Page 1 of Owen
1
OWEN
“You’ve turned a funny color. Are you okay?” My lifelong friend and best man, Lincoln, straightens my pink silk tie.
“It’s too tight.” I’m almost wheezing as I hook my finger inside the neckline of my baby blue dress shirt and arch my neck in an attempt to loosen it. I’m pretty sure it’s self-tightening and trying to strangle me to death. I can’t seem to catch my breath since I put the stupid fucking thing on.
Today is my wedding day.
Wedding day. Pfft.
It’s supposed to be the happiest day of my life, but all I can think about is ripping off this stupid outfit I’ve been forced to wear by my future wife, Evangeline, and my mother, and tell them both where to shove it.
They didn’t even let me wear a kilt. I’m a Scotsman. By rights, on my wedding day, that’s exactly what I should be wearing.
But oh no, a kilt wasn’t good enough for Evangeline. I had to wear a blue and pink embroidered floral suit, made by somedesigner prick, specially commissioned for Daddy’s little princess.
Whatever Evangeline wants, Evangeline gets.
She never wants me to touch her, so I don’t.
She never wants me to kiss her, so I don’t.
She flinches when I so much as brush against her by mistake, making everything we do together awkward.
If I try to make conversation with her, she chastises me. Mocking me every chance she gets, telling me how stupid I am.
Considering I’ve put up with my mother’s verbal attacks since I was a child, you’d think I would be used to them by now, only I’m not and never will be. Each vicious word out of Evangeline’s mouth is like another lash of a whip, opening old emotional wounds, each one cutting deeper than the last.
Playing the “good boy” just as my mother instructed, I’ve put in all the effort, with Evangeline’s family, her friends, even her stupid Persian cat, Angel.
Believe me, that cat is no angel. It may be all white fur and innocent face but once I move into the new house, it is going to claw me to death in my sleep. I bet it’s made a How to Kill Owen Plan.I just know it has. It’s already had me at the doctors after it bit me, giving me an infection.
Angel is going to kill me off, limb by fucking limb. Just wait and see.
But the killer cat is the least of my problems.
I’ve tried to make this ridiculous farce of a relationship work for our families. God, have I tried hard.
I even grew my hair longer for her because she said I would look better. Although that’s not what she said; her exact words were, “It’ll distract people from your enormous nose.”What the fuck is wrong with my nose? Oh, I know, absolutely nothing. It’s my entire face she can’t stand looking at.
Knowing how much I messed up with Skye, my now ex-girlfriend since high school, I don’t want to do that again. I was completely unaware of what a shitty boyfriend I was until Skye “informed” me. Apparently, I let her down time and time again. Once I knew though, I made a vow to myself to try harder, do better, and be the man I should be for my soon-to-be wife.
I may have lost Skye, but my other best friend, Jacob, knew exactly how to be the man she needed. He stepped up and loves Skye with every bone in his body.
I’m not jealous of them. We were never meant to be. But I am envious of what they have together.
I want love like that.
Love that runs so deep through your veins that you can’t think or see straight without it.
Lincoln has that with Violet, and now Jacob with Skye.
Then there is me.
I’m the fuck up in our trifecta. So, at the age of thirty-one, I’m standing in a floral wedding suit, looking like a prize prick, as if waiting to be summoned to the gallows for execution, to marry someone who can’t even bear to look at me. My heart is breaking for a love I’m never going to find and a life that I don’t want. Death by an unhappy marriage.
Yet, through it all, I must put on a show. I will not let anyone see how destroyed I feel.
