Antler Crown, Silent Departure novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Antlers
Zack video-calls in antlers to say he's letting his friend try the wedding first; Bridget walks out and the best man has her car waiting.
On my wedding day, my fiancé skipped our first look.
Zack was supposed to knock on the suite door at 8:30.
The photographer had set up in the hallway of the Larkmoor Hotel, and the clock on the nightstand said 8:52.
I sat on the edge of the bed in my dress, with my hair pinned and my phone in my lap.
I called him twice.
At 9:00 he called me, on video.
He was in his gray groom's suit, standing in a bright parking lot, and he had a pair of felt antlers on his head.
"Bridge, don't freak out," he said.
"Where are you?"
"I picked up Poppy. You know she thinks marriage is a scam, right? So I'm letting her try the whole wedding first."
I looked at the antlers.
"She wanted to see if it's really that bad," he said. "It'll be fun, I promise."
"Zack, our ceremony is at noon."
"And it'll still be at noon. You can leave the hotel around ten. By then Poppy will have had her turn, and we'll do the real one properly."
He grinned and tilted his head so the antlers wobbled.
My hand was shaking, so I held the phone with both hands.
I pressed the red button to record and said, "Say that last part again. I missed it."
"You can leave the hotel around ten," Zack said, still smiling. "Poppy gets her turn, then we do the real one."
Behind him, a woman's voice came through the speaker.
"Zack, I found the shoes. They were under Poppy's dress."
"Great."
"Put them on Poppy. We need to get her to the ballroom."
That was Lacey, my maid of honor.
Lacey had gone with me to pick out the dress.
She had folded every place card with me at my grandmother's kitchen table, and she had argued with the florist for me twice.
She had written the script for the emcee, and I had read it aloud to her over the phone on Thursday.
She had been in my suite until midnight, curling my hair for the trial run.
Now she was standing beside Zack in a parking lot, telling him which shoes to put on the other woman.
The shoes were mine.
I had given them to Lacey on Thursday so she could break in the straps for me.
"Bridge?" Zack said. "You're being quiet. Don't be weird about it."
I couldn't answer him.
My chest was so tight that I could hear my own breath.
"Lacey, tell her it's fine," Zack said, and turned the phone.
Lacey leaned into the frame. Her lipstick was the pink we had chosen together for the bridesmaids.
"It's fine, babe," she said. "It's a joke, and Poppy needs this. Just stay in the room and let us handle it."
Then the call dropped.
I sat there with the phone dark in my hands.
The first tear landed on the white lace over my knee.
I let it.
Then I looked at the video I had just saved.
Two hundred guests would start to arrive at eleven.
By noon they would be sitting in rows, in front of an aisle somebody else was going to walk down.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand.
I did not want to wait until ten.
So I stepped out.
I twisted the ring off my finger and set it on top of the printed program, where Zack would see it first.
I picked up my bag and my keys, and I took the service stairs, because the lobby elevator opened onto the room where the guests would gather.
My dress was too wide for the stairwell. I held it up in two fistfuls and went down four floors without stopping.
At the bottom, a steel door opened onto the loading dock.
My car was parked right outside it.
The engine was running, and the heat was on.
Zack's older brother, Malcolm, was leaning against the driver's door in his best man's suit with my keys in his hand.
"I moved it up from the garage," he said. "So the florist's van wouldn't block you in."
I had not told anyone I was leaving.
I had not told myself until three minutes before.
I stared at him, and I was too tired to ask how he knew.
"I'm sorry, Bridget," he said, and held the keys out. His voice was low and even.
I took them.
"Go wherever you want," he said. "I'll keep everyone upstairs for as long as I can."
I got in. He shut the door gently.
My phone buzzed on the passenger seat.
It was a text from Lacey.
"Where are you?? Come back, babe. Zack says you're being dramatic. Poppy's already in your shoes."
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