Chapter Text
Lots of things can happen in eight, going on nine years. You can meet new people, make new friends, drift away from others. You can decide that you love a new food, or find yourself in a new home, in a new place. You could leave someone that you thought you would always know, only to treat each other like you never knew them, and you can run from your problems to a town far far away from that people that you knew. You can give birth. You could not tell the father that you did so all on your own. You could meet someone new and live the next two years in comfortable domestic bliss. And on the seventh year, you could start planning your wedding.
The wedding. The one to end all other weddings. Like a wax seal on an envelope that contains the story of your life, a certain amount of finality came with this event. And security, something you sorely needed, and always craved to an extent, at long last you can see it on the horizon. It had been eight years since Steven and Marc had confessed that they never intended to love you like their first choice, or to love you at all. They would never look at you the way that they looked at her, the best thing you could be to them was second and they made it sound like you couldn't even do that right.
When you'd heard Layla's name in that final argument, you knew it was finally over, and to them it had never even started with you. You remember leaving in silence after all that time spent being loud, turning around and never looking over your shoulder to see their expressions as you shut the door to their flat softly behind you. The years following were uncertain and full of mystery, full of danger and hard choices for you to make. It terrified you. You never wanted to return to that dark pit of not knowing.
"Mama! Mama!"
You blink and push your face closer into your pillow and the thoughts further away from your head. You released the feathery cushion from your crushing vice grip and hoped your voice sounded honeyed enough to cover up your lamination of coming to your senses.
"Yes sweetness?" You said, "No shouting please."
"Adam says that breakfast starts soon, and we brought up the whole menu for you." Every little thing she said was punctuated with pure love. It was impossible to feel like you couldn't be loved by your children, and it was impossible for you not to love them in return. Bonibelle had dark curls that bounced when she walked and at only eight had freckles blossoming across her face like cactus' in the desert. If you were to describe her as something it would be as unapologetically affectionate, her love knew no bounds. As did her curiosity, in fact she was always looking for ways that her and her siblings could slink off on adventures. Whether it be in the park, in the grocery store, or on the school playground as you had been told. One day you had been called in from work to address an issue in person on Bonibelle's adventures. Apparently she had convinced most of her class that there were gremlins crawling around in the ceiling above them, and created a small army to climb into a vent to go after them. You had a feeling she was going to be a handful in high school, she seemed to be the ring-leader of her sister and brother. Always first to try new foods and tell them if they were good or bad, the first to cross the street, she was even the first to be born. Oldest by a minute and fifty-seven seconds.
You rolled over an inch and she took a mile, in her best Christmas pajama set she climbed into bed next to you, proudly presenting the hotel menu in both of her tiny hands. "I can see into the future mama, and I already know what you're gonna get." She announced unprompted.
"Is that so? Alright clever girl, show me your power. What am I going to get for breakfast on this fine wedding morning?" Easy Sunday mornings were a well deserved breath of fresh air amidst the great planning chaos in your opinion, and this morning was going to be the easiest of the next few days. You didn't need your daughter's foresight to know all of that. Four days of parties, family, friends, fine fabric, and colorful alcohol, the mornings would surely reflect the latter. So you savored every moment of the last easy morning of what would surely be the most securing weekend of your life.
"You're gonna get... the huge plate of pancakes, with lots and lots of chocolate and whipped cream." She confidently declared, not bothering to look up from the tiny display picture with the chocolate covered breakfast food.
"In bed hmm? Isn't that a bit risky?" You sighed heavily. "What did your foresight say about going down to the restaurant for breakfast?" You laid back down in bed but didn't feel sleepy at all, you were excited to show off your family.
"Do I get matching chocolate pancakes too if we go downstairs?" She asked and you patted her on the head, running your fingers through her hair, your ring nearly getting caught on her forehead bangs. She didn't quite have puppy eyes down yet, god forbid if she did, her eyes widened and her eyebrows furrowed copying cartoons we might've seen on TV, but she only ended up looking surprised.
"You know that you can have all the chocolate in the world sweetness, now go and get your brother and sister, pip pip." You shifted to the side to pull back the duvet of white silk from the queen sized bed, no wonder you didn't want to get chocolate on it. "I won't be very long getting ready."
You meant to when you said that, you really did, but as you watched her flash a smile and bound out of the room without a care in the world, all you thought about was how long it was take getting ready. Of course if you veiled your hair you wouldn't be able to begin your hair routine, after that you could throw on something long, floor length, or something that covered your knees at least. The morning air was refreshing but cumbersome compared to the bed.
"And you three get dressed! No Christmas nighties in the lovely restaurant please." You called into the other room.
The cacophony of groaning and muttered complaints that didn't hold any real weight or long-lasting malice, simply something that children say when they don't get to wear their pajamas to breakfast, have given you all the affirmations you needed. All you could think in the moments like these was that through all your hardships, you would live them again tenfold if it meant they could be yours in every universe. Adam wasn't next to you this morning, and that wasn't particularly unusual. After all he never much cared to wait for you to wake up. Adam liked to start the day early that was for certain, and with breakfast taken care of apparently, there was all but decorating for the party downstairs to be taken care of. The welcome party would start and end in a matter of hours for people to retire, but this was it, the beginning of your beautiful new life. Adam would be down in one of the event rooms of the hotel, setting up the floral decorations just how you liked them. You hoped that he would be as desperate to be married to you as you were to him, you hoped he would be thinking about you like you were thinking about him. After years of uncertainty that you had come to resent, it was all ending.
You moved through the bright rooms of the suite just before the door to the hallway. You took stock of unopened bridal shower and engagement party gifts with a smile on your face, gifts that would be needed in the near future. Bouquets of flowers covered every hard surface and slowly growing across the couch, some with colorful large ribbons tied around their vases, and an unopened fruit basket on the kitchen counter.
"Progress my darlings. Are we almost ready in there?" Your nails clacked on the counter and the heavy silver jewelry of your earrings as you went and adjusted them in the mirror. Your French tipped nails were still remarkably white after getting them done in the airport nail salon. You ghosted your fingers around the shape of your hair, certain that nothing was misplaced atop your head.
"I thought that you're wearing the big white dress mom?" In your compulsive action to organize yourself, you didn't hear the patter of tiny dress shoes making their way across the tile right up behind you, although you weren't surprised when arms reached out to wrap around your legs.
"Soon my dear, I can't when you are not matching with me, soon enough." Your hands rested on his head, neatly folded on top of one another. While he didn't look up at you, nor meet your eye in the mirror, you didn't feel any disconnect with your son. You'd describe him as more serene to his sisters, that you knew you made to be brash and colorful, respectfully. His hair was the lightest, dark, but in sunbeams and sunlight became a dusty brown, and in the moon reflected light like silver. How it did that must be by the will of magic because you certainly had no clue how. His skin was fairest, lightest next to his sisters, and his hands were always bunched up at the end of his shirt. Out of all your children, he looked the most like his father, possibly lending to his gender and thick eyebrows. He could never be anything like them though, you would raise them to be sure enough of that.
"And what of your sisters, hm?" You hummed and he shrugged, flopping his shoulders up and down as he looked at you in the mirror. "No idea where they could be at all? Not even in the bedroom?"
"Do you know where Adam is?"
You blinked, and your put together smile faltered for a minute, although you were sure that he didn't catch it. You had to think about that for a moment, you remember that you already asked yourself this a minute ago, but it held a foreign tone coming from someone else's question. Certainly not malicious or with mirth from your son, but the innocence of it left you pondering on his whereabouts anyways.
"He's downstairs for a party, you know how he likes to be up in the morning."
"Will he be at breakfast?"
The truth is you didn't even know if he truly was downstairs in the hotel, setting up floral decorations how you liked them or making sure drinks would be served and that the guests would feel welcome or thinking about how desperate he was to be married to you. You didn't know any of that, let alone if he would join you for breakfast.
"Would you like him to? It's not as if he would hide from us." You all of a sudden became less aware of your son's returning gaze and more fixated on a glare in the mirror from the morning sun.
He thought for a minute, looking right into the blackness of the heart of your eyes, then down to the filigree bronze flame of the mirror, then back to your eyes with a certain less intensity than before. You hated how long it took him to answer something you thought would be so simple, you worried that he would just shrug again as a sign of indifference.
"I don't want him to join if he's busy."
"If he wasn't busy, would you still want him to join us?" You hoped that sounded like something along the thin lines of: Do you enjoy the company of the man we will have to spend the rest of our lives with?
"I like him mom, he tells good jokes, but he's always busy." Percival was a puzzle, serene yes, and you knew that in your heart you couldn't create a soul incapable of feelings, but lord have mercy was his poker face something coveted. In fact, Adam had confided in you one night that he was sure Percy hated him, while you didn't have lovers to compare him to in that regard, you were confident that Percy didn't have an upset bone in his body. He never even cried as a baby.
"Nisrine! Bonibelle! It is not polite to keep your brother waiting, come here and apologize." You called, admittedly becoming skittish. It might be your morning fixation on pancakes for breakfast, or it could be your anticipation for the festivities, or something else, but to be sure you needed to occupy yourself with walking or eating or hosting. Standing here certainly wasn't helping your jitters....wait.. something else?
That little prick in your thoughts came out of nowhere, the kind of thought that seemed to plant itself into your brain like a virus. But what could have you on edge on this particular day? Besides every other little thing. Your family, who was happy and healthy and here with you, nothing important seemed amiss. Your hunger for food more like, although the unsettling rumbling came from your heart, not your stomach. The guest list was small and the drinks would be limited, nothing today screamed at you to warn of its unhappy placement in your new life. There was nothing you could not handle after all, so perhaps this unwelcome thing was biding its time, a patient inconvenience. Then you would rip it out like the weed it was. Yes, that was it, you would know of your affliction soon enough.
The sisters emerged from their bedroom, having apparently spent time braiding each other's hair, then sticking the intricate flower pins meant for the ceremony into their style. You only had yourself to blame for that, you hadn't kept their placement a secret to them, at least now you knew what had taken them so long. The two stood hand in their dresses, the floor to ceiling windows a few feet behind them. With both your hands on Percival's shoulder you gently him to his sister's lineup, standing facing you, you watched with a keen eye at how polished and prim they were. You dusted your hands over your girls skirts and his button down shirt, gently adjusted necklaces and a hair that might've been too out of place.
"And remember, napkins in your laps, elbows off the table, and respectful inside voices when you talk to one another." You had plenty of faith that they could do no wrong, but it didn't pretend to lay down some manners in a place like this. A fancy, luxurious, too-expensive-to-want-to-acknowledge-the-price place.
"Yes mama."
"Ok mom."
"Alright mama."
"Go on then." You smiled bright at your three greatest accomplishments. Your residence, your room with a few too many well wishing bouquet was the top floor of a wing of some historically preserved sight. It was a bit of a castle. A place in Spain that Adam told you could be rented out for wedding venues. Only when you'd told him you'd never heard of a place like this allowing people to rent for that long, that he turned around and did it anyways. The man was capable of moving mountains. Not only did he do that, he hired staff, kitchen, cleaning, barkeeps, even waiters. It was disgustingly lavish, and without air-conditioning, so most of the windows were left open in the day time. You'd gotten here a day before the guests, Adam said it was to get settled in together but her spent most of his time on his work computer in the bedroom, leaving you and your kids to picnic and explore without reservation.
You couldn't hide how overjoyed you were for your children, and soon you found yourself unworried about even knowing what he did for a job. Especially if it meant you could fill your child's senses with only the best instead of that bachelorette pad Adam found you in. And the pool? Oh my god the pool, you had to drag Nisrine out of the water last night, but you have to admit the view of the tree-line and horizon were divine.
Nisrine was the most sentimental of your children in a way similar to historians and scholars walking around an old museum or art gallery. She was an old but passionate soul, dedicated to whatever craft she set herself to, and she never forgot a skill once she learned it. Last year it was ink printing, seashell collection and theoretical sheep herding. Theoretical in the case that if we had sheep, or a farm, or a herding dog, if we had any of that only Nisrine would know what to do with them. But this year so far had been botanical care of small potted plants and now, marine sciences. Which entailed pretending to be a mermaid for as long as possible and developing deep relationships with fish. Now she always wears her favorite goldfish earrings no matter the occasion.
So now Nisrine was skipping behind Bonibelle and Percy, taking quick glances past every window in the hallway for a peak at the ripple-less sheet of water overlooking yards for greenery.
"Hey mom, can we go swimming after breakfast?" You never let you children out of your sight, or out of your peripheral vision. Do you worry about becoming a helicopter mom? Possibly. Are you also sure that your keen eye might've kept them alive for this long? You couldn't prove otherwise. In a past life you might've liked risky business , but certainly not in the present. All that to say if Nisrine wanted to swim you would go swimming with her.
"Well we can swim and take a shower this morning, or you can wait to meet your cousins and show them the pool this evening."
"Is Charlie going to be here soon too?" Nisrine asked, her older cousin by a few years who always agreed to play mermaid princesses with your daughter.
"I'm am confident she will be here too, some of your aunties might arrive first but you can show them the swimming pool too, maybe the garden, and all your favorite paintings and rooms." You looked up and smiled at a member of the cleaning staff wiping down a large window that blocked Nisrine's view.
"Auntie Trinity and Eleanore say things I don't understand sometimes, and their perfume smells too.. smelly sometimes, and they don't have any cousins."
"Of course they have cousins honey, everyone has cousins."
"None that I can play with." She dismissed their memory, you knew that tone of voice, they were your friends after all, not her friends.
"You'll make friends here sweetie, and then you'll go swimming with them before then end of the day. You're a beautiful soul." You hoped that your promise would suffice, hold her over for the day. While the words flew out of your mouth your children seemed to fly down the stairs to the lobby of the estate. The upstairs, full of bedrooms was decorated to be true to the historic time it was built, went largely unchanged by wedding decor. The downstairs however, starting with the railings of the stairs was covered with all variants of white and baby blue flowers. There were milky white streamers pinned up and dipping across the ceiling and candles in glass jars covering the center of every table creating a soft golden hue. The windows and morning sun were shielded by intricate sheer blue lace curtains with your favorite birds sewn onto them, partridges, they shared your maiden name. The curtains billowed out like dresses with every soft breeze.
Descending the stairs, down through another hallway, and through a doorless arch with intricate roman pillars leading up to the high ceilings of your venue, in there was the morning room, or a living room the size of half a ballroom. Then there, standing before the fireplace with his back turned to you, was Adam. You could tell at the very least his hair hadn't been brushed since he woke up and his hands were shaking as if he had been lost in the cold all morning.
"Good morning Adam." You called to him from the doorway, and you took special care to keep your voice mild as though not to disturb him. If he was this on edge to due the wedding surely he had to be as desperate to be married to you as you assumed, if not more so. "You weren't with us when we woke up."
"I thought we were gonna get breakfast?" Bonibelle tugged on the skirt of your dress. "Hi Adam!"
"Oh hush up, it will only take five minutes, play on the couch while you wait, sil vous plait." While they trotted off to the other side of the room, albeit trying to tug to along at first, Adam waved at your children before setting his sights on you again.
"Well I know it doesn't bother you right? Not when I've been up all morning making sure that everyone sets up the decor how you wanted it." Sweeping his arms around the room as proof of his accomplishments. You stepped a few feet closer to him and brushed some make believe dust off of his shoulders.
"You know never doubted you." You smiled, he returned it. Your smile faltered for a beat of your heart when you saw him lean in to kiss you. A million things went through your mind at the speed of light: You didn't brush your teeth well enough, what if he didn't brush his teeth well enough? Was it going to be a long kiss or a short kiss? Did he want tongue? Surely not in front of your kids. Were you reading too much into this? Was it too early in the morning to kiss someone?
It's your fiancé you silly girl of course its not to early in the morning.
You felt like your heart was going to explode, rip a gaping hole through the front of your chest and flop onto the floor like a fish out of water. You body felt as though it was paralyzed from the neck down so you turned your head to the side but didn't shy away from his touch. "No kisses, my lips are still dry hun."
"Oh, alright..." He pivoted to kiss you on your cheek and then your smile returned. "You could've had breakfast in bed, I did make that clear that was an option right?"
"Crystal clear, I just needed to stretch my legs dear, clear my head before the guests start arriving." You looked at where one of his hands was resting on your left forearm, still lightly shaking despite the grounding of your flesh. "It looks like you could use some head clearing too sweetie."
"Yeah maybe, this has not be easy for me." He rubbed his neck like he was trying to rub a knot out of it. "Starting a family and all. Just go have so breakfast before you come back up so you don't turn all grouchy on me." He teased.
"As you wish, are you sure you wouldn't like to join us?" You offered earnestly, although you were already turning away to head to the kitchen, ultimately without Adam.
"I'd prefer not to, it's best to stay up here and welcome the bridal party. Would you like me to send your aunties down to you kids?" He regarded them with hopeful eyes that he wore around them.
"Whatever gets me to the kitchen faster momma!" Percy whined, draped across the couch like a decorative fur blanket.
"We meant to be down in the kitchen minutes ago, but please send down my girls when they get here. Then I won't be long to come up to greet your groomsmen."
Just then, as you were walking out of the morning room and retreating from Adam's gaze, did you realize what the something else was that befell you. While you stared at the hardwood floors and the shoes on your feet taking turns leading you down the corridors, you found that you could scarcely keep up with your children, who knew the way down to the kitchen by heart. You raised them with priorities.
Your ailment that plagued you wasn't family or nerves or misplaced flower arrangements or some strange twist of fate, not only did you know what your soon-to-be husband did for work, you didn't even know who he invited to the wedding. Jesus Christ girl, did you know nothing about him except for his name? It was like you were a bitch in heat, how could you have been won over so easily? Were you truly that dumbstruck by his money and your fairy tail wedding that you would've gone along with anything? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Now you knew that your uneasy rumbling wasn't coming from your stomach or your heart, but your soul.
You had half a mind to turn around then and there to confront Adam about what mystery guests he had invited, but ultimately you had no one to blame but yourself yet again. He hadn't kept the guest list secret from you, if you hadn't been so selfish and just had a bit more of a hand in planning the wedding you could have just avoided this whole guilty feeling. Now it couldn't possibly be an imposition to 'double check' the guest list, nothing wrong with th-
Your heel slipped on the edge of the polished floors, if you hadn't grabbed the conveniently placed railing with both hands, you would've crushed your children on the way down the stairs.
Get it together you silly girl, just calm down.
You closed your eyes and tried to make breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth the quietest, most discreet endeavor you could do. Before you had even started to move again your kids hit the base of the stairs and were running loose among pot and pans while you were still trying to gather your fucking mind.
Ok, so you don't know exactly who your fiancé invited, what's the worst thing that could happen with some guests at a wedding? You've already met his parents, surely he invited them. You knew of one or two of his friends who were well behaved enough to be wedding guests. But groomsmen? You were left to guess.
While you took a seat at the kitchen table, the metal felt like it was burning your skin. You blinked, blinked again, tried to hard blink out of the mental state you were in. You thought if you could identify the root of your problem you would feel better about it, but not knowing made everything so much worse. It didn't just reveal a weed, it revealed a malignant root between you and Adam's relationship. Somewhere between how you didn't bother to ask him, and he never bothered to tell you.
All of a sudden dish was presented to you by a tiny hand, it was as if your head was pulled up from underwater, their voices returned to you, their words becoming more clear. The dish was a crystal bowl of strawberries, and something occurred to you.... what is truly the worst thing that could happen? A drunk uncle? A mean cousin? A flirtatious aunt? Your ex? You could handle all that on your own, your family could weather any storm, and through it all your kids would be together and safe. Nothing that you didn't want to last could change. So you smiled.
Bring it on.