What had happened in the past few days to make him change his mind? When he left me the other night, he said he was going to stay away until the whole thing with Mia had been taken care of. That he wasn’t going to marry her, but according to what happened this morning, everything was most certainly still going ahead. I was so confused and needed to talk to Jack.
Standing in the dressing room of the bridal boutique in a pale green bridesmaid dress, which was fitted to the top part of my slim frame and fell to my feet in an A-line style, I grimaced. It looked amazing on me and if it had been any other wedding, I would have been thrilled to be wearing it. Instead, I was pissed that it looked so good – well, at least until your gaze reached my face; at that point, I looked like a torture victim.
My eyes were red rimmed, because I was trying not to cry and my skin looked grey. In fact I looked as sick as I felt.
Liam had given me some weird looks once we’d left the house and while arriving at the boutique. A couple of times he’d taken the dresses out of my arms that Mia had thrown at me. Probably because he could tell I was seconds away from throwing the damn things back at her and storming out.
Grabbing my purse, I quickly reached inside for some face powder, which I quickly applied to my cheekbones and then some green eyeliner, which accentuated my green eyes.
Inhaling and with a slow exhale, I exited the dressing room and walked on wobbly legs out through the curtain to show Mia, and I suppose Liam, who was sitting brooding across the room with such a look on his face. If I didn’t know better I’d say he had a thing for Mia. Wait a minute. What did Liam say to me about not being able to have whom he wanted?
I needed to think about that...and watch.
“Thalia?”
Shit, Liam was standing in front of me. How’d I miss that considering I’d been staring at him?
“What do you think?”
“You look great, Thalia. That color suits you,” Mia said walking around me in circles.
“It looks as though it fits you well.”
“It does.”
She spent a moment looking at Liam, and then turned back to the sales assistant, “We’ll have this one, please.”
“That’s fine.” Clara, the sales assistant looked delighted. She turned to me, “Why don’t you go and remove the dress. I’ll put it with the others to be collected the day before the wedding”
Without a word, I turned tail and walked back into the dressing room wondering what the hell I was doing. I seriously didn’t think I’d be able to go through with this. A huge part of me kept hoping that I’d wake up to find out that it was a dream. That the wedding was going ahead, but with Liam as the groom instead of Jack.
Callie would know what to do. In fact, she’d tell me to get on the next plane to Texas and find myself a cowboy. The thing was I wanted to stay near Jack. I mean how sad was that? Staying in the place that caused me the most heartache all because I couldn’t be away from the reason for that heartache.
“Thalia, are you about done in there?” Liam shouted.
With the dress still on as I hadn’t made a move to take it off, I cringed and replied, “Yes, give me a minute.”
The zipper was down the side so I quickly unzipped and climbed out of the dress before grabbing my jeans. I pulled them up my legs followed by my t-shirt over my head. Two seconds later Mia opened the curtain, took the dress from me without a word and walked back towards the main part of the boutique. If I wasn’t mistaken she looked upset.
As I picked my purse up from the floor, I took a steady breath and walked out of the changing room to catch Liam with his hand on Mia’s back. She was turned into him and her eyes were gazing up into his face. I moved to step back out of view, but my movement must have caught Liam’s eye because he glanced up at me and stepped away from her. A look of longing spread across his face and he looked almost like it was painful to move away. So he wanted Mia. I wondered if Jack was aware of that.
“Do you guys mind if I take off?” I wanted some time on my own away from everyone.
“How will you get back?” Liam asked.
I tried to smile, but didn’t think I’d succeeded by the look on Liam’s face. “I have legs...or you could come and get me later.”
He held my gaze. “Okay, but make sure you ring me for a lift. I don’t want you walking back.”
“See you both later then.” I quickly pulled the door open and nearly tripped over my feet in the rush to get away.
With the door firmly shut behind me, I dashed up the sidewalk, crossed the road and through the opening into the forest, which probably wasn’t the brightest thing to do on my own, but I needed space.
I’d been walking for about twenty minutes when I spotted the lake through the trees up ahead so heading in that direction, I shoved my way through and...wow. The view was amazing. Sitting down in front of one of the trees I just looked out to the water and gradually my vision became hazy.
The tears I’d kept in all morning had finally let loose and so did the sobs I’d been holding in as well. I brought my knees up, wrapped my arms around them before resting my face on top of my knees and cried my heart out.
How long I’d been crying I couldn’t tell you, but by the time they’d started to dry up the sun had changed position slightly.