He Abandoned Our Wedding, I Destroyed His Life novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Storm

The band stopped mid-chord.

Jade lay on the dance floor with her white skirt spread around her and both hands clutching the boot.

"My ankle! Oh my God. This floor is loose, it's loose, somebody help me!"

The young man in the cap swung the camera down onto her face.

Sixty guests stood frozen among the tables.

A few of them started toward her.

"Don't touch her," I said.

I said it loud, in my courtroom voice, and they stopped.

"Everyone who has a phone out," I said. "Thank you. Please keep recording."

Half the tent already had their phones up.

They'd been filming the bouquet.

My cousin's maid of honor was standing four feet away, phone held high, mouth open.

"I got the whole thing," she said. "Audrey. I got her looking at the floor first."

"I got her checking the camera," said somebody's uncle by the bar.

"I got her stepping up on the edge on purpose," said a teenager at the kids' table, sounding thrilled. "It's in slow-mo. It's so funny in slow-mo."

Jade stopped screaming.

She looked around the tent.

Sixty phones looked back at her.

My father walked over and stood above her with his hands in his pockets.

"You're on a rented floor at a private party," he said pleasantly. "If you're injured, an ambulance will come."

"The paramedics will examine you, and they'll write down what they find. Would you like me to call one?"

Jade looked at him.

She looked at her photographer.

"Help me up," she snapped.

He held out a hand.

She didn't need it.

She was on her feet in one motion, in the boot, with her weight on both legs, smoothing her skirt.

Robbie had climbed down from his chair.

He walked up to the edge of the dance floor and looked at her with the cold eye of a coach.

"That was a bad fall," he told her. "You're supposed to bend your knees first. You fell straight. Like a tree."

Somebody snorted.

Then the whole tent was laughing.

Jade's face went white under the makeup.

She turned and walked out of the tent into the dark yard, fast, without limping once.

Her photographer ran after her with the light still on.

My cousin climbed back on her chair.

"Okay," she said to the band. "Play something loud."

They did.

By eleven I had nine videos in my phone, three of them in slow motion.

By half past, the sky over Brookline had gone a strange bruised green.

The first thunder rolled in while the caterers were stacking chairs.

Robbie was asleep across two chairs with his clip-on tie undone and the bouquet ribbon tied around his wrist.

My mother looked at him, then at me, then at Finn.

"He can stay with us," she said. "Your father owes him a rematch. He can lose it at breakfast."

"Are you sure?" Finn said.

"Go home before the rain," my mother said. "Both of you."

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