>>Chapter One

So here I am again. Standing at the end of the aisle, breathless, looking right a crowd of curious looks, horrified expressions and crazy eyes.

“No.” Pant. “Don’t.” Pant. “Please.”

I’ve seen it all, and yet, this is completely new, again. Because it’s never the same. Never.

He’s thirty-four, a whole head of swept back black hair, fine features and a very attractive, pearly white smile – a smile that wasn’t there. An expression I’m familiar with is painted upon that once amazing face. Right there – eyebrows furrowed, a deep crease at the brow, lips turned down into a frown (sometimes it’s open and breathing heavily) and a manic glint in their eyes that said “I can’t believe this bitch.” Anger. That was it.

I look from him to the bride. A stab of pain shocks me. She’s one of those. She just had to be. The one that looks worried, and terrified and so fragile. And she’s so pretty. Blond hair piled high under a shimmery veil, in an elegantly cut, body-fitting gown that framed her petite figure, her wide baby blue eyes glimmering under her shiny eye shadow, terrified.

That is… until slowly, her mouth turned down into a frown and opened into an ugly “agh” kinda look. “Who the hell is this!”

All the fear disappeared, all the intimidation and fragileness, along with my regret for her pain. Her face was masked by anger, disbelief and absolute, terrifying ferociousness.

Okay, this time, I’m not getting thrown out. Not over this guy.

When that thought hit me, I’m pretty blown away. Because all this while of desperation and insanity, I finally came to one sensible thought: walk away.

Too late.

“Security!”

Oh. The mother-in-law. Should’ve known.

Must be. Crazy eyes, blotchy red face, too much makeup. Hah. Classic – told you I’ve seen it all.

With a full forehead of sweat, a huff caught in my throat, I wheel out of the cathedral church. Church. Hah. If only the Good Lord knew what this man had been up to. But then, He also knows about what I’ve been doing…

I slow to a steady pace, stopping beneath a big oak tree down the street. The wind caresses my face, letting the sweat and worry trickle away. I pause from all thoughts, and rewind. I do this every single time after I’ve pulled another stunt. Rewind to where it began.

Momma and Papa used to tell me stories about how they met. Papa, an American who was born and raised in Italy, was engaged by his parents to a young woman of nineteen when he was twenty-four because of business. That young woman’s name was Brittania, and they’ve known each other since as far as they could remember. They grew up each other and treated each other as brother and sister. When the engagement was brought up by Papa’s parents, a huge outrage ripped through the two. And they were planning to runaway, but when they heard that the plan for them was to move to America, where they would, probably, never see their parents again. So they agreed to go along with it.

But the very day before the wedding, Papa ran into this breathless, reckless American brunette on the streets. Her hair was windblown, her face pale and her expressions wild.

“And she couldn’t speak a word of Italian but was going,” Papa always imitated some sort of gibberish.

It was one of those loves at first sight kind of thing. It’s hard to believe it exists, but it happens with people here and there all over the world, right? And it happened to them.

And guess what? They didn’t elope. Papa was a good man who decided to go with his word, however unsure of his course he was. So… Momma crashed the wedding.

Yep. That’s where it all started. The knowledge that it’d worked out for somebody. My parents.

But Papa died when I was twelve, and then Momma went a bit… loco.

And my regret. The one wedding I didn’t crash.

There I was, sitting at the front of the aisle, with this anxious smile plastered on my face. There he was, standing there with a breathless but genuine expression of love and willingness on his face.

I hid every tear, dusted off every indication of emotion under than nervousness and sat there, watching my everything say “I do” to a perfect woman.

“Hey!”

I blink, waking up from some dazedness. In front of me stands a child no more than eight, with a big dimply smile and a suitable amount of pudginess to allow him to look incredibly adorable. His golden brown hair shines under the sunshine but his little grin shines even brighter.

Yep, definitely. Because he has his nose up to mine.

I rock back, standing straight again. I look curiously at the child and he stares back.

“Yeah?” I decide to break the silence.

“What’s your name?”

Alright. Kids. Not my thing. I mean, they’re adorable and everything. But I just can’t seem to comprehend them… Once I had to take care of Michael’s baby, my little niece, Lora, and I think I nearly killed her – I left her in my house, alone, to pick up some groceries, and when I came back, she was missing. I literally freaked out and shrieking everywhere. That’s when Rita popped in. With her fifty-year old smile of wisdom, and God-bless baby in her arms. She’d been crying, so she, knowing where I hid my keys, decided to get Lora some milk and change her diaper. Oh, and she advised me never to have children. I’m not sure if she was joking, what with her twinkly eyes.

But this is a little older than a baby. Okay. Attempt to make conversation.

“Una.”

“Yoo-na?”

I smile at the way he pronounces it, all long and exaggerated. “Yep, Una. What’s yours, kid?”

“My name’s Adrian.” And his star smile lights up again.

I grin back at him. “How do you spell that?”

His whole face crumples into premature seriousness, and with a frown, he attempted to spell his name, “A-d-r- uh… e-n!” and failed.

“Try spelling mine now.”

His little dimples appear again as he frowns harder. “U- no, Y-u-n-n-a.”

“U-n-a,” I spell it out for him. “And I think you spelt your name wrong, too.”

His frown disappears and he stuck out his tongue. “Bleeehhhhhh.”

I laugh, “A-d-r-i-a-n.”

“That’s what I said!”

“No, you said –”

“I said what you said!”

“No, you didn’t.” And I pounce at him, tickling him all over.

“ADRIAN!” a woman screams from a far.

I raise my head, startled. The child in my embrace stops altogether, pulling away from me and straightening up.

A redhead with her face nearly the same shade as her hair throws the bright blue door of a typical suburban house open. Her curly hair winds around a bun that looks like it’s too tight. Her eyes are wild, and I can tell she isn’t really looking. Great. One of those moms. Makes me feel grateful to have a cuckoo one for the past fifteen years.

“I better go now.”

I look down at Adrian, surprised. All emotion drained from his voice, instead replacing it, a whole new level of maturity. And a sense of dread, without showing emotion, weighing it down – everything. Suddenly, the sun seems to have disappeared.

Before I can catch hold of his little red shirt, he sprints off. But instead of going to that woman, he takes a turn by the neighbor’s house and takes a round to the back door.

I stare in worry. What’s that house’s problem now?

“I’m home.”

I slam the door shut behind me.

Sara pops out from behind the fridge, with a piece of toast sticking out of her mouth.

That’s the way she is – always eating. Despite the fact, she remains to be one of the most beautiful people I know with the best figure. She just doesn’t get fat. But that might be because she exercises a lot and she doesn’t eat much junk food even though she does eat a lot.

“Howditgo?”

I stare at her.

She stares back. One moment… “Oh, right.”

“I wouldn’t be here –”

“ – if it’d worked out. I know, I know.” Then she laughs. “Somehow we have to go through that every time, eh?”

I throw myself on to the sofa and slowly feel myself unwind. “That is because you are slow.”

She shrugs, the her eyes light up again. “Eh, what was the mother-in-law like this time?”

“Bright red face, that kinda thing. Overdressed? Uh, called on the security.” I catch the bag of chips she throws me. “Malik was kinda mad, you know.”

She begins chewing on a whole stalk of celery and props down on the bean bag next to mine. “Bride?”

“She looked pretty good. But she was kind of… you know, the type that probably lies about the way she is. Should’ve seen it, seriously – one second she was all scared and vulnerable-looking and the next she had her eyes popping and this ugly frown –”

“Hold on, hold on. I can’t catch all that.” With the celery still in her mouth, the pen in her hand races away on a notepad.

“Do we really have to do this?” I frown at her.

“Sort of. It’s a. Project. It’s. Interesting,” she speaks between mouthfuls.

Sara’s one of the writers on this women’s magazine called, ChicFlick. Basically, she’s the top writer there because of her degree in anthropology, her ability to attract men so leads to her experiences and her awesome writing skills and charisma. She says that she wants to write a book next, and I am her project. The book will be entitled, How Weddings Should Be Secrets or something like that – I don’t pay attention to her when she talks about it, because it irritates me that I have become a guinea pig.

But most of the time, it doesn’t. She’s the most earnest person I’ve met, though incredibly ditsy at times, in New York. We met in New York University while we attended the orientation. Even though I decided not to go and went to Brooklyn College to study journalism instead, we kept contact and ended up as roommates when she got kicked out from her dorm room after trying to conduct insane behavioral experiments on her roommate.

She always said that it was a joke, and she never really liked that “Snotty-face” anyway. But I think Sara is rather insane.

Even so, she has been there for me, and with her capability to be insane comes her capability to endure insanity – thus, preventing her from calling the police force on me every single time I go crash another wedding.

“Hey, say, do you still need that job?” I find her staring at me with this deep frown in her brow.

I write freelance, unlike Sara. Because I have the tendency of falling in love with bosses and that leads to a whole other episode of wedding-crashing and marriage-destruction. I’d get fired in the end anyway.

“Uh… I guess it’s alright, since it’s a women’s magazine and all,” I say slowly.

She makes a noise that signifies a wrong answer from those game shows. “There are men working there.”

I shrug. “Seriously, I’m beginning to think this isn’t worth it at all.”

Silence.

I look down at her and she was staring at me with her mouth open like a fish. Her gray eyes nearly popped, I swear. “Una Carton… did you just say it’s not worth it?” she whispers in this hush voice of disbelief.

“What?” I scowl at her.

Her eyes flicker back to her notepad and she begins, ferociously, flipping back the pages. “God,” she mutters.

“God what?”

“God did something to you! Bless the miracle!” she laughs loudly, her eyes back up, wide in some sort of revelation.

I continue to frown at her in incomprehension. She half returns the frown. “Hello? You’re so past that phase now! No more crashing weddings! I mean, you’ve reached a new level of…”

I roll my eyes. “Sara, you fail at speaking normal English.”

“Well, you don’t speak anthropologist.”

And we both simultaneously stick out our tongues at each other.

“Whoever thought we could be writers?” she sighs.

And we share a smile.

“WE ARE GOING TO CELEBRATE!”

I groan, pushing her away.

We have been celebrating for seven hours straight now. Sara Klein is insane – established. Never give her a reason to drink. Ever.

At eight, we made our way to this homey little Italian restaurant where she gobbled up more food that should be capable of a woman and downed a whole bottle of white wine and half a bottle of red, stuffing the other half at me. Then she brought me to this club that just opened up last week, and was still packed with way too many people for the comfort of a somewhat introverted me. At one, she pulled me out of my seat, and with her sticky, sweat hands dragged me to our usual bar. And we’ve been here since then and it is now three in the morning, I have a bloody hangover and she is trying to make me go up to the emo-looking band there and sing with them.

“C’mon,” her words have become slurry.

“Stop it,” I moan. “Sara.”

“Una,” she imitates my tone and laughs and hiccoughs.

Ugh. Now I wish I hadn’t taken those last two shots. Luckily, we live in New York and we can walk, and in case we can’t, there are always cabs.

I glare at Sara with my bloodshot eyes, momentarily despising her for this absurd idea, and despising myself for going with it and forgetting about how high she gets with her drunkenness. All of a sudden, she drops to the floor.

Shit. I spring off of my seat. I swear, oh, God. I swear I didn’t curse her. I mean… What? What the hell am I thinking? What am I doing? Shit. Er. Help. Help her.

I bend down to help her up and instead, as soon as I pull on her weight, I tumble down next to her.

“Ugghhh,” I groan. Next to me, Sara giggles.

“Shut up.” My hand shoots out to hit her. It touches something. Leather. Shoe. Eh?

I force my eyes open, raising my head slightly, and staring down at me is someone so overly familiar.

But before I can pinpoint who it is, my head drops back onto the floor, wiping out all little remains of consciousness I had.

“ARGGH!”

My eyes fly open and at the same time, I shoot up straight rigid. “Haaaa,” I gasp in pain. “Geehhhhh…” I fall back on my back.

“Neehhhh.”

“Eeeyyyeeerrr…”

Hangover.

That’s when all the weird noises start coming out and I start punching Sara and she starts pulling on my hair.

Like right now. “Stop it,” I groan.

“You cut it out,” she growls.

“Er.” A third voice. A man.

Oh shit!

I sit right up again and I feel Sara shoot up next to me. Ignoring all pain, we stare.

Slowly, we breath, and sigh, in relief.

We’re still in the bar, on the floor, with the barman staring at us. I look at her – she looks like a mad woman with her raven waves scrunched up at random places and her face all blotchy with marks that looked like… my palm? And those eyes, bloodshot and the pale face… yep. I can only imagine how I look like. Unlike Sara, I’m not much of a drinker… That’s only because I’m responsible for her.

I get up to my feet, wobbling once or twice. The barman isn’t much of a gentleman, only staring at me. “Thank you for letting us crash here.” I try for a smile, and feel this disfigurement flop across my face.

“No problem. Boyfriend paid for you to crash here.” He grins, flicking a small stack of notes. “Generous man.”

I look from his hands to his face. “What… boyfriend?”

“Dunno,” he shrugs.

My hung-over brain cracks as it attempts to work something out. “Why would my boyfriend… want to leave me at a bar?”

He pauses. “Heck, I don’t know, gal. He’s your boyfriend.”

I roll my eyes. “He’s not my boyfriend.” Pause. “What was he like?”

He shrugs again. “Eh… tall, brown hair, five o’ clock shad’w, eh… brown eyes, I think. Couldn’t see in the light,” he frowns as he tries to remember.

Tall… brown hair… scruffy… brown… eyes.

I stand there, just stand there, and stare right past everything. Dear Lord.

No, it’s impossible.

“Hey…” Sara gropes on my leg and slowly uses me as a support as she climbs up. Then she props her whole weight against my body… like I’m not as badly hung-over as she is. I struggle under her weight. I push away my irritation.

“Jazz…” I whisper.

My heart struggles under the memory. Beat, by beat, by beat. Breathe. BREATHE. Okay.

“What’cha thinkin’ bout?” Sara nudges me, clearly still a bit out of it.

“Shh,” is all I could bother to tell her.

Suddenly, everything starts flooding back, drowning me in it. Every memory that I’ve erased and repressed over the years, flooding back to overwhelm me. I feel my heart buckling underneath that pressure.

“No. Impossible.”

“What’s impossible?”

Agh.

Before I knew it, I strike her against her head and she falls, with a funny-sounding “woo” that confirms my suspicion that she has reached deliriousness.

Oh, dear.

I stare at the barman, he stares at me. And a hysterical giggle bubbles up between us. Just one of those moments – why worry? It’s a bit cruel, I suppose. But this is Sara. She’ll be fine.

“Shit! I can’t believe you did that to me!” she curses continuously.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat for the millionth time with a small voice.

She sits rigidly on the couch with a pack of ice against her head, holding a cup of latte I made her after she managed to shower as a show of resentment. The sun going down, sprays streaks of light through the window, tinting everything a strong shade of orange. Being bathed in it, I feel like a little child again.

When I was a kid, back at the small town in Michigan that I grew up in, I spent every day afterschool wandering through the old buildings that were crumbling, making up stories in my head, imagining who was here, what had happened. By the time I reached home, with the sun going down, it became an everyday thing that I would be scolded, and I would feel guilty – but do it again the next day. That was when I was nine. Mom gave up after I turned twelve. Well… she pretty much gave up on me altogether.

“Una, you have to be more responsible than that, letting me drink so much. And I can’t believe we fainted in the bar – all the things that could’ve happened!” My lips twitch as she goes on, because at this point, she’s making everything my fault – and even I know that’s not true. “And what man? Are you sure that barman’s not delusional? And of all the things, God, I can’t believe we were out for – what? How many hours was it again? I don’t even want to count.” She gasps, “Oh my God.”

For a second, I am glad that she stopped. Then I look at her face… “Sara. Sara? Sara, what’s wrong?” I shake her as she stares into distance with her mouth open.

“Aidan.”

Oops. “Shit. Go, go, go!” I jump up from the bean bag and pull her up. “I’ll stall!”

The doorbell rings. We stare at each other in utter horror.

“Go,” I whisper, pushing her to her room. And she nods, eyes wide and exaggeratedly sneaks soundlessly towards her room.

The doorbell rings once again. As Sara closes her room door behind her, I rush to the door and open it. “Hey,” I greet breathlessly.

“Mia,” he nods lazily.

Immediately, I am irritated. “It’s Una.”

He looks at me with his green eyes that lost its former spark. “That’s what I said,” he mumbles.

I stare at him. Wait. Why am I doing this again? He does not bother to look back at me. Instead, without my invitation, he steps past me into the apartment. That ticks me off. I understand that he is Sara’s boyfriend, but isn’t that a bit rude? What’s mine is yours does not apply in this case. Because this apartment was also mine as much as Sara’s. And I, frankly, don’t like this man.

A year ago, Sara met Aidan Burke in Ireland. By some miraculous – or disastrous – coincidence, after a “fling” back at Dublin, they met again in New York, where Aidan, at the time, a building architect, was being interviewed for some major project. The romance went over the hill. I admit, that back then, he was rather charming. With a good smile, very sporting, a cute accent and absolutely gorgeous, he was supposed to be the love of Sara’s life. And then he lost his chance in that big project, and started drinking excessively, lost interest in staying “upbeat” and let everything fall.

“Hey!” Sara throws open the door, having changed into a figure-hugging red wrap dress. She looks absolutely gorgeous. She moves to stand next to her life’s mistake. I see how wrong it is. It’s written all over that.

He doesn’t even try anymore. I look at his hair that used to be casually ruffled, now overgrown and unkempt. His clothes look like they haven’t been washed for a week, dirty and overly crumpled.

“Let’s go,” he grumbles, moving towards the door, in the meantime, letting Sara’s hand that was on his arm, slide right away.

I swear I saw her face fall. But when I look again, it’s replaced by a look of determination. I bite my lip.

She follows him to the door. Before it closes, I whisper, “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to try crashing weddings instead?”

She gives me a small smile. And I know how broken she’s feeling, but I have no idea what she’s going to do… and I know that she doesn’t either.

“May I… t-take your order –” the waitress named, Tamara, was shaking. A trainee.

I smile at her encouragingly as I spot the manager glaring at her with absolute exasperation. “Hey, Tamara, right?”

She gasps when she’s surprised by my direct addressing and accidentally tore off the notepad she hold in her hand with the pen in her other. I force back a giggle. “Hey, it’s alright.”

The manger stalks past again. I hold out a finger and indicate her to come closer. She leans in and I can see the perspiration on her forehead.

“Let me teach you something. Have a routine in your head. Repeat it, and you’ll get used to it. It’s really simple. Try again – say “Will you be dining alone tonight?” Go on.”

She nods nervously and stands up again. “Will you be dining alone?” she gulps.

“Louder,” I mouth. “Yes, please. I’m ready to take my order.”

Slowly, I saw her muscles unknot. “Of course. What will you having today?”

“What would you recommend?” I place my chin on my hands, elbows on the table.

Oops. Her voice shoots up an octave. “Um, the special…”

I shoot a glance at the chalkboard. “Chef’s special,” I mouth with a deadly look in my eyes as I saw the manager stalk past again.

Tamara lets out a hysterical giggle. Hearing herself, she bites her lips. “Chef’s special tonight – Apple and Butter Steak,” she says quietly.

“I’ll have that, then. And a grilled chicken salad. Oh, and, glass of water. Thank you,” I smile sincerely at her.

She returns the smile with absolute gratitude. “We will be here with your order shortly.” She bows and shoots a silent thank you at me, then leaves.

I watch her as she moves to the next table, where a redheaded woman… loud and obnoxious... the way she spoke to her. God. I don’t like her. Eh? Wait a minute.

I look to the person sitting next to her. A kid.

“Adrian!” I shout in reflex.

He looks up, surprised. And then I see it, his eyes flicker towards his mother and immediately, his expression morphs into terror. Now I wish I hadn’t.

The loud woman gets to her feet. “Who are you?” she asks loudly.

I look at her, just as terrified as Adrian. “Er… I’m a… substitute teacher, from Adrian’s school,” I blurt.

She looks at me, and her expression hardens. And my brain just registers to the lie I’ve told. Shit. What’ve I gotten myself into this time? But then her lips slowly turn upwards, into this twisted-looking smile. “Your name is?”

“Er, Una Carton,” I answer honestly, looking for no more lies beyond that.

“Why have I never heard of you, Miss Carton?” she asks with this poisonously sweet tone.

“Um, well, I’m new.” I pray that my eyes don’t start twitching now.

“Oh, yes. And what are you teaching?” She raises her eyebrows, looking unsuitably superior while I shrink in my seat praying the interrogation would end soon.

“English,” I blurt. “And a bit of Arts,” I add, to sound a little more professional.

“Oh? Well, my son here is a very talented artist – but I’m sure you know that?”

I look at Adrian, who has his eyes squinted up and is leaning forward, trying very hard to hear the conversation. I look back at his mother. “Well, I’m starting next week, actually. I’ve just been to school once. Your son is very friendly, you see.” I match her tone, trying to suggest that she is nothing like her son.

She flips her hair, seeming oblivious of the hidden comment. “Well, yes, I know.”

My lips twitch at the arrogant tone of her voice. “Miss…”

“Marcus.”

“Yes, Miss Marcus… Maybe you should order first. I look forward to seeing you in school one day,” I say in a clipped tone, desperate to get away from her.

She raises one heavily penciled eyebrow and stares at me for a moment too long. I stare back, determined to win this one staring competition. Then she looks away, the type that should have a sound effect of “hmph” and then shrugs. “Yes, of course.”

Without a second to spare, she turns on her heel and stalks back to her table. Adrian grins swiftly before resuming his rigid posture and stern-looking face as his mother sits down. No matter how he wants to hide it, it’s impossible. I see a sad look in his eyes, even though he isn’t looking at me.

God, help me, I need to help that kid.

So I guess I’m going back to school, I grimace at the thought.