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TODAY WAS the wedding. Noel could feel it in the air, in his mom's flushed and bright face, in the presence of relatives he only saw once a year exiting and entering his house, in Cheryl's brooding disposition.
She had pulled him into the bathroom, the only room in the house that wasn't occupied by crumpled bridesmaid dresses and charcoal face masks.
"What's the plan?"
"Plan? There is no plan. My mom is getting married today."
"Noel-"
"There's nothing to talk about." Noel stated firmly, yet he couldn't look Cheryl in the eyes.
Cheryl stood there in the bathroom for a moment, as if she was waiting for something, anything, to change, but Noel's expression remained fiercely determined resulting in a large exaggerated sigh to leave her lips. "I'm going."
"Going where?"
"To meet with Todd."
"I thought you broke up with him."
"What gave you that idea?" And Noel thought to the warbled phone call Cheryl had with Myron back in Wood Acre, he was pretty sure Myron told him Cheryl wanted to get back together with him.
"Nothing."
"Come on the least you could do is tell me."
"When you called Myron, he said you were distressed-"
Cheryl then let out an incomprehensible strangled noise, she looked past at Noel, her eyes on the rows and rows of expensive acne products. "It was a moment of weakness. Temporary insanity." Her voice was small, muted. "Todd is good for me."
"A person shouldn't be good for you, you should be good for yourself." Noel breathed out slowly, although Cheryl didn't meet his eyes, Noel looked straight at her.
"I don't even know what that means." Cheryl looked at the acne products again, salicylic acid, hydroquinone, benzoyl peroxide, alpha hydroxy acids, sulfur. "I'm sorry for what I did the first day I came here, I deserved to have those bottles thrown at me."
