A Beautiful Wedding: A Novella Read online

  “How about exceptionally tired?” Travis said, standing. “I need a fuckin’ Red Bull. Maybe we should have kept our tickets for tomorrow like we’d planned?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You have a problem with me being in a hurry to be Mrs. Travis Maddox?”

  He shook his head, helping me to my feet. “Hell no. I’m still in shock, if you wanna know the truth. I just don’t want you to be rushing because you’re afraid you’ll change your mind.”

  “Maybe I’m afraid you’ll change your mind.”

  Travis’s eyebrows pulled in, and he wrapped his arms around me. “You can’t really think that. You gotta know there’s nothing I want more.”

  I rose up on the balls of my feet and pecked his lips. “I think we’re getting ready to board a plane for Vegas so we can get married, that’s what I think.”

  Travis squeezed me against him, and then kissed me excitedly from cheek to collarbone. I giggled as he tickled my neck, and laughed even louder when he lifted me off the ground. He kissed me one last time before taking my bag off the floor, lowered me to the ground, and then led me by the hand to the line.

  We showed our boarding passes and walked down the Jetway hand in hand. The flight attendants took one look at us and offered a knowing smile. Travis passed our seats to let me by, placed our carry-on bags in the overhead bin, and collapsed next to me. “We should probably try to sleep on the way, but I’m not sure I can. I’m too fucking amped.”

  “You just said you needed a Red Bull.”

  His dimple caved as he smiled. “Stop listening to everything I say. I’m probably not going to make sense for the next six months while I try to process the fact that I’ve gotten everything I’ve ever wanted.”

  I leaned back to meet his eyes. “Trav, if you wonder why I’m in such a hurry to marry you . . . what you just said is one of the many reasons why.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  He scooted down in his seat, and then laid his head on my shoulder, nuzzling my neck a few times before relaxing. I touched my lips to his forehead, and then looked out the window, waiting as the other passengers passed by and silently praying for the pilot to hurry the hell out of there. I’d never been so thankful for my unrivaled poker face. I wanted to stand up and scream for everyone to sit down and for the pilot to get us off the ground, but I forbid myself to even fidget, and willed my muscles to relax.

  Travis’s fingers found their way to mine, and intertwined with them. His breath heated up the spot it touched on my shoulder, sending warmth throughout my body. Sometimes I just wanted to drown in him. I thought about what might happen if my plan didn’t work. Travis being arrested, tried in court, and the worst case scenario: being sent to prison. Knowing it was possible to be separated from him for a very long time, I felt that a promise to be with him forever didn’t seem like enough. My eyes filled with tears, and one escaped, falling down my cheek. I wiped it away quickly. Damn fatigue always made me more emotional.

  The other passengers were stowing their bags and buckling their seat belts, going through the motions with no idea that our lives were about to change forever.

  I turned to look out the window. Anything to get my mind off the urgency to get off the ground. “Hurry,” I whispered.

  Travis

  It was easy to relax when I rested my head in the crook of Abby’s neck. Her hair still smelled a little bit like smoke, and her hands were still pink and swollen from trying to force the basement window open. I tried to push that image from my head: the soot smudges on her face, her frightened eyes red and irritated from the smoke, emphasized by the smeared black mascara surrounding them. If I hadn’t stayed behind, she might not have made it. Life without Abby didn’t sound like much of a life at all. I didn’t want to even wonder what losing her would be like. Going from a nightmare situation to one I’d dreamed about was a jarring experience, but lying there against Abby as the plane hummed and the flight attendant deadpanned the announcements over the PA system made for a somewhat easier transition.

  I reached for Abby’s fingers, lacing mine with hers. Her cheek pressed against the top of my head so subtly that if I’d been paying attention to what string to pull to trigger the automatic inflation of my life vest, I might have missed her tiny display of affection.

  In just a few months’ time, the petite woman next to me had become my whole world. I fantasized about how beautiful she would be in her wedding dress, returning home to watch Abby make the apartment her own, buying our first car, and doing those everyday, boring things that married people did, like the dishes and grocery shopping—together. I imagined watching her walk across the stage at her graduation. After we both found jobs, we would likely start a family. That was just three or four years away. We both had broken homes, but I knew Abby would be a damn good mother. I thought about how I would react when she broke the news to me of being pregnant, and I already felt a little emotional about it.

  It wouldn’t all be sunshine and rainbows, but struggling through a rough patch was when we were at our best, and we’d had enough rough patches to know we could get through them.

  With thoughts of a future in which Abby was swollen with our first child running through my mind, my body relaxed against the itchy airplane seat, and I fell asleep.

  What was I doing here? The smell of smoke burned my nose, and the cries and screaming in the distance made my blood turn to ice, even though sweat was pouring down my face. I was back in the bowels of Keaton Hall.

  “Pigeon?” I yelled. I coughed and squinted my eyes, as if that would help me see through the darkness. “Pigeon!”

  I’d felt this feeling before. The panic; the pure adrenaline of being truly afraid of dying. Death was just moments away, but I didn’t think about what it would feel like to suffocate or burn alive. I only thought about Abby. Where was she? Was she okay? How would I save her?

  A single door came into view, highlighted by the approaching flames. I turned the knob and pushed into the ten-by-ten room. It was just four walls of concrete blocks. One window. A small group of girls and a couple of guys were against the far wall, trying to reach for their only escape.

  Derek, one of my frat brothers, was holding up one of the girls, and she was desperately reaching for the window. “Can you get it, Lindsey?” He grunted, breathing hard.

  “No! I can’t reach it!” she cried, clawing above her. She was wearing a pink Sigma Kappa T-shirt, damp from sweat.

  Derek nodded to his friend. I didn’t know his name, but he was in my humanities class. “Lift Emily, Todd! She’s taller!”

  Todd bent over and laced his fingers together, but Emily had flattened herself against the wall, frozen with fear. “Emily, get over here.”

  Her face compressed. She looked like a little girl. “I want my mom,” she whimpered.

  “Get. The fuck. Over here!” Todd commanded.

  After taking a tiny moment to find her courage, Emily pushed away from the wall and climbed onto Todd. He pushed her up, but she couldn’t reach it, either.

  Lainey watched her friend reach for the window, noticed the approaching flames, and then balled her hands into fists at her chest. She squeezed them so tight, they shook. “Keep trying, Emily!”

  “Let’s try another way!” I said, but they didn’t hear me. Maybe they’d already tried several routes, and this was the only window they could find. I ran into the dark hallway and looked around. This was the dead end. We had nowhere else to run.

  I went back in, trying to think of something to save us. Dusty sheets covered stored furniture that lined the walls, and the fire was using them as a pathway. A pathway straight to the room we were in.

  I backed up a few steps, and then turned to face the kids behind me. Their eyes widened, and they retreated against the wall. Lainey was trying to climb up the cement blocks out of pure terror.

  “Have you seen Abby Abernathy?” I said. They didn’t hear me. “Hey!” I yelled again. None of those kids acknowledged me
. I walked up to Derek and screamed at him. “Hey!” He looked right through me at the fire, a horrified look on his face. I looked at the others. They didn’t see me, either.

  Confused, I walked over to the wall, and jumped, trying to reach the window, and then I was kneeling on the ground outside, looking in. Derek, Todd, Lainey, Lindsey, and Emily were still inside. I tried to open the window, but it wouldn’t budge. I kept trying, anyway, hoping at any moment it would pop open and I could pull them out.

  “Hold on!” I yelled. “Help!” I yelled again, hoping someone would hear.

  The girls hugged, and Emily began to wail. “This is just a bad dream. This is just a bad dream. Wake up! Wake up!” she said over and over.

  “Get one of the sheets, Lainey!” Derek said. “Roll it up and shove it under the door!”

  Lainey scrambled to pull a sheet off a desk. Lindsey helped her, and then watched Lainey shove it desperately under the door. They both backed away, watching the door.

  “We’re trapped,” Todd said to Derek.

  Derek’s shoulders fell. Lainey walked over to him, and he touched her dirty cheeks with both hands. They stared into each other’s eyes. Thick, black smoke snaked under the door and seeped into the room.

  Emily jumped for the window. “Lift me up, Todd! I want out! I want out of here!”

  Todd watched her jump with a defeated expression on his face.

  “Mommy!” Emily screamed. “Mommy help me!” Her eyes were trained on the window, but still she looked past me.

  Lindsey reached out for Emily, but she wouldn’t be touched. “Sssh . . .” she said, trying to comfort her from where she stood. She covered her mouth with her hands and began to cough. She looked at Todd, tears streaming down her face. “We’re going to die.”

  “I don’t want to die!” Emily screamed, still jumping.

  As the smoke filled the room I punched the window, over and over. The adrenaline must have been unbelievable, because I couldn’t feel my hand hitting the glass, even though I was using every bit of strength I had. “Help me! Help!” I yelled, but no one came.

  Smoke bumped and swirled against the window, and the coughs and crying silenced.

  My eyes popped open, and I looked around. I was on the plane with Abby, my hands clenching the armrests, and every muscle in my body clenched.

  “Travis? You’re sweating,” Abby said. She touched my cheek.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, quickly unbuckling my seat belt. I rushed to the back of the plane and jerked open the lavatory door, and then locked it behind me. Flipping up the sink lever, I splashed water on my face, and then stared into the mirror, watching the drops of water slide off my face and onto the counter.

  They were there because of me. I knew Keaton wasn’t safe, and I knew too many people were in that basement, and I let it happen. I contributed to dozens of deaths, and now I was on a plane to Las Vegas. What the fuck was wrong with me?

  I walked back to my seat and buckled in next to Abby.

  She stared at me, noticing right away that something was wrong. “What?”

  “It’s my fault.”

  She shook her head, and kept her voice low. “No. Don’t do that.”

  “I should have said no. I should have insisted on a safer place.”

  “You didn’t know that was going to happen.” She glanced around, making sure no one was listening. “It’s awful. It’s horrific. But we couldn’t stop it. We can’t change it.”

  “What if I get arrested, Abby? What if I go to jail?”

  “Sssh,” she said, reminding me of the way Lindsey tried to comfort Emily in my dream. “It won’t happen,” she whispered. Her eyes were focused; resolute.

  “Maybe it should.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Lucky One

  Abby

  When the wheels of the airplane touched down on the runway of McCarran International Airport, Travis was finally relaxed and leaning on my shoulder. The bright lights of Las Vegas had been visible for the past ten minutes, signaling us like a beacon toward everything I hated—and everything I wanted.

  Travis roused slowly, glancing out the window quickly before kissing the cusp of my shoulder. “We’re here?”

  “Viva. I thought maybe you’d go back to sleep. It’s going to be a long day.”

  “There’s no way I was going back to sleep after that dream,” he said, stretching. “I’m not sure I want to sleep again.”

  My fingers squeezed his. I hated to see him so shaken. He wouldn’t talk about his dream, but it didn’t take much to figure out where he was while he was sleeping. I wondered if anyone that had escaped from Keaton would be able to close their eyes without seeing the smoke and the panicked faces. The plane arrived at the gate, the SEAT BELT light dinged, and the cabin lights came on, signaling everyone to stand up and dig for their carry-on luggage. Everyone was in a hurry, even though no one was getting out of there before the people seated ahead of them.

  I sat, feigning patience, watching Travis stand to pull out our luggage. His T-shirt rose when he reached up, revealing his abs shifting and then contracting when he pulled down the bags.

  “You got a dress in here?”

  I shook my head. “I thought I’d find one here.”

  He nodded once. “Yeah, I bet they have plenty to choose from. A better selection for a Vegas wedding than home.”

  “My line of thinking exactly.”

  Travis held out his hand and helped me take the two steps to the aisle. “You’ll look great no matter what you put on.”

  I kissed his cheek and took my bag just as the line began to move. We followed the other passengers down the gateway and into the terminal.

  “Déjà vu,” Travis whispered.

  I felt the same. The slot machines sung their siren’s song and flashed brightly colored lights, falsely promising luck and big money. The last time Travis and I were here, it was easy to pick out the couples who were getting married, and I wondered if we were just as obvious.

  Travis took my hand as we passed baggage claim, and then followed the sign marked TAXIS. The automatic doors parted and we walked into the desert night air. It was still stifling hot, and dry. I breathed in the heat, letting Las Vegas saturate every part of me.

  Marrying Travis would be the hardest easiest thing I’d ever done. I needed to awaken the parts of me that were molded in the darkest corners of this city to make my plan work. If Travis thought that I was doing this for any reason other than just wanting to commit to him, he would never let me go through with it, and Travis was not exactly gullible, and worse, he knew me better than anyone else; he knew what I was capable of. If I pulled the wedding off, and kept Travis out of prison without him knowing why, it would be my best bluff yet.

  Even though we’d bypassed the crowd waiting for baggage, there was a long line for taxis. I sighed. We should have been getting married by now. It was still dark, but it had been over five hours since the fire. We couldn’t afford more lines.

  “Pidge?” Travis squeezed my hand. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, shaking my head and smiling. “Why?”

  “You seem . . . a little tense.”

  I took stock of my body; how I was standing, my facial expression, anything that might tip him off. My shoulders were so tight they were hanging up around my ears, so I forced them to relax. “I’m just ready.”

  “To get it over with?” he asked, his eyebrows pulling in infinitesimally. Had I not known better, I would have never caught it.

  “Trav,” I said, wrapping my arms around his waist. “This was my idea, remember?”

  “So was the last time we went to Vegas. You remember how that turned out?”

  I laughed, and then I felt terrible. The vertical line his eyebrow formed when he pushed them together deepened. This was so important to him. How much he loved me was overwhelming most of the time, but tonight was different. “I’m in a hurry, yes. Aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but something�
�s off.”

  “You’re just nervous. Stop worrying.”

  His face smoothed, and he hugged me. “Okay. If you say you’re okay, then I believe you.”

  Fifteen long minutes later, and we were at the front of the line. A taxi pulled to the curb and stopped. Travis opened the door for me, and I ducked into the backseat and slid over, waiting for him to get in.

  The cabdriver looked over his shoulder. “Short trip?”

  Travis situated our single carry-on bag in front of him on the floorboard. “We travel light.”

  “Bellagio, please,” I said calmly, keeping the urgency out of my voice.

  With lyrics I didn’t understand, a cheery, circuslike melody hummed through the speakers as we drove from the airport to the strip. The lights were visible miles before we reached the hotel.

  When we arrived at the Strip, I noticed a river of people trekking up and down the sides of the road. Even in the wee hours of the morning, the sidewalks were packed with bachelors, women pushing strollers with sleeping babies, people in costumes taking pictures for tips, and businessmen—apparently looking to unwind.

  Travis put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned against him, trying not to look at my watch for the tenth time.

  The taxi pulled into the circle drive of the Bellagio, and Travis leaned forward with bills to pay the driver. He then pulled out our roller carry-on, and waited for me. I scooted out, taking his hand and stepping out onto the concrete. As if it weren’t in the early AM, people were standing in the taxi line to go to a different casino, and others were returning, weaving and laughing after a long night of drinking.

  Travis squeezed my hand. “We’re really here.”

  “Yep!” I said, pulling him inside. The ceiling was distractingly ornate. Everybody in the lobby was standing around with their noses in the air.

  “What are you—?” I said, turning to Travis. He was letting me pull him while he took in the ceiling.