Chapter 183

I waited a couple days for Lisa to cool off. Then I gathered my courage and called her one morning.

“Hello?” Lisa answered groggily.

“Hi, Lisa. It’s me, Crystal.”

I could hear her tone turn bitter.

“What do you want?”

“I wanted to talk to you about some last-minute wedding details—”

“Like what?”

I cringed. I had been afraid that she would ask that.

“I want you to be sure that the tablecloths are the right shade of blue for the color scheme that you have in your mind.”

“Can’t you just send me a picture?” Her voice was tinged with annoyance.

“You know that the shade is never exactly the same in pictures as they are in real life.”

She huffed out a sigh.

“Fine. This better be quick, though. I’ll be there in an hour.”

“Great, I’ll see you in an hour.”

I hung up the phone, praying to the Moon Goddess that this would not backfire on me.

I stood anxiously near the door as Lisa walked into Ever After Weddings. I smiled at her, trying to be cordial. She only stared at me through the enormous lenses of her sunglasses.

“Good morning, Lisa,” I said with forced cheer.

Lisa did not respond. Her head turned about the room in search of the tablecloths that I had mentioned on the phone. When she did not find them, she turned her face to me.

“Where are these ‘tablecloths’ that you wanted to show me?” she asked.

“I…well…there’s something more pressing that I wanted to talk about instead.”

Lisa lowered her sunglasses and arched a brow at me.

“What is that?”

I motioned toward a nearby table.

“Let’s have a seat.”

Lisa huffed but took the chair across from me as we sat down.

“Well, out with it,” she said. “I have a lot to do today.”

“You can’t marry Bob,” I said in a rush. “You have no idea what’ll happen if you do.”

Lisa ripped off her sunglasses and rolled her eyes.

“I already told my father how I felt about this. I’m not going to repeat myself to you.”

“Lisa, you need to listen to me.”

Before I could think about what I was doing, I grabbed Lisa’s hand. She looked pointedly down at our interlinked hands. However, she did not move, and neither did I.

“Marrying him will destroy you,” I continued. “Look at what has happened to me after just dating him. If it weren’t for your father, I would be ruined.”

At the mention of her father, Lisa recoiled. She pulled her hand out from mine and leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed firmly over her chest. She lifted her chin defiantly and stared me straight in the eye.

“And how is that, exactly?” she sneered. “You seem to have made off pretty well, in my opinion.”

I cringed.

“Like I said, that’s only thanks to your father,” I mumbled. Speaking more loudly, I continued, “Bob has made my life a living hell. He’ll do the same to you.”

“You keep saying that, but where’s the proof?”

“I can’t show you the evidence right now, but there will be a time, soon, when you—when everyone—will see the proof of Bob’s misdeeds. In the meantime, you will just have to believe me that he’s done terrible things.”

I could see in Lisa’s face that she still did not trust what I said. I sighed and pulled on the end of my ponytail.

“He’s caused me trauma so severe that I’ve had to seek therapy just to function on an everyday basis. Do you really want that for yourself?”

Confliction flashed in Lisa’s eyes. She grabbed her fingers and pulled on them, causing the knuckles to crack. For a brief moment, she looked away from me, as though lost in thought.

When she looked back at me, the conflict had disappeared from her eyes, replaced by anger.

“You want to know what I think?” she said.

I really didn’t, but I knew that she was going to tell me anyway.

“I think that you’re just jealous. You’re mad that Bob chose me over you, and now you’re trying to get back at me by ruining my wedding. As if it isn’t bad enough that you’ve turned my own father against me—”

“I haven’t turned Andrew against you—”

“Bullshit you haven’t!”

Lisa slammed her fist on the table. For a moment, the authority and anger that radiated off of her reminded me so much of Andrew that I had to admire her—but only for a moment.

“Father had no problems with Bob until you came onto the scene. Now, he suddenly thinks that Bob would go so far as to put a bomb in my car! Why would my own fiancé want to kill me?”

She did not let me answer before she continued.

“I’ll tell you why, he wouldn’t. Bob loves me, and I love him. He would never hurt me, and I am not going to abandon him based solely on the words of some crazy, jealous ex.”

I closed my eyes and breathed slowly in and out through my nostrils. When I opened my eyes again, I forced myself to look Lisa in her infuriated eyes.

“Lisa, I don’t give two shits about the fact that you and Bob are together,” I began. “I am too happy with your father to care. I only care that Bob could—and probably will—hurt you.”

I felt the urge to pull my eyes away from Lisa’s, but I held my gaze steadily. I had to get my point across to her.

“I am only trying to help you, despite everything that you have done to me—everything that you have helped Bob do to me.”

At this, Lisa broke her gaze and looked down at her purse sitting in her lap.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she mumbled.

“I know that you do,” I replied, “but right now is not the time for petty grudges. You need to walk away from this relationship, now. Before it’s too late.”

Lisa played with the snap on her purse for a couple minutes without saying anything. I let her have the time that she needed, hoping that she was using it to seriously consider her options.

She stood up.

“You’re wrong about Bob. You and Father both are,” she said. “He would never hurt me.”

“Lisa—”

“No! I don’t want to hear it.”

She shook her head.

“Now, since you obviously don’t have any wedding business for us to attend to, I need to be on my way.”

I watched as Lisa slid the strap of her purse up her arm. My blood froze as I saw them: five distinct bruises in the shape of four fingers and a thumb.

I opened my mouth to ask her what had happened. Lisa glared at me, as though daring me to say something more, and I snapped my mouth shut. I knew that she wouldn’t tell me the truth if I asked, anyway.

Lisa turned on her heel and charged to the door. My heart sank as she opened the door and walked out of Ever After Weddings, possibly for the last time.

I told myself that I did all that I could to help her. Still, I could not stop the nagging feeling that those bruises were a sign of something worse to come.