The Wedding Was A Game And Her Father Was The Prize Chapter 02
After I got Dad settled in his hospital room, Nolan finally messaged me.
His tone had already slid back into its familiar gentleness.
【Claire, today was on us, I know. But you also overreacted, just a little.】
【I already booked our honeymoon flights. Aspen. I’m taking you to see the snow you’ve always wanted to see.】
I stared at the screen, and my mind ran back through every single time before this.
Every time Bianca had used me as the punchline of a bet, Nolan had come around afterward to apologize.
He said Bianca didn’t mean it.
He said he’d never wanted to hurt me.
He said I was too sensitive, too fragile.
I had believed him for five years. I had swallowed it for five years.
But I get cold easily. What I wanted was somewhere warm.
I had told him. For our honeymoon, I wanted the Amalfi Coast.
Aspen was where Bianca had been begging to go.
Sure enough, the next message came right after.
【Bianca’s coming with us, more the merrier.】
I didn’t reply. I called an Uber back to the apartment.
Before I left, all I wanted was Dad’s medical file and my own passport.
The moment I pushed the door open, a burst of confetti exploded over my head.
“Surprise! Claire, happy birthday!”
The living room was packed with our college friends.
Nolan and Bianca stood at the center, pushing a tiered cake between them.
“Claire, the wedding was our fault.” Nolan’s voice was soft. “This cake is my way of making it up to you. Don’t be mad anymore, okay?”
But today wasn’t my birthday.
My birthday was this same date, next month.
Five years together, and Nolan had gotten it wrong every single year.
The crowd cheered, urging me to cut the cake.
I wasn’t in the mood. I sidestepped everyone and headed for the bedroom to grab my things.
Bianca cut in front of me first.
She scooped a dollop of frosting off the cake with her finger and lifted it to my lips, smiling sweetly.
“Come on, Claire, just a taste. I made this for you myself.”
I didn’t have time to pull back.
The frosting smeared hard across my mouth.
An off, foul taste flooded my tongue, and my throat began to tighten almost instantly.
I looked down, eyes wide.
Deep inside the exposed layer of the cake, several dark red things were slowly writhing.
Leeches.
The one thing that could actually kill me. I’d been severely allergic to them since childhood. A single contact could send me into shock.
Nolan knew. His brow finally furrowed.
“Bianca, this stake might be a little far this time.”
Bianca just pursed her lips, unbothered.
“I don’t care. She ate it, didn’t she? That new Porsche of yours is mine.”
Nolan could see I was already struggling to breathe, and he reached out to steady me.
“Claire, let me get you to the ER.”
But Bianca suddenly clamped down on my arm.
“Claire, you barely got any of it. It can’t be that bad, can it…”
“Are you still holding a grudge about the church?”
Her nails dug into my skin.
My breathing was getting worse. I ripped my arm out of her grip on instinct.
Bianca stumbled back. The back of her hand caught the metal edge of the cake cart, opening a thin red scratch.
“Bianca!”
Nolan let go of me instantly and rushed over.
The others swarmed in around her, panicked.
Nobody noticed I could barely stand.
I made it into the bedroom on unsteady legs and started stuffing what I needed into a bag, piece by piece.
Voices drifted through the door.
“Honestly, Nolan’s the one who’s actually into Bianca.”
“Do you remember, years ago, Bianca dared him he wouldn’t hike the White Mountains ridge alone. He actually went, in the middle of a storm. Nearly died…”
A bet. The White Mountains.
My fingers snapped tight around Dad’s medical file.
The date of injury written inside was five years ago, exactly, on the day Nolan had gone up alone.
That day, he had been caught in a landslide.
My father, a park ranger for White Mountain National Forest, had been the first to go in after him.
Dad had pulled Nolan out of the rubble.
And then a second wave of rocks had come down and struck him on the back of the head.
Permanent damage to the optic nerve.
He had never seen anything again.
For five years, Nolan had told me it was an accident.
But it turned out.
The whole thing had started because of a throwaway dare between him and Bianca.
Everything my father had lost, an entire world, had been the price of paying off their little wager.
I picked up my bag with unsteady hands and stepped out of the bedroom.
Nolan was bent over Bianca, murmuring to her. He heard me and turned, frowning.
“Claire, it’s the middle of the night. Where do you think you’re going with a bag?”
“We fly to Aspen for our honeymoon first thing in the morning. You really have to pick now to throw a fit?”
I didn’t dignify it with an answer. I walked straight for the door.
Behind me, Bianca’s voice carried that perfect note of triumph.
“Nolan honey, I’ll bet you, she can’t keep this tantrum up for even a day.”
“By tomorrow morning at the airport, she’ll be right behind us like a good girl.”