Auctioned to Him [Book 6]_Damage

by Charlotte Byrd

  “Wait, a second!” Juliet says, getting excited. Her eyes light up and she gets a big grin on her face. “Wait a second!”

  I hate how dramatic she can be sometimes. How animated.

  “Are you two really, and I mean, really, telling us that you don’t remember what happened last night?”

  Dylan and I exchange looks. We both shrug and shake our heads.

  “No,” I mumble. “Not really.”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” Juliet asks.

  “Um,” I say. “Walking around the casino, going up some stairs somewhere, drinking. A lot.”

  “And you?” Juliet turns to Dylan.

  “Not much else,” he says. “I don’t even remember going up any stairs.”

  “Oh. My. God!” Juliet shrieks and jumps up and down. “Oh. My. God!”

  “What?” I ask. “What’s going on?”

  Tea joins in Juliet’s excitement. But Tanner just stands back a little. He doesn’t shriek or jump, but he does flash me a smile. Clearly, our lack of memory is bringing everyone a great deal of joy.

  “Oh c’mon, just tell us. What happened?” Dylan says, grabbing a bagel. He starts lathering it with a generous amount of cream cheese. “What’s the big deal?”

  “Okay, okay,” Juliet says, taking a big sigh. She’s trying to calm herself down. We wait. “Okay. I can do this,” she says and then bursts out laughing.

  “C’mon!” I say. I’m losing my patience. And I’m not really in the mood anyway. It’s way too bright in this room. My head is pounding. My mouth is dry. And I’m already regretting eating half the donut, even though I continue to take additional bites.

  “Okay,” Juliet says. “You know what you did last night?”

  “No!” Dylan and I say in unison. We’re both growing more and more impatient with every second.

  “Well, let me tell you,” she says, clearly milking the moment. She should be an actress, I decide. She has epic timing. “What you two did last night was…get married!”

  Dylan drops his bagel to the floor. It falls with the cream cheese side down. I start to choke and cough. Tea hands me a cup of water. I manage to get a few sips in.

  “What?” I ask when I finally get some air. “What?”

  “You got married,” Juliet says again. Quietly this time. The tone of her voice is serious. But it feels like a joke.

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “No, that can’t be. We didn’t actually get married. It was just a joke. Please, tell me it’s a joke.”

  While I have the tendency to talk and say everything that comes to mind in times of stress, Dylan, apparently, has a completely different tendency. I turn to him for some support in this. But he just stares at the wall. As if he’s frozen. Like a statue.

  “Dylan.” I pull on his shirt. “We didn’t get married. Right?”

  A moment later, he comes back to reality.

  “No, we couldn’t have,” he whispers.

  “Well, you did,” Juliet says. Her certainty frightens me.

  Tea comes over to me. She puts her arm around my shoulder.

  “You did, honey,” she says sympathetically.

  “No, no, no.” I shake my head.

  “The reason you’re wearing that dress,” Tea says, “is that you wanted to get married in white. So when Dylan asked you to marry him, and you said yes, we all went to the only place that was open in the casino and bought it.”

  “But this is a bathing suit cover-up!”

  “I know. It was a resort wear store. That was all they had,” Tea says.

  “Look at your left hand,” Juliet says.

  When I look down, I see a large diamond ring. It’s gorgeous.

  “What is that?” Dylan comes over and takes my hand.

  “You got it for her,” Juliet says. “Alice thought it would be funny to get one of those lollypop rings and let have that be her engagement ring. But you said that no wife of yours is going to have a lollypop ring. So you marched into Tiffany’s and got her that 1 and half carat diamond.”

  “Shit.” Dylan shakes his head.

  “How did this happen?” I whisper. He shrugs. “I mean, how did we even get engaged let alone get married? Why didn’t you stop us?”

  All three of them look down at the floor.

  “We were all drinking a lot,” Tea says. “And I guess it sounded like fun.”

  “Fun?” I ask.

  “It just felt like we were in a movie or something. I mean, that’s what people do in movies, not in real life,” Juliet says.

  “So, what happened? How did this happen exactly?” Dylan asks.

  “We were all drinking a lot,” Juliet says. “And suddenly you started to complain about Peyton. Or was it Alice who was complaining about Tristan?”

  “I think Alice started first and then Dylan joined in,” Tea says. Clearly, their memory isn’t that great on all this either.

  “Either way, you two were moaning about your significant others. And then Tanner said that you two would make a good couple.”

  “Tanner?” I ask.

  “Well, I don’t know you two well. And I was drinking a lot.”

  “It was just a joke,” Tea says. “But Dylan thought it was a really good idea. He started going on and on about how you two are friends and friends make the best couples. At first, you thought it was pretty funny. I went to the bathroom and came back and you two were engaged.”

  “Holy shit,” I whisper.

  13

  And then suddenly, it all starts to come back to me. Not everything, but big chunks of it. I remember sitting next to Dylan, eating sushi. I got some extra soy sauce around my mouth and he wiped it away with his finger. The moment lasted a little bit too long. I didn’t want it to stop. He leaned closer and kissed me. I kissed him back.

  “You’re such a good kisser,” I said.

  “So are you,” he said.

  “I sort of wish we could kiss longer,” I joked. And then he kissed me again. This time it was longer than a kiss. It was more like a make out session.

  I don’t know how much time passed, but when we stopped, he said, “I wish I could kiss you forever.”

  “Me too,” I mumbled.

  He looked over my shoulder and smiled.

  “There’s a wedding chapel over there,” Dylan said. “Do you think that’s a sign?”

  I shrugged. “Probably not.”

  “Well, let’s make it one,” he said. “Alice Summers, will you marry me?”

  “Are you insane?” I asked, laughing. “Don’t joke about that.”

  “I’m not joking. I like you. You like me. We’re really good at kissing. We’ll probably be even better at the other stuff.”

  “That’s one reason to get married!” I said.

  “Of course it is! We’re really good friends. And relationships are complicated. So why don’t we just marry each other?”

  “Because we’re still in college!”

  “So? Wouldn’t it be romantic?”

  And insane. And crazy. But romantic? Yes, I guessed so.

  “Besides, Tristan would hate it,” Dylan added.

  Well, if he would hate it then…I started to waver.

  “C’mon, say yes. Please say yes,” he said and kissed me again. When we pulled away this time, we were engaged.

  “This can’t be happening,” I say. Everyone’s staring at us.

  “You’re remembering it, right? I can see that,” Juliet says. I nod and drop my shoulders. “Dylan? How about you?” Juliet asks.

  “Bits and pieces,” he whispers.

  “Well, here’s your signed marriage certificate in case you forget again,” Juliet says, handing us the paper. “The minister said that you should expect to get something in the mail about it as well.”

  I have to sit down. My head hasn’t stopped throbbing and the locomotive whistling and banging around up there now seemed to have picked up speed. I have no idea what to do about this. All I know is that I don’t want any
one to find out about it. This is so embarrassing. So humiliating. So not like me. I don’t get drunk and do crazy things like this. I’m just a regular person.

  This is all Tristan’s fault. If he hadn’t wanted us to take a break, I would never be here alone complaining to Dylan about this. I wouldn’t have ever even kissed him, let alone married him!

  Oh my God! My breaths get shallow. My heart starts to beat faster. What if Tristan finds out? He can’t find out. Ever. If he does, it will crush him. This will definitely change our status from a break to a breakup. And I don’t want to break up.

  My mind’s racing. I don’t know how to stop it. I need to lie down.

  Dylan and I ride the train back to school in silence. Neither of us is in the mood to talk. The train’s not too crowded and there’s enough room for both of us to take up entire seats. I sit across from him, in the window seat. Juliet, Tea, and Tanner are planning on taking a later train, but also come back today. No one’s really in the mood to stay too long in Atlantic City after the night we’ve all head.

  Around Elizabeth, New Jersey, my headache finally starts to fade and I can think clearer. When I look across the aisle, I see that Dylan also stopped staring out of the window like he’s unconscious.

  “How could we let this happen?” I ask, sitting down in the seat next to him. He shrugs, hangs he head. “What are you going to do?” I ask. “Are you going to tell Peyton?”

  “I have no idea,” he whispers. “We were just getting back into this really good spot. Not fighting so much. I thought we were finally over all that bullshit from last semester. And now this…it’s going to crush her.”

  I sigh. “I don’t know what to do either,” I say.

  Suddenly, a look of shock and horror appears on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “You’re not actually thinking of telling Tristan, are you?” he asks.

  I shrug.

  “Alice, you can’t!” His voice aches from desperation.

  I haven’t actually given this any thought. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want Tristan to know. I don’t want him to know any of this. I want us to go back to the way things were before he got “confused” and we went “on break.” I want us to be back in that happy place, where everything felt safe and I thought our love would last forever. But we’re not there anymore. This weekend definitely made things a whole lot more complicated. But even though I don’t want Tristan to know about what happened, I mainly want it to never have happened. I’m not sure if I want to lie to him.

  “Alice?” Dylan shakes me. I must’ve spaced out for a moment. Or ten.

  “Yeah?” I ask.

  My eyes focus on the earnest look on Dylan’s face. He doesn’t want me to say anything to Tristan and he’s holding his breath, waiting for my answer.

  “Alice, you can’t tell him,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s my roommate! How are we going to make it through the rest of the semester after this?”

  “But wouldn’t it be worse if he finds out anyway?” I ask. I can’t lie; the thought of keeping this from Tristan does give me some relief.

  “He won’t, if you don’t say anything.”

  “But what about keeping this lie? Isn’t that bad, too?”

  Dylan sighs. “Of course it is. But…I just don’t know any other way around it.”

  We don’t say anything for a few minutes while we both think about this. But more time doesn’t really help me decide either way.

  “Okay, what about this?” Dylan says, turning to me. “What if we first try to get this whole thing resolved? You know, get un-married. And then, and only then, tell him the truth.”

  That actually sounds like a good idea. Wow, I’m impressed.

  “Yeah, that sounds like it could work,” I say. “And by un-married, you mean…”

  “I don’t know, I guess we can try to get an annulment. And if that doesn’t work out then maybe a…divorce.”

  That word. Divorce. It sounds so adult. Even more than married. Lots of people get married. Not everyone gets divorced. Especially at 19.

  “Wow, divorce,” I say, trying to come to grips with the foreignness of the word. “I always thought that I’d have a house with wall-to-wall carpeting, a big mortgage, a golden retriever, and an SUV before I’d ever do that.”

  “I thought those things were a requirement,” Dylan says, flashing me a smile. I laugh. This is the first time we smile since last night. It feels good to do it again.

  “So you think we can get an annulment instead? What is that exactly?” I ask.

  An annulment sounds more reasonable than a divorce. I mean we were really drunk. This was a mistake. How can our situation be subject to the same thing as people who have been married for years? Shouldn’t there be some sort of special clause for accidental weddings?

  “I don’t really know,” Dylan says with a shrug. “But from what I’ve seen on TV, I think it’s some sort of alternative divorce for people who were coerced into marriage.”

  “Hmm, well, maybe we were coerced. We drank too much. We can’t be held responsible for this,” I say.

  “I’m not sure it works that way.” He nods. “This is Atlantic City. If everyone said that they were drunk and should get the opportunity to get a do-over, none of the casinos would be in business anymore.”

  “I guess not,” I say.

  “As soon as we’re back, I’m going to find out exactly what an annulment is. And whether we can get it instead of a divorce,” Dylan says. “But before we do that, we have to make a promise to each other.”

  “Didn’t we already do that?” I joke. “Promised to love each other through thick and thin? For richer and poorer?”

  Dylan cracks a smile.

  “And look where that got us,” he says. “Okay, let’s promise each other that we’re not going to tell anyone about this. And I mean not anyone. Not Tristan. Not Peyton. Not even friends back home. Until this is all resolved.”

  I look straight into his eyes. They twinkle under the harsh fluorescent lights.

  “I promise,” I say with a nod.

  “I promise, too,” Dylan says. For a second, we dance around possibly giving each other a brief hug to solidify the promise. But instead, we settle on a handshake. It’s more professional. Less intimate.

  “Oh, and don’t forget to text Juliet and Tea and Tanner and tell her what we’ve decided. We can’t have Tristan and Peyton finding out any of this by accident,” Dylan says.

  I nod and get my phone.

  14

  I arrive at Dr. Greyson’s office on a cold February day. The clouds hang low in the sky and the world is so grey and colorless, it feels like it’s in mourning. The trees on campus stand stark naked, without a leaf in sight. It is on days like these that I miss the sunshine of Southern California the most. I miss the mountains and the endless blue sky. I try to remember what it’s like to not feel claustrophobic all the time – by both the tall buildings and the low sky. But I can’t. It has been more than a month since I’ve been home. And a month of clouds and grayness makes it hard to remember anything. Sitting in Dr. Greyson’s waiting room, I wonder if I can even make it here four years.

  “I feel like this weather is making everything in my life worse,” I complain to Dr. Greyson.

  She’s wearing a grey pantsuit and black heels. I glance down at her feet. A little bit of her olive skin is exposed between the end of her shoe and her pant leg. It’s barely 20 degrees out and I wonder if she wears these shoes outside or if she has boots or sneakers hiding somewhere underneath her desk, which she changes into on her way home.

  “What do you mean?” Dr. Greyson asks.

  “It’s just so cold and grey. It has been like this for more than a week and it just makes me so depressed. I don’t know if I can live here for four years.”

  “Well, February does tend to be the coldest month. But luckily, it’s also the shortest month,” Dr. Greyson says.
<
br />   I look at her. There’s an unusual amount of pep and optimism in her voice. But it quickly disappears when she finally realizes what I’m really saying.

  “Are you trying to tell me something, Alice?” she asks, pursing her bright red lips. They are large and perfectly lined. I wonder how she gets her lipstick to stick the whole time. If I wear lipstick to one of these sessions, it’s usually completely gone by the end. But hers remains in tact, bright and perfect, just as if she had just applied it.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. “It’s just something I’ve been thinking of recently.”

  “What?”

  “Transferring.”

  “Transferring out of Columbia? To go where?” Dr. Greyson asks.

  “I don’t know yet. But I was sort of thinking of University of Southern California. I got in there before. It’s back in LA. It’s warm there. My parents live there.”

  Dr. Greyson shakes her head. “This isn’t just about the weather, is it?” she asks.

  “Well, sort of. I mean, it’s hardly ever grey and bleak like this there. And it’s never this cold. Maybe I’d have a better perspective about everything if I went there.”

  “Perhaps,” Dr. Greyson shrugs. “But I don’t want you to discount everything that you have been through recently. That takes a toll.”

  Ah, everything. That’s one way of putting it. I don’t say anything for a while.

  “So, you haven’t told me how you’re feeling about this. Your marriage to Dylan?”

  “Accidental marriage,” I correct her. The accident part is supposed to make me feel better about this, like it’s not all my fault. Even though I know it is.

  “Okay, accidental marriage.”

  “I don’t know how to feel about it. I just feel lost. We got back last night and Tristan was there in the living room and I felt like such a liar.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we were hanging out and we were both acting like his friend. But we’re not. Friends don’t do this to friends. They don’t get married and not tell him. Friends don’t marry your roommate and not tell you. Friends don’t marry your girlfriend and not tell you. We’re both such frauds.”