They Voted to Replace Me at My Own Wedding novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Vote
Four bridesmaids stand and vote another woman into June's place at her own wedding; Marcello does not move for eleven seconds. June walks out, and he says he knows what is taped under her bouquet.
At 2:58 on Christmas Eve, the screen above our altar stopped playing our engagement photos.
A poll came up in gold letters on a white background.
WHO SHOULD MARRY MARCELLO BELLANDI TODAY?
Under the question were two names. Mine, and Gwen Kinsella's.
Beside each name sat a row of small faces, the women I had chosen to stand up with me.
Four faces sat under Gwen's name, each with a little gold heart. Only one sat under mine.
My thumb found the flat edge taped under the ribbon of my bouquet. It was still there.
I thought somebody had loaded the wrong slideshow.
Then Roxanne stood up in the front row.
Twenty minutes earlier she had pinned my veil twice, because her hands shook, and whispered, "Breathe, Juney. Whatever happens today, I've got you."
Now she stood in her red velvet dress with her phone raised, and three more women stood up beside her.
Only Marcy stayed in her seat. She was shaking her head, white to the lips.
"We voted," Roxanne said.
She has a nurse's voice, low and kind, the kind that carries down a hospital corridor at night.
"Four to one, June. I'm so sorry. Please don't make this ugly."
A hundred and ten guests turned their heads at once.
The doors at the side of the chapel opened, and Gwen Kinsella walked in.
She wore a plain white satin dress and a thin veil. Two men in dark coats followed her and stopped at the wall.
She looked at the floor the whole way up the aisle.
Everyone in that room knew who she was. Her father had been the Bellandi family's enemy for twenty years, until a truce two winters ago.
I looked at Marcello.
He stood at the altar in a black suit, with snow still melting on his shoulders from the helicopter.
He didn't look at me.
He looked at the doors, and then at the men along the walls, and then at the doors again.
He stood frozen in that awful silence. I'm a nurse, and when something goes wrong, every heartbeat stretches.
Nobody else moved either. Marcello's mother sat in the first row with her hands folded on her purse.
The officiant had gone gray and was staring at his Bible.
I had planned this day for fourteen months. I had planned something else for six weeks, ever since I learned how my brother Eli really died.
Neither plan had a chapter where my friends took a vote.
I turned around and faced the chapel.
"So I'm stepping out," I said.
My voice came out steadier than my knees.
I walked down the two steps to the front row and stopped at Marcy's seat.
I took her cold hand with my free one and squeezed it once.
"I'll call you," I said.
Marcy pressed her other hand to her mouth and started to cry.
Then I pulled the emerald off my finger.
It left a pale line where it had been for fourteen months.
I set it on the candle table by the altar, between two white roses, and I let it click against the silver.
"Roxanne," I said.
She lifted her chin. Her eyes were wet, and her mouth was soft.
"Delete my number," I said.
"June, please. We did this because we love you."
"You did it with a QR code in my wedding program."
Somebody in the back laughed once, and stopped.
I took the hem of my dress in both hands and walked up the aisle alone.
Marcello said my name.
Only that. "June."
I kept walking.
The guests of his family sat very straight, and the guests from my floor at the hospital stared at their laps. A woman I had trained last spring covered her mouth.
Nobody stopped me, and nobody got up.
Two of his guards opened the big doors without being asked.
Outside, the snow came down thick and sideways.
A black helicopter sat on the lawn with its blades still turning slowly. Men in long coats stood in a ring around the cars, with rifles held across their chests, the way they had stood all morning.
Cold air hit my bare shoulders.
Footsteps came behind me, quick and heavy.
A hand slapped flat against the chapel door beside my head and held it shut before I could take another step.
Marcello had followed me out.
He stood so close that I felt the heat of him through my dress, and snow lay on his black hair.
His voice was perfectly quiet.
"Keep walking if you want," he said. "But you can't leave this mountain tonight. And I know what's taped under that ribbon, June."
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