Last Name - Dr. Rebecca Sharp Page 0,67
of the neighboring car to check my makeup and reassure myself I hadn’t lost all my cover-up on the drive here.
“What is that?” I started, gravel crunching under my feet, when I saw my mom carrying a dress bag over her arm, beelining for the church.
“It’s for the bride.”
I chuckled and, adjusting my dress, jogged to catch up. “Did she forget her dress?” I joked.
There was a pause, and it was long enough to turn the uncertainty in my stomach to stone-cold dread.
“No, I have it right here,” she replied without looking at me.
“Momma…” I reached out and grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop and face me just as we approached the entrance to the church.
Wide eyes, the same warm brown as mine, raked over my face with a mix of anxiety and desperation.
“What’s going on?” I asked quietly, riddled with fear.
“Look, Dixie, why don’t we just go into the church and talk about this inside?”
I shook my head, astonished. “What are you talking about? How are we going to talk—”
“Lucille!” My dad appeared in the door. “Get that girl in here! Everyone is waiting.”
I dropped my mom’s arm like it was a rattlesnake. Poisonous. Deadly. Unsuspecting.
I realized too late I’d already been bit.
“What did you do?” I demanded with a low voice of warning as I stepped back.
She followed me. “Please, Dixie dear, just come with me. Jimmy is inside.”
I shook my head, bile rising and burning through my throat.
“I’m leaving.” Shock made my body feel hollow as it trembled, my organs clanking around in all the dead space. “I’m not feeling well.”
“No!” she screeched. “You can’t leave.”
“Why? It’s not my wedding,” I said steadily, knowing the truth far before I heard her pleading reply.
“It is, Dixie. It is your wedding.” She let out a long sigh, one that quaked the earth under my feet and crashed what was left of my world to the ground.
Betrayal cut through my chest like a hot knife through butter. “How could you do this?”
“Honey, please,” she begged. “You’ve been engaged to Jimmy for over a year now, and you obviously have… problems… with this. We just thought this way might be easiest for you…”
Easiest.
For me.
Because I was the one with problems.
“T-To trick me into coming to my own wedding?” I couldn’t even hide my stutter and strained laugh. It was no wonder I struggled to be my own person and feel confident in myself when my own parents believed there was something wrong with me for breaking off two—three weddings.
I knew she’d been shocked and hurt when I’d no-showed at the church for Ben. I knew she’d been surprised when I’d walked back upstairs and told her I wasn’t marrying Jake. But I never thought she’d resort to something like this…
“Well, you left Ben at the altar. Poor boy.” I cringed at her sympathy. “And Jake—”
“What about Jake? What about the man who was cheating on me the very day of our wedding?”
Her face had the decency to flush.
“I just think there was a misunderstanding and maybe you could’ve worked—”
“Misunderstanding?” I shrieked. “How could I misunderstand his dick in Sue Lynn’s vagina?”
“Dixie!”
My head whipped back and forth. “No.” I swiped tears from my cheeks. I knew my mother had been eternally optimistic about Jake, even after what he’d done, wishing we could work through it. But this… this was too much…
“Lucille! Everyone’s waitin’!”
It hurt too much to cry. It hurt too much that all I could do was laugh as I bent down and yanked my small heels off my feet.
“Dixie, what are you doing?”
“Leaving,” I spat. “I can’t believe you did this… without asking… without anything.”
“But you love Jimmy—”
“You don’t know anything, Mom,” I said sadly, without any inclination to tell her the truth I’d just learned about the man she wanted me to marry; she’d probably just think abuse was a problem to be worked through, too.
“You can’t just walk away, Dixie Dorothea!” Her voice rose, but wavered because she knew she wasn’t going to win this argument.
My chin notched up, feeling like steel melted over and hardened around my spine.
I refused to be told I couldn’t do something.
“Oh, I’m not walking.” I dropped my heels on the pavement. “I’m running.”
The only good thing about Chicktown, Alabama was that it was so small, I had no problem running all the way home with bare feet.
And no problem getting out of town before the church was even cleared out.
The next day…
Chicktown Gazette: Dixie dodges yet another Groom!
Has anyone seen our