005 A Bad Hangover

I wake up in my own bed, yawning in pain.

I wanted to forget about yesterday. To forget about all my past if I can. I wanted to forget all the shocked, confused, taunting, and gloating eyes I saw among the guests when I exchanged my vows with a different groom. I wanted to forget the four empty seats in the front row, the seats for Hector’s and my parents. I wanted to forget that I was ever the fool who bragged about, dreamed of, and anticipated the wedding with Hector, only to be left on the altar.

The ton of tequila I poured down myself did help. But it also left behind a really bad hangover.

At least Tanya had the conscience to drag my ass to my own bed and change me into comfortable clothes. I’ll forgive her for sending me home then, even though I told her I don’t want to come back here.

That’s the only thing I remember saying last night in that club, in tears as I poured more alcohol into myself, I cried over and over--

Please don’t send me back there.

The Morgans’ mansion. I don’t like calling it home, because it has never been that, to me. Part of the reason why I grabbed onto the marriage with Hector, was just so that I can leave this place.

Don’t get me wrong. The Morgans, by that I mean my mother, my father and my little brother, they have never harmed me.

They just don’t love me, that’s all.

All their love for their daughter, they gave to Amber before they even knew of my existence. They did want me back, at some point, before they realized they can’t love me just because their blood runs through my veins. Still, they gave me everything money can buy, only, as everyone knows --

Money can’t buy love.

Not theirs. Not Hector’s. Not from anyone.

I hug my own knees, fighting with myself on the urge to check my phone.

I should ask Tanya if she made it home safely. She drank a lot, too. I should care about what the media wrote about me changing a groom last minute. I should probably send a “thank you” to Damon Dunn, who took the heat from the media for me.

Well, maybe a “sorry” for that one.

I find a ton of excuses to lie to myself, and I pretend to glance over Hector’s name by accident as I enter my inbox, but when I see there was no new message from him, it still stings.

Damn it!

A wave of humiliation washes through me. Even after he gave me such a slap on the face in public, the ten years of our relationship still try to pull me back into our routine--

He hurts me, I curl back into my shell, then he sends some nice words, and I crawl back to him like the pathetic dog I was.

I won’t! Not again.

I click his name to delete him. I want to quit him. I need to quit him. He is such a deeply rooted addiction of mine that even thinking about pulling it out hurts.

But I have to.

Feeling a little bit better after I cleared that name out of my phone, I slip down my bed. The face in my mirror is paler than paper, with a pair of eyes swollen sky high. Alcohol and tears. The two nemesis to beauty. Even Snow White couldn’t have walked out of my last night with a better look.

But I plan to.

Snow White has her Prince Charming to wake her up from her nightmare, and mine? Mine put me in one.

I want to walk out of my nightmare with a better me, and all the good and bad with Hector...

They belong to yesterday now.

Taking a deep breath, I walk downstairs to embrace the aftermath of the farce I pulled. My parents won’t like it -- me grabbing Damon Dunn and marrying him. But he is a Dunn, and so long as I stick with the marriage, they will be fine.

The Morgan Mansion is quieter than usual.

I thought Amber would be home by now, rubbing her win in my face. But she is not. Nor are my parents, it seems. I couldn’t find anyone until I walked into the kitchen.

“Any fruit, Lory?” I ask our maid. If I don’t, she would give me milk and butter, and cream. All the dairy she could find.

Lory is a round lady in her fifties. She raised four kids on her own after her husband died, yet she still got extra maternal love in her that sometimes spills on me.

She is my favorite person in this house.

“Miss Aurora, I meant, Mrs...” Lory mumbles with a worried frown, her hands rubbing her apron obsessively, “It’s Mr. Morgan, he is waiting for you in his study...”

And he is angry. Otherwise, Lory wouldn’t be this jittery.

“Father,” I knock after I put my bowl of strawberries on the floor by the door of Mr. Morgan’s study. He doesn’t allow any food in there.

“Come in,” His voice low and sullen.

He is standing by his desk, his back to the door. I turn to close the door carefully, and before I could, the air-tearing sound of papers flying fast at me reaches me before the pile of newspapers lands on my head. I gasp in shock, covering my face with my palm.

“Father--”

“What did you do last night?!”

Wait, last night? Not the wedding???