, apparently, has a completely different tendency. I turn to him for some support in this, but he just stares at the wall. As if he’s frozen. Like a statue.
“Dylan.” I pull on his shirt. “We didn’t get married. Right?”
A moment later, he comes back to reality.
“No, we couldn’t have,” he whispers.
“Well, you did,” Juliet says. Her certainty frightens me.
Tea comes over to me. She puts her arm around my shoulder.
“You did, honey,” she says sympathetically.
“No, no, no.” I shake my head.
“The reason you’re wearing that dress,” Tea says, “is that you wanted to get married in white. So, when Dylan asked you to marry him, and you said yes, we all went to the only place that was open in the casino and bought it.”
“But this is a bathing suit cover-up!”
“I know. It was a resort wear store. That was all they had,” Tea says.
“Look at your left hand,” Juliet says.
When I look down, I see a large diamond ring. It’s gorgeous.
“What is that?” Dylan comes over and takes my hand.
“You got it for her,” Juliet says. “Alice thought it would be funny to get one of those lollypop rings and have that be her engagement ring, but you said that no wife of yours is going to have a lollypop ring. So, you marched into Tiffany’s and got her that one and half carat diamond.”
“Shit.” Dylan shakes his head.
“How did this happen?” I whisper. He shrugs. “I mean, how did we even get engaged, let alone get married? Why didn’t you stop us?”
All three of them look down at the floor.
“We were all drinking a lot,” Tea says, “and I guess it sounded like fun.”
“Fun?” I ask.
“It just felt like we were in a movie or something. I mean, that’s what people do in movies, not in real life,” Juliet says.
“So, what happened? How did this happen exactly?” Dylan asks.
“We were all drinking a lot,” Juliet says, “and suddenly you started to complain about Peyton, or was it Alice who was complaining about Hudson?”
“I think Alice started first and then Dylan joined in,” Tea says. Clearly, their memory isn’t that great on all this either.
“Either way, you two were moaning about your significant others. Then Tanner said that you two would make a good couple.”
“Tanner?” I ask.
“Well, I don’t know you two well and I was drinking a lot.”
“It was just a joke,” Tea says, “but Dylan thought it was a really good idea. He started going on and on about how you two are friends and friends make the best couples. At first, you thought it was pretty funny. I went to the bathroom and came back and you two were engaged.”
“Holy shit,” I whisper.
19
Then suddenly, it all starts to come back to me. Not everything, but big chunks of it. I remember sitting next to Dylan, eating sushi. I got some extra soy sauce around my mouth and he wiped it away with his finger. The moment lasted a little bit too long. I didn’t want it to stop. He leaned closer and kissed me. I kissed him back.
“You’re such a good kisser,” I said.
“So are you,” he said.
“I sort of wish we could kiss longer,” I joked. Then he kissed me again. This time it was longer than a kiss. It was more like a make-out session.
I don’t know how much time passed, but when we stopped, he said, “I wish I could kiss you forever.”
“Me, too,” I mumbled.
He looked over my shoulder and smiled.
“There’s a wedding chapel over there,” Dylan said. “Do you think that’s a sign?”
I shrugged. “Probably not.”
“Well, let’s make it one,” he said. “Alice Summers, will you marry me?”
“Are you insane?” I asked, laughing. “Don’t joke about that.”
“I’m not joking. I like you. You like me. We’re really good at kissing. We’ll probably be even better at the other stuff.”
“That’s not a reason to get married!” I said.
“Of course it is! We’re really good friends and relationships are complicated. So why don’t we just marry each other?”
“Because we’re still in college!”
“So? Wouldn’t it be romantic?”
Insane and crazy, but romantic? Yes, I guessed so.
“Besides, Hudson would hate it,” Dylan added.
Well, if he would hate it then…I started to waver.
“C’mon, say yes. Please say yes,” he said and kissed me again. When we pulled away this time, we were engaged.
“This can’t be happening,” I say. Everyone’s staring at us.
“You’re remembering it, right? I can see that,” Juliet says. I nod and drop my shoulders. “Dylan? How about you?” Juliet asks.
“Bits and pieces,” he whispers.
“Well, here’s your signed marriage certificate in case you forget again,” Juliet says, handing us the paper. “The minister said that you should expect to get something in the mail about it as well.”
I have to sit down. My head hasn’t stopped throbbing and the locomotive whistling and banging around up there now seemed to have picked up speed. I have no idea what to do about this. All I know is that I don’t want anyone to find out about it. This is so embarrassing. So humiliating. So not like me. I don’t get drunk and do crazy things like this. I’m just a regular person.
This is all Hudson’s fault. If he hadn’t wanted us to take a break, I would never have been here alone complaining to Dylan about this. I wouldn’t have ever even kissed him, let alone married him.
Oh my God! My breaths get shallow. My heart starts to
