“And that disloyal, despicable cocksucker and slut-bag would be me?” He asked, seemingly shocked by my outburst.

“The difference between us is that I can’t help the gifts – or lack thereof – that mother nature bestowed upon me, but you made your own image. I won’t have someone who wanted to be seen that way continue to look down on me like I’m some ugly fucking duckling who should be thankful I’m even being spoken to, let alone fake married to.”

“I never,” he started to say, but I moved forward and slammed the bedroom door in his face before he could finish that thought. Then I threw the lock for good measure. I had never been more thankful for a bedroom door lock.

“I don’t want to even hear your voice until I have to tomorrow,” I shouted through the door. Not for the first time, I found myself wondering why my father’s business was so important to the Brighton/Tucker family that the asshole out there couldn’t just pick a wife he’d at least enjoy looking at. I would find out later, much later, that my father’s business which I had always been woefully ignorant of, produced a special power cell that was rechargeable with very little energy usage needed. It was a crucial piece of the puzzle that one of the Brighton businesses needed to complete the line of energy efficient vehicles it was creating to rival the current most popular vehicle of its type.

I wouldn’t find out about all that until after I became Mrs. Tucker though. Instead, I managed to call down to the boutique and ask if they had a similar dress to the one that I had purchased earlier, only in a less dramatic color. They did, and so when I finally opened the door of the hotel suite the next day, after having the dress delivered to me in my room, I was donning an entirely new look for my wedding.

This one was the palest of blue greens with a sash that matched the exact color of my eyes. It was stunning to see it on me and made me wonder if the saleswoman who had seen me yesterday had remembered my eyes when she picked this one out and sent it up. Honestly, if I were to have gotten married to someone I actually loved, I would have picked this dress and married that lucky son of a bitch on a beach somewhere. That was, in fact, the type of wedding I used to dream about. Never, in my wildest dreams, did I imagine it taking place in some tacky love chapel on the Vegas strip, but here we were. I didn’t get the devoted, doting husband, the perfect destination wedding, or the beautiful bouquet of flowers I always dreamed of, but fate had deemed at least I should have a worthy dress to wear for the nightmare I was about to enter into.

Inspired by the dress, I made my face up with skill and precision, so that it matched the look, highlighting my best features and making the color in my eyes pop so they stood out in perfect harmony with the perfect dress. Then, I attempted to add a little curl to the ends of my stick-straight hair and the best I could manage was a sort of beach-wave look as the curls fell right out despite the maximum hold hairspray I had used.