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The weight of that knowledge sat heavy on one

I groped around on the nightstand until my hand found the smooth, cool, credit-card-sized phone, and I hit the speak button, bringing it to my ear with a cheerful, "What?"

"Hello to you too," Mercedes replied, not skipping a beat If anyone was used to being on the receiving end of my upbeat just-woke-up self, it was Cedes "I suspected you " There was a long pause I didn’t fill it, so she carried on "The current ti outside your apartht o’clock sharp"

I held the phone back and looked at the date April 28th

I don’t knoas the only fucking person in the world who needed to be re But here I was, still in bed two hours before I was supposed to walk down the aisle I was drea up sad because yet another wasn’t beside me in bed

"I’ll be out in five minutes," I promised her

"Don’t fancy yourself up too much, there are people for that" This was said in a voice eerily sih She wasn’t wrong though, Kimberly was bound to have dozens of the best hair and room me into the best version of myself

A version I didn’t feel I deserved to be right then

Iup

Fifteen it and Mercedes in short-backed chairs while a team of beauty experts went to town on us They cooed over Bri’s perfectly straight blonde hair so much I was convinced they wanted to do a scalp transplant and put her hair onorder out of thewith Kellen and was sitting on a s as uncoirl who has lived in the swamps of Louisiana for half her life and throw her into a city like New York, there was bound to be a fair bit of culture shock

"Eugenia?" I said

Her attention snapped to me "Yeah?"

"I don’t want you to feel you have to, but, um…do you want to stand up withup a storive her points because she didn’t shoot the idea in the foot straightaway and instead waited to hear ere going to say Her fingers primed to send another text at any second

"Oh, I don’t know" Eugenia was blushing a fierce shade of red "It’s so lastto wear I’m sure I’d stick out like a sore thuiven howa single yellow Alfred Angelo bridesaze drifted fro planner

"Ki second she just batted her false lashes atThen she was a flurry of enia

"I…" The poor girl looked down at her borrowed dress "This is a six?"

Kimberly didn’t say another word to her, she was too busy tapping away on her BlackBerry ht too… Wonder where Nancy got to…" She walked from the rooht run straight into the wall, but the wo because she sidestepped the doorframe at the last second and marched her Manolo-clad feet out into the hall

"She’s scary," Eugenia said

"You think she’s scary? You lived on an island in the swamp populated with feral olves and were raised by a witch," I re the totally hu irons all stopped in unison

Eugenia’s eyes bugged out

I winked "In a hed "Geez, everyone Did we not budget for senses of huit joined the prep tea, while Kellen and Mercedes shook their heads, incredulous that I would use two verboten W words in one sentence

"Oh, honey, ere all raised by witches" This from my stylist, Carter, whose dark hair was styled into a hip-looking po at me in the ress In the grand tradition of male hairstylists everywhere, I found it iht, but I knew I liked hiernails wouldn’t be allowed anywhere nearup or down?" he asked once he’d worked through all the knots of my just-woken bedhead

"Kied