Severed Ties

Fratelli

Cameron

I had been dragged to the altar, wearing my father's wedding suit and with anything but a smile on my face. I was grimacing at it all. The hall, the chapel that is, looked completely different to the rest of the abandoned hospital. The moment I walked in it was as though I had been transferred to an entirely different reality.

It was beautiful. That was the worst of it.

There were guests in the most exquisite gowns people I had seen in passing, none of which I would have invited to my actual wedding. It was full of yes-men, people who had grown close to my father only in enabling his ruthless nature. They smiled at me as though this was supposed to be the best day of my life.

They were paper smiles. And I had every intention of burning them to the ground. 

There was no one that I wanted to be there.

I imagined Leo cracking a thousand jokes humiliating me as any best man should. Mel would be shrieking, shoving anyone to grab the bouquet as it was thrown. Theo would be glowering at me, but at the end of it, after a stern handshake, he would nod slightly, a little incline of the head which would mean everything to Alara. She always did want Theo and me to get along. Or at least be civil.

And then my thoughts were consumed by her; by how she would look at me as she walked down the aisle if this had been our day if we had meticulously planned it together, and everything was perfect. Her smile would break the universe, shattering anything that you once believed light could emanate from because her smile was just that bright. 

She would have her hair framing her face, with intricate braids that fed into each other, in a classic milkmaid's braid. She would laugh and throw her head back. Her makeup would be soft and graceful, with anything but a red lip because I knew how much she despised red lipstick, no the darkest it would get would be a mauve but I knew she would use the softest of pinks, as though she wasn't wearing lipstick at all.

She would be ethereal.

Stunning beyond belief, and she would stare into my eyes, with her doe ones, wide and full of possibilities, she would be happy. Truly and utterly happy, without a care in the world, her soft palm closed onto mine as the Pastor announced us man and wife, and she would lean forward ever so slightly, waiting for me to go the distance, waiting for me to come to her because she knew her worth.

She knew she was my world.

And I would cross oceans to get to her.

And the kiss would be perfect, soft and beautiful pressed between us in a promise, a vow that would not be broken even by death.

I stood at the altar alone, the pastor looked nervous, pulling at his white colour amongst a black shirt, he whispered to me, "I'm sorry," and my face must have given away the surprise that ran through me, "I don't want to do this but Mr Grayson has my wife, I have to do this. Please forgive me, father, for I have sinned," he whispered a prayer, before offering me a weak smile.

I couldn't return it but I nodded in understanding, as at that moment we were both trapped by my father, who would use anyone we cared about to make us bend to his whim. He wanted me to be as malleable as the iron that melted in a blacksmith's forge, but the thing about iron was that it became stronger once exposed to fire, and after it had cooled down it would be just as dangerous as the fire it was created from.

And my father would have to be wary of when the iron of my soul cooled.

"Please rise, as the bride will make her entrance now," the announcement was made by a disembodied voice, one I didn't recognise or care to familiarise myself with.