Chapter 4 - The Wedding Was Over
At the wedding, Celeste saw the dress and went pale with fury.
“You did this on purpose,” she whispered in the bridal suite.
Emily frowned.
“Wore a dress?”
“You know what I mean.”
“It’s formal. It’s blue. It’s not white. It’s not revealing.”
“It shows them.”
Them.
Not scars.
Not injuries.
Them.
Emily felt something old and tired settle inside her.
“Celeste, I’m not going to hide my body because you invited photographers.”
Celeste’s eyes filled with sudden theatrical tears.
“You always do this.”
Emily almost laughed.
“I always do what?”
“Make things about you.”
Emily looked around the bridal suite.
The gown.
The champagne.
The makeup team.
The bridesmaids.
The photographer taking detail shots of pearl shoes.
“Celeste, nothing in this building is about me.”
But Celeste had seen Aaron glance at Emily during the rehearsal dinner.
Not romantically.
Not knowingly.
Just with a strange, unsettled curiosity because something about her posture, her quietness, or the way Admiral Vale had looked at her felt familiar.
Celeste noticed.
Celeste always noticed attention before anyone else knew they were giving it.
By the reception, jealousy had turned into panic.
The ceremony was over.
The guests moved into the ballroom.
Emily stayed near the side, trying to be invisible without feeling ashamed of trying.
Then the photographer called for family photos.
Celeste stood between her parents and Aaron, bouquet angled perfectly.
Emily stepped in at the edge.
The photographer said, “Sister, a little closer.”
Celeste’s smile tightened.
Emily moved half a step.
Aaron looked at her back where the pale blue fabric dipped.
His expression changed.
“Have we met before?” he asked quietly.
Celeste turned.
That was the spark.
Not the question.
The softness in it.
Celeste saw Aaron looking at Emily not as a scarred inconvenience, not as a family obligation, but as a person he might owe an answer to.
Her face hardened.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she snapped at Emily.
Emily blinked.
“What?”
“You think because you survived whatever happened, everyone has to stare at you?”
The photographer lowered the camera.
Their mother whispered, “Celeste, not now.”
But “not now” was not protection.
It was scheduling.
Celeste stepped forward.
Emily said softly, “Walk away.”
Instead, Celeste slapped her.
Now Admiral Vale stood between them.
The ballroom had not recovered.
Aaron’s face was pale, his eyes fixed on Emily’s scars.
“Dad,” he whispered. “What is happening?”
Admiral Vale did not look away from Emily.
“Lieutenant Hart,” he said, voice thick with emotion. “I owe you more than I can say.”
Emily shook her head once.
“Please don’t.”
But the room heard the title.
Lieutenant.
Celeste’s expression faltered.
“Lieutenant?”
Admiral Vale turned toward his son.
“Aaron,” he said, “this is the officer who pulled you out of the station fire.”
Aaron went still.
For a moment, he looked less like a groom and more like the wounded young officer he had once been.
Uncertain.
Breathless.
Alive because someone else had burned.
He looked at Emily.
“You?”
Emily’s eyes filled.
“I didn’t know it was you.”
That was true.
She had known only his rank, injury status, and evacuation priority.
She had not known his last name until the wedding invitation arrived.
Aaron took one step toward her.
Celeste grabbed his sleeve.
“Aaron, don’t.”
He looked down at her hand.
For the first time that day, disgust crossed his face.
“She saved my life.”
Celeste’s mouth opened.
“She’s still ruining our wedding.”
The words hung in the air like something rotten finally exposed.
Aaron pulled his arm away.
“No,” he said. “You are.”
Celeste’s face collapsed.
Not in remorse.
In disbelief that cruelty had failed to obey her.
Emily folded one arm tighter over the torn gown.
Admiral Vale removed his uniform jacket and held it out to her without stepping too close.
“May I?”
Emily nodded.
He draped it carefully around her shoulders, covering her torn dress without hiding her like shame.
The gesture was respectful.
That made her cry harder than the slap.
Her parents still had not moved.
Admiral Vale looked at them.
“You watched your daughter be struck and exposed.”
Her father’s face reddened.
Her mother whispered, “We were shocked.”
“No,” the admiral said. “You were silent.”
That landed harder than shouting.
Emily’s mother began crying.
Her father looked at the floor again.
Emily wanted to comfort them.
That instinct rose automatically.
Then she let it pass.
She had spent her life comforting people who were embarrassed by her pain.
Not today.
Aaron turned to Celeste.
“Why would you do that?”
Celeste’s voice shook.
“Because she always makes everyone feel sorry for her.”
Emily looked at her sister.
“I never asked anyone to feel sorry for me.”
“You don’t have to. You just stand there looking tragic, and everyone forgets I exist.”
Emily stared at her.
For the first time, she understood that Celeste’s cruelty had not started with the wedding.
It had started long before the scars.
The scars only gave it a target people could see.
May you like
Aaron stepped back from Celeste.
“This wedding is over.”
