7. Clarissa

A warm handis stroking my hairline, and I turn my head.

“Okay, she’s moving. Get me a glass of water.” My mom’s voice is frantic and moving at a distance before it’s back at my side. “Here, baby. Take a drink of water.”

She places the cup at my lips, and I sit up. I’m still in my wedding dress, but my shoes are missing from my feet.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Rissa asks, holding three fingers.

“Three. What happened?”

Rissa lets out a breath, and a chorus from my bridesmaids follows. “Thank god. You had us worried.”

She takes the cup from my hands and sits it on the side table. By the looks of things, we’re back in my hotel room. My suitcase is open and haphazardly filled, looking just as it did when I left this morning.

“Sir, I need to see her. With all due respect, move.”

The commotion spills to me, but I can’t see past my dad. I hold my breath as the voices grow louder. The girls giggle, and my mom pats my shoulder before dad moves and a flow of people enter the room.

“Issa, baby. What happened? Are you okay? Do we need to go to the doctor? I was worried sick,” he says, pulling me to his chest. A knot forms in my throat, and he pulls us apart, looking down at me. Those impossibly dark eyes are like the ocean. My stomach churns, and I shake my head.

“Where’s Tyree? What’s going on?” I whine, still hoping this is some kind of joke. Everyone looks around, and for the first time, I wonder if I’ve lost my mind.

How can everyone else see Tyree but me?

“Baby, it’s me,” he says, kneeling next to me and hugging me by my waist. The ease he has as he caresses my hip and holds me close implies familiarity.

“Do you have a headache?” he asks while pulling away, and his tone is so…so sweet. He stares deep into my eyes, and I can see the love swimming in them.

“This isn’t funny. Tyree! Where is Tyree?” I repeat the question over and over until this guy is pulled out of my sight by my dad. Rissa kneels next to me, and her look of pure worry makes me panic more.

“Lis, I know how important today is. But even more important than one day is the well-being of my best friend.” She takes a breath and grabs my hand. “I want you to come with me, okay? And we’re going to take a ride and just make sure everything is alright. Don’t stress. Don’t think about anything. I want you to focus on yourself in this moment. Is the room warm or cold?”

“What?” I ask. What kind of question is that?

“Warm or cold?” she repeats, pulling me to stand while giving an intense focus.

“Cold, I guess.” I shrug, still confused by the question. It’s the middle of summer, but we’re inside, and these hotel rooms always run cold to me.

“Using only your fingers, can you count to ten for me?”

Her questions make no sense, and her tone has taken a slow and methodical cadence, like she’s speaking to a wounded animal. I count to ten with my brows furrowed, and she guides us to the door. In my peripheral, my bridesmaids give us space, and I turn to see what everyone is doing.

Rissa pulls my focus back to her with another request. “Breathe. And breathe. Perfect, just like that.”

My heart rate is slowing down, and I realize I must have been panicking with my breaths, but now the room is quiet. I focus on Rissa’s voice and the path being cleared as I’m held in her arms and guided through the doors.

“But the wedding. Tyree…” I start to say, but she cuts me off. I’m supposed to be married. I should already be married. My breathing must pick up again because her voice interrupts my trajectory.

“No, ma’am, we’re focused on you. Breathe in, one, two, three. Hold. One, two, three. Release.” Her voice is so soft, and it lulls me into a slower pace. She continues to count, “One, two, three…” as we walk down the hall and to the elevator. She puts me in her car and jogs back to the driver’s side.

“Okay, Lis, can you hear me?”

I turn to her with my brows bunched, still confused.

“Mr. and Mrs. Camp are meeting us at the hospital.” I frown and shift in my seat.

“What’s happening, Rissa?” I whine and allow tears to flow down my cheek. I’d been holding back, scared to ruin my makeup, but now I don’t stop them. Rissa grabs my hand and continues driving with the other.

“Oh, don’t cry. It’s okay. We’re okay.” Her thumb moves back and forth over my hand as we pass traffic down the highway.

The sterile white room feels all wrong as I sit on exam table paper in the finest dress I’ve ever worn. Someone must have grabbed my shoes, but I don’t remember putting them back on. My heels kick against the bed, and Rissa asks me for the tenth time if I want to lie down. We’ve been waiting in the back for a doctor for a while. The nurse already checked my vitals and asked a million questions about what brought me here today. I got long stares when they first saw me all decked out in a wedding dress. They did their best to clear their features, but I still see it.

There’s a knock on the door before it swings open, and a short woman walks in, carrying a clipboard as she goes to the sink to wash her hands.

“Ms. Camp, don’t you look beautiful? What brings you in today?” She asks the question as if this is a casual conversation. She barely gives me a backward glance, and her focus is solely on cleaning her hands.

I shift in my seat and clear my throat. I go into how I’ve been planning my wedding, how today is the day, and how I got down the aisle, but the man looking back at me wasn’t Tyree. I describe how Tyree’s eyes are amber and have a soft glow in the light, but this guy’s eyes were the darkest pools of water I’d ever seen, like no-visibility-in-the-deep-ocean dark. Rissa looks at me with worry along her brows, and I quiet my words.

This sounds insane. How could Tyree not be Tyree? How could nobody else see it?

“Congratulations. Would you say you’ve been under a normal or excessive amount of stress?”

I look over to Rissa, and she nods for me to answer. “I— Well, it’s been maybe a little more stress than normal. Currently, I have a lot going on,” I say, folding my hands in my lap. My manicure is perfect with rhinestones on the ring finger and a subtle light brown, which comes out nude for me.

She shines a small light in my eye as she asks more questions. How long have I been under this stress? On a scale from one to ten, how would I rate my stress? I’ll be the first to admit the process can be a lot, but this is not stress-related. It can’t be. Can it?

“Ms. Camp, everything is normal. Stress has a funny way of slowing us down sometimes. Maybe think about scaling back or delegating as much as possible,” she says in a flurry before she’s back out the door, leaving Rissa and me alone.

Rissa looks down at her phone and begins typing.

She stands and puts the device on her seat before walking over to me. Grabbing my hands, she tilts her head. “I’m going to tell you something, but I don’t want you to react.” She rubs my hands, and my heart rate picks up.

“Is everybody alright?”

“Everybody is fine. We’re all okay.” She rubs my back, and suddenly, I feel like a child—sick and pitiful while my back is rubbed and I’m spoken to in a low voice.

“The venue has a conflict. Don’t worry. Calm down,” she says, already sensing my panic as I move to sit straighter. “Your dad and mom have already made arrangements with everyone to reconvene when you’re feeling better. The venue is the only one unable to make an open date work, but a new location has already been researched and set up. The most important thing is your well-being, okay? We won’t stress about the things we can’t control, okay?”

Rissa is like a soothing balm, lulling me further into a relaxed state. I should be screaming. I should be crying and throwing a fit that my day is not going as planned, but as my back is stroked, I can’t muster the energy to lose control.

“Okay.”

“Okay, good. You’re taking this better than I thought.” She laughs and pulls away. She pushes a coiled tendril from my eyes and smiles. When she feels like I won’t freak out, she’s back on her phone, updating everyone about what the doctor said. Stress? Really? I’m still not buying it as a reason, but I also haven’t gone to medical school for ten years.

I’m finally discharged after forty minutes. In the waiting room, everyone is there, and I tear up as I’m rushed from all sides. “I’m okay,” I finally get out as my mom looks over my face, checking for something, a visible sign that either something is wrong or not.

“Oh my goodness, you scared us,” she says, clutching her chest.

“Tyree has been worried sick, but we had him stay back, just to be safe.” At my father’s words, I look around before they land on the tall figure in the corner. I close my eyes and blink rapidly. It changes nothing, and those dark eyes follow my movements. He flexes his hands and pushes from the wall with one foot.

His bow tie is loose around his neck, and his jacket is missing. His sleeves are folded at his elbows, and I gulp at being his sole focus. His groomsmen try to stop him from moving, but it’s no use. He stalks down the path with those eyes fixated on me. I swallow and lick my lips, feeling a nervous energy surround me. My dad and mom turn to look back, seeing my attention is no longer theirs, then shift to give me room.

He stands in front of me with his brows pinched and his head tilted. “Issa, how are you feeling?” he asks but doesn’t wait to pull me into his chest.

It feels…different. Like his height is not the same, and the mass of his chest is larger when pressed against my cheek. I try to pull away, but he holds me closer. His grip is tight along my waist. He speaks low to someone over his shoulder, but I can’t make out the words.

“Come on. Let’s go home.” It’s faint, but there’s that accent again. Familiar, but not. A complete contrast to Tyree’s voice. I don’t mention the differences, though. I allow him to hold me, and we walk out of the hospital.