My Last Gift Was Their Wedding

In the comments under one of those I dare you viral video challenges, I saw the screenshots of a chat between my best friend and my fianc.

My best friend had asked Joseph Henson: Do you dare tell Bess Sullivan that we slept together?

Joseph had replied: No.

Her caption read: Coward. Honestly, I don't dare either. Bess has been my closest friend since we were kids. She matters more to me than you do.

The comment section was tearing into the two of them, indignant on my behalf.

But none of them knew the truth. I was the one who owed my best friend and Joseph.

Joseph had stabbed a man to protect me. He went to prison for it, and that ended any hope he'd ever had of the government career he dreamed of.

For my sake, my best friend had been assaulted, beaten until she lost the hearing in one ear, and she still woke screaming from nightmares in the dead of night.

I gripped the report in my hand, the one that said terminal cancer, and let myself smile, finally at peace, as I called her. "Could you come out and try on a wedding gown with me?"

There was nothing else left for me to give them. All I could repay them with was a wedding.

When Josephine Morton arrived, I was in the middle of picking a gown.

A satin mermaid dress, scattered with pearls, the elegant, refined style she loved.

She looked at me, puzzled. "Don't you like the heavily embellished gowns with long trains?"

"I felt like trying something different." I smiled softly.

She didn't notice how pale my face was. Her eyes were fixed on the gown, unblinking.

Before that thing happened, she used to dream up her own wedding with me all the time.

She'd said she wanted to walk down the aisle in a satin mermaid gown, with champagne roses spread across the whole ceremony.

Josephine. I remembered every word.

I took her cold hand in mine. "Will you try it on for me? Please?"

Josephine flinched, as if the warmth of my palm had burned her. "I can't do that. A wedding gown is sacred, I"

"But I'm a little tired! Help me out." I buried my face against the curve of her neck the way I used to when I wanted something.

Only then did Josephine nod and agree. She'd always doted on me.

She slipped into the gown without a hint of suspicion. In front of the huge floor-length mirror, her eyes sparkled like a little girl who'd just been handed a treasure.

Then, all at once, her eyes went red.

She turned away to wipe at them, fighting to swallow the catch in her voice. "Will you wear this to marry Joseph?"

I nodded. "Yes."

Her voice was trembling now. "Then let me be the first to wish you a happy marriage, Bess."

I lowered my head and said nothing. Then a furious shout cut through the room. "What do you two think you're doing?"

I turned. It was Joseph. I started to speak.

Without a word, Joseph grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward the dressing room.

He wasn't paying attention to his own strength. His grip was so hard it felt like he meant to crush the bones in my wrist.

His strides were long, and I struggled to keep up, breathing hard.

His temper seemed to have swallowed him whole. He flung me against the dressing room wall without registering how rough he was.

The pain shook me to my core, every organ trembling, and the tears spilled out before I could stop them.

"Bess, do you have any heart at all? You made Josephine try on your wedding gown, when you know perfectly well that because of you she'll never be able to get married in this life."

My lips were bloodless. I struggled to find my voice, to explain.

Joseph's eyes were red, and he shot me a knife of a glare. "How can you be so heartless, driving a blade straight into her heart?"

No. That wasn't it.

I wanted to explain, but I didn't know what I could say.

Tell him I'd come across Josephine's account, that I knew the two of them had slept together.

Tell him I wasn't trying to hurt her, that I was giving the whole wedding, and him, to her.

Tell him I was about to die.

But all of it lodged in my throat and pressed against my chest, impossible to spit out, impossible to swallow.

Joseph threw out one cold sentence. "You disgust me. I've never been more disappointed in you."

He turned and led Josephine away to change.

The clerk gave me an awkward look. "Miss Sullivan, that wedding gown just now"

I remembered the flicker of light in Josephine's eyes. I pulled out my card. "I'll take it."

It was the first wedding gift I gave them.

I arranged the second one soon after.

I handed the new wedding plan over to the planning company.

They looked at me, troubled. "This is a completely different style from before, Miss Sullivan."

Thinking of how they'd pulled all-nighters on the old plan, I felt a pang of guilt. "Would it help if I paid more on my end?"

After I named a figure generous enough to show I meant it, they promised that in a month they'd give me a champagne-rose-themed wedding with no regrets.

I smiled faintly and told them, "The bride's name needs to change too."

The clerk, who'd been all smiles a moment ago, let her mouth fall open.

"I'm going to die soon. I want the two most important people in my life to take good care of each other."

There wasn't a trace of malice in my eyes. So clean, so simple that the clerk thought I was joking.

"It's late-stage cancer. There's no cure. I hope you won't tell them."

I said it word by word, and the clerk stammered, "O okay."

I stepped out of the shop and slowly let out a breath.

Then a wave of nausea hit, and the pain doubled me over right there on the ground, dry-heaving until I brought up blood.

I dug through my bag for the medicine, only to realize the bottle disguised as stomach tablets had been left behind in Joseph's car by accident.

In a panic I yanked out my phone and called him. "Joseph, my stomach hurts, the pills are in your car, could you"

The Joseph of before, who'd once heard I'd scraped a finger and bolted half a mile to buy me iodine and bandages.

But today he was strangely silent.

"Are you doing this on purpose?"

The pain had cold sweat beading on my forehead.

"W-what?"

I almost wondered if I was hurting badly enough to hallucinate.

"You saw Josephine's post too, didn't you. You know it's dangerous for her to be drunk at a bar right now, and you're still pulling these little stunts to grab my attention, to stop me from going to get her."

"I'm not."

The pain blacked out my vision, and my heart felt like it was being pounded by something blunt.

A dense, crawling wave of hurt climbed into my chest, and my nose stung before I could stop it.

"Enough. You really are getting more and more selfish. Josephine sacrificed herself for you once already. Nothing can happen to her again. Call a courier and buy your own medicine."

I nodded, meaning to say okay.

Only to find the call had long since been cut off.

I stared at the empty street, forcing my collapsing body upright, and went back to the hospital for medicine.

It hurt so much. I'm so afraid of pain. I had booked an assisted death abroad.

Just three days before the wedding.

After taking the medicine, I started writing my will at home.

As I wrote, my eyelids began to droop.

I slumped over the desk in a daze and dreamed of the past.

The eighteen-year-old me, and Josephine, and Joseph.

Back then we were the elite circle trio, all spirit and swagger.

But the day I accepted Joseph's confession and went home.

Everything changed.

The uncle who'd adopted me had been drugged.

He stared at me, eyes bloodshot, and at the roses in my hand, and asked, "Bessie, don't you love me?"

All my life I'd only ever seen him as an elder. I'd never once had any other kind of thought.

He closed in on me step by step and knocked away the phone I tried to call the police with.

He cornered me against the windowsill, and I cried out for help to Josephine and Joseph, who hadn't gone far yet.

They burst in.

Seeing my uncle pinning me to the floor, Joseph's eyes went red.

He snatched the fruit knife off the table and drove it straight into Uncle Gerald's back.

Terrified of what might happen next, Josephine threw herself at Uncle Gerald, who was trying to chase after us.

She clung to his waist with everything she had, not a moment of hesitation in her voice. "Bess, get Joseph out of here, hurry! Someone's going to get hurt!"

I dragged Joseph away with all my strength as he tried to lunge back and finish what he'd started.

I thought that if I separated him from his rage, nothing more would go wrong.

I thought the tragedy had ended right there.

But I never imagined the tragedy was only just beginning.

The uncle I had respected and loved since childhood.

The refined, gentle uncle I'd known all my life. Under the drug, he assaulted Josephine.

By the time we got back to the villa with the police, I saw the one memory I have wished, every day since, that I could erase.

Josephine lay on the wooden floor, her face drained of color.

Her clothes were torn away, blood streaming from one ear where Uncle Gerald had struck her.

There were bite marks on her face.

She was rushed to the hospital.

But an assault is not foreplay.

The damage to her body was so severe that she would never be able to bear children for the rest of her life.

When Josephine's mother found out, she flew at me and slapped me hard across the face. "Why was it Josephine? Why wasn't it you!"

"This is all your fault. You're nothing but a curse."

Guilt swallowed me whole, vast as the sky, and in a daze I walked up to the roof of the hospital.

I told myself I had to atone to Josephine.

But Josephine dragged me back from the edge of that roof, crying as she screamed, "If you die, what happens to me and Joseph?"

"I'm begging you. Don't die."

I smiled and nodded, while quietly hiding a fruit knife up my sleeve.

All of this was for me. I would make Uncle Gerald atone to Josephine.

I pushed open the door of the villa, and everything was horribly quiet.

Uncle Gerald was dead. He had slit his wrists and was lying in the bathtub.

He had written a suicide note, and a letter of forgiveness.

My eighteenth year, the bright spring of my youth, came to its sudden end just like that.

When I jolted awake from the nightmare, I realized Joseph hadn't come home all night.

I opened the video app, and Josephine's burner account had pushed another clip to me.

This one was two hands intertwined on a bed, and the backdrop was the wedding bed I had chosen with my own hands.

The caption read: I'm sorry, Bess. This is the last time we let ourselves go.

I gave a helpless little smile. Josephine, you silly girl.

That bridal suite was meant to be the third wedding gift I was leaving for them.

Why be in such a rush?

And then the pain of being betrayed twice over, by my dearest friend and the man I loved, came crashing back over my heart.

I rushed into the bathroom and stood retching over the sink, and when I lifted my head I realized my face was already streaked with tears.

At the height of the pain, I started to hallucinate.

In the mirror was Josephine, young and full of life, tilting her clean, fair little face up at me. "I want a mermaid gown in satin, I want a wedding buried in champagne roses, I want... do you remember all of it?"

I smiled in a daze and nodded at the empty air. "I remember all of it. I remember everything, Josephine."

Happy wedding day, Josephine, Joseph.

The sound of a key turning came from the door. I wiped at my tears in a clumsy rush and walked out.

Joseph came in with one arm steadying Josephine and my pill bottle in the other hand.

When their eyes landed on my red, swollen eyes, both of them flickered with shock and a stab of pity for a single instant.

Then Joseph's brow knotted hard. "How long are you going to keep up this childish nonsense? In Josephine's condition, was I supposed to just not go get her?"

He hurled the pill bottle down at my feet. "Can you stop playing the victim for attention? Haven't we sacrificed enough for you already?"

I bent down and picked up the bottle, calm as I said, "Fine. Thank you."

Maybe I was too calm. For a moment, Joseph just looked lost.

Josephine turned and shoved away Joseph, who was holding her up. She limped over and threw her arms out in front of me. "What is wrong with you, Joseph? Why are you yelling at Bess?"

I looked at her trembling arms, at the ear that would never hear sound again.

All at once I remembered the countless times before when she had stood in front of me just like this.

In grade school, when a dog chased us, Josephine spread her arms to shield me.

In middle school, when the school bully tried to force me to be her girlfriend, Josephine stepped in front of me.

That time with Uncle Gerald, it was her too, standing in front of me.

Something stung behind my nose. I forced down the hurt rising in my chest. "I'm sorry. I won't act out like that anymore."

At my words, Joseph's body shuddered.

He opened his mouth, as if to say something.

But I took Josephine's hand and turned to go upstairs, playing with her fingers, leaning into her like a child.

I started preparing the fourth wedding gift for them.

I asked, as if it didn't matter, "Is your ring finger still a size twelve?"

"Mm."

Josephine answered me absently.

Then she smiled and asked, "You're getting me a present?"

"Yeah. You're going to love it."

"How would you know what I want?"

I looked at her gently. "Then tell me. What do you want?"

Josephine tapped the tip of my nose softly. "I want you healthy. I want you to live to a hundred."

I smiled and said, "Okay."

But inside I sighed. I'm sorry, Josie. That's the one thing I can't give you.

I returned the wedding rings and swapped them for the brand Josephine liked.

The woman's band, in her size, sat far too loose on my hand.

Only then did it hit methe illness had worn me down to nothing but bone, and neither Josephine nor Joseph had noticed.

There was a time when, if I lost even a single pound, the two of them would fly into a fury, each accusing the other of not taking care of me.

Now my cheeks were hollow, my wrists thin enough to frighten anyone who looked, and not one of them saw it.

I placed the rings back in their original box, so that on the wedding day they could use them right away.

When it was all done, I realized I didn't even have the strength left to lift my wrist.

I drew in a deep breath, the pain in my stomach sharp enough to kill me where I stood.

I forced myself out to the garden. I wanted to see the flower bed my mother had left me.

I had already willed this villa to Josephine. I thought that if they lived mostly at the wedding house later, and if they didn't mind the bad luck of it, I hoped my ashes could be buried beneath this bed of white roses.

As if I were lying back in my mother's arms again.

But the sight in the garden made my eyes burn, the pain so fierce I could barely breathe.

The white roses that had filled the bed had been ripped out and trampled underfoot.

I shouted at the workers. "What are you doing?"

The gardener in charge of this section looked confused. "Mr. Henson told me to change them. He said with the wedding coming up, white roses are unlucky. He wanted champagne roses instead, something more festive."

My body swayed. Hurt and a quiet, creeping resentment climbed into my chest.

Even if he didn't love me anymore, he could have told me.

Why destroy the only thing my mother had left me.

I made everyone stop and ordered them to put the flower bed back the way it was.

My eyes red, I ran to the study. I had to make it clear to Joseph.

I would tell him everything. I'm dying soon. Stop hurting me.

Be with Josephine, with a clear heart. I don't blame either of you. Call it me repaying my debt to you both.

I pushed open the study door. He looked up at me, eyes bloodshot, both hands clenched tight around a few sheets of paper.

I looked closer and realized those pages were my cancer report.