Page 1 of Faking It With My Pucking Protector

Chapter One

AVA

I’m supposed to be walking down the aisle in three minutes.

Instead, I’m in the bridal suite. A small, beautifully decorated room with ivory wallpaper and fresh peonies on the vanity. It’s meant to feel peaceful, sacred. A perfect little oasis in this corner of western Pennsylvania.

But right now, it’s the epicenter of my unraveling.

I’m frozen in place, clutching the folds of my white satin gown like it might somehow anchor me to the reality I thought I was living ten minutes ago.

Jenna’s phone is in my hand, but it might as well be a bomb. It feels like one.

The message came seconds ago, sent by a mutual friend from college who works in Brad’s office.

The text is simple:

You need to see this.

Then the images—photo after photo sharp enough to detonate my entire life before the organ even starts playing.

My fingers tremble as they swipe, each new image another blow—Brad, my fiancé, with his hands on another woman. His secretary. A hotel bed in the background. Her face close to his, blurred from movement, but the truth is clear enough to make me sick.

Brad cheated.

The shirt he’s wearing in one of the photos…

I bought him that shirt last December. He wore it to my parents’ house for Christmas. I remember because he spilled red wine on it, and I spent twenty minutes scrubbing it in their laundry room, laughing while he kissed my neck.

Just last week, he kissed my forehead in this very church. Told me I was everything he’d ever wanted. That he couldn’t wait to see me walk toward him in white.

How do you stand in a wedding dress and realize the man waiting at the altar has already betrayed the vows you haven’t even said?

“Are you okay?” Jenna’s voice is low and shaky, her eyes wide as she peers at me like I might actually combust. “Ava, talk to me. Please.”

She inches closer, like she’s afraid I’ll crumble if she moves too fast. “Do you want me to get your mom? Or your brother Greg?” Her voice quivers. “Just say the word.”

I shake my head, sharp and fast, but no words come.

She reaches for my elbow gently, her jaw tensing and eyes narrowing.

“I’m going to kill him,” she mutters, fierce and certain, her voice vibrating with a fury that makes my throat close up. “I swear to God, Ava, I’m going to kill him for doing this to you.”

There’s a screeching in my head that drowns everything else out.

Static. Pressure. White noise.

I think I’m breathing, but it doesn’t feel like it. The room is too small. The walls too close. The delicate necklace at my throat suddenly feels too constricting, like it’s suffocating me.

My reflection catches my eye in the mirror across the room, and I don’t recognize the woman staring back: pale face, makeup slightly smudged, wide eyes filled with disbelief and pain. The radiant bride from moments ago is gone, replaced by someone shattered and raw.

The photos swim as the room tilts around me, my stomach lurching like I’ve just missed a step on solid ground.

Memories continue to hit me. The late nights, the sudden guardedness with his phone, the perfume I didn’t recognize last fall. I’d asked him back then, half-joking, “Should I be worried?”

And he’d laughed, pulled me close, and told me, “You know you’re the only one I see.”

Lies. All of it.