I Chose a New Life novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Six Tiers
Della's wedding cake is a trap: she is held down and filmed, and she walks to the last ferry.
On my wedding day, July Fourth, my fiancé's best friend said she had a surprise for me.
Her name was Roxana, and she had known Bennett since they were six years old.
All morning she had held my train and fixed my veil twice.
She had told me Bennett was a lucky man.
At noon Bennett had kissed my knuckles and said, "Whatever Roxana does today, just roll with it."
"It's sweet," he said. "I promise."
So when two of his groomsmen wheeled a six-tier cake onto the lodge lawn, I was smiling.
It was covered in white frosting and tied around the middle with a gold ribbon.
Eighty guests stood on the grass with their phones out.
"It's your wedding day!" Roxana said, and lifted her own phone. "We need a special video for everyone."
She looked at Bennett first.
Bennett gave her a small nod.
I leaned in to read the little topper on the cake.
Roxana grabbed the back of my head and shoved my face into it.
Frosting packed my nose and my mouth.
A wooden support rod inside the cake scraped a line down my cheekbone.
The pain went white behind my eyes.
The whole lawn roared with laughter.
I pushed back with both hands.
Two sets of hands clamped down on my shoulders from behind and held me bent over the cake.
They belonged to the groomsmen who had wheeled it out.
"Keep her still," Roxana said, giggling. "I'm getting it."
"Let go of me!" I tried to shout, and got a mouthful of buttercream.
Bennett's hand closed around my wrist.
I thought he was pulling me free.
"Della," he said, and he was laughing too. "It's a joke. Why are you overreacting?"
The groomsmen let go.
I stood up blind and wiped my eyes with the back of my arm.
The first thing I saw was Roxana's screen.
A red LIVE sat in the corner, and the number beside it kept climbing.
Comments rolled up the glass.
Bride loses it lol.
Is she crying??
Somebody get her a napkin.
"You're live," I said.
"Three thousand people," Roxana said, very pleased. "Isn't that great?"
Bennett put his arm around my shoulders.
His sleeve smelled like the cologne I had bought him.
"Come on, babe," he said. "Let's clean you up and do the ceremony. Everybody's waiting."
I looked at him.
He was still smiling, and he was waiting for me to laugh.
I looked at the eighty people on that lawn.
His mother had her hand over her mouth, and she wasn't shocked, she was holding in a grin.
My own cousin was filming me from the third row.
Nobody had moved toward me.
Nobody had said stop.
Blood was running down my jaw into the frosting.
I touched it and looked at my fingers.
"Della," Bennett said, quieter now. "People are watching. Don't make this a scene."
He had just helped make one, and he wanted me to be quiet about it.
I took his hand off my shoulder.
I pulled the ring off my finger and pushed it into the middle of the top tier, where Roxana could see it.
Then I looked straight into her phone.
"Eighty of you laughed," I said. "Remember that."
So I stepped out.
I walked across the lawn in a dress that weighed twelve pounds, dragging my train through the grass.
Bennett called my name three times.
The third time he stopped sounding sorry and started sounding angry.
I didn't turn around.
Down at the dock, the last ferry of the day sat with its engine running.
The only crew was a man in a gray work shirt, coiling a rope.
He had carried our guests' luggage off the boat that morning.
He had stood at the edge of the lawn through the whole thing with his arms folded, and I hadn't seen him laugh once.
He looked at the frosting, the blood and the veil in my hair.
Then he took a clean towel from the cabin and held it out.
"Last boat to the mainland leaves in two minutes," he said. "You coming?"
From the top of the hill, I heard Bennett shouting that I had better get back up there.
I took the towel and stepped aboard.
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