Her silky brown hair along with the elegant violent dress complimented the tasteful diamond necklace around her frail neck. It was the month before she would get married to the love of her life, or so what everyone had told her. She was planned to get married to Jonathan Carper, a real estate agent that came from a well known wealthy family. They had been dating since their freshman year of high school and everyone had seen them as the perfect couple. They were prom king and queen their senior year and were voted best couple in the yearbook three years in a row. They had graduated high school together and even went to the same college. And now they were living in a one million dollar apartment in downtown Los Angeles while they were waiting for their five million dollar house to get finished building.

His mother was a doctor and his father had two inventions that made him one of the richest men in Los Angeles, so as you can imagine they were filthy rich. Her family was the complete opposite, her dad worked three jobs just so that they could stay on their feet and her mother passed away when she was twelve years old. She had three younger siblings and they lived in a small house just outside of Los Angeles. At first his family wasn’t accepting of her family but they had gotten closer over the past years and were fully trusting of their relationship. They were getting ready to go to their engagement party and as she looked in the mirror all that she could think was that she was making a mistake marrying this man. She knew she had loved him for as long as she could remember but she was not in love with him.

She was putting her finishing touches on her look for the evening. She applied a vibrant pink gloss onto her lips and sprayed her Chanel perfume (gifted by her handsome fiancé) all over her body.

“Are you ready to go?” Johnathan asked her.

She nodded her head and preceded to the door, and out of their apartment complex. It was a bright and sunny day, no clouds to be seen. She could hear the cars, the pleasant aroma from the baked pastries and cakes from the bakery across the street that gave her a feeling of enjoyment in her depressed state. She could hear the sound of the noisy city, and could even look up and see the downtown buildings towering over her making her feel like a character on a game board. A stretched limousine had been waiting for them outside, it had a shiny appeal to it that reminded her of her black Valentino heels Jonathan had gotten her last year for Christmas.

As they were on their way to the party,  she felt wretched as she was trying to figure out how to pretend that she was in love with this man. She knew that their thoughts were ambivalent to each other , and thought that he would never understand how she was feeling. As they were driving to the venue, she could feel the heat getting to her. She started sweating uncontrollably.

“What’s wrong? Why are you sweating so much?” He asked her

“It’s just, really hot in here.” She replied

Jonathan turned on the AC and all it did was make her drenched face dry again. It could not do anything about how she was feeling. No one could help her at this moment, only her.

She had thoughts about stopping the car and running away but she casted them off when thinking about the damage that would cause. They arrived to the beautiful dining hall their party was to take place and she was even more nervous now.

“Are you ok? You look a little pale.” Jonathan asked

“Yes I’m fine I think I just need to use the restroom.” She responded

She ran into the restroom and got their barely in time to throw up her whole lunch. She started to feel her body give out on her and when she stood  up she fainted right on the bathroom floor.

She awoke in the hospital, hearing doctors’ walk to and fro, seeing flowers and balloons across the room that people had brought her, she was still very confused and not fully aware of what had happened. She looked over to the right side of her bed and she saw her fiancé, she knew that the right thing to do was to be happy to see him, but she wasn’t.

“Hey babe, I’m so glad you are ok.”

She gave him a small grin and went back asleep. But she was awoken by a loud open of the door and when she opened her eyes she saw a tall, handsome doctor walk in the door.

“How are you doing Emily?” he asked.

“I’m doing fine, what happened to me?”

“Well, we did some tests and you are pregnant .”

“What! You have got to be kidding me.”

She thought that she had gotten physically sick because of her stress and anxiety but she never would have thought that she would have been pregnant.

“This is great honey! Aren’t you happy?”

Her face turned pale, and she could barely breathe through her clenched throat. The feeling she had felt in the moment made her feel like her life was over. That everything she had worked for had slipped away from her small, clammy hands. She would have been able to get out of a marriage with Johnathan but now they were going to have a baby together! There was no way she would be able to get out of this mess with clean hands. She sat in her bed just thinking for a few moments while everyone in the room looked confused to what she was going to say next. She sat up staring at the wall.

“Honey, what’s wrong? Aren’t you happy?”

She was conflicted and didn’t know what to say, so she thought of the best possible solution.

“Of course I’m excited, I’m just surprised.”

She had been lying right through her teeth. Her fiancé had given a huge smile and went to hug her. Why had she done this? She had lied to her best friend in the whole world. Why couldn’t she just tell him how she was feeling?

Two months had passed by and they were sitting in their apartment on a windy, but still sunny day. Jonathan was on his laptop, catching up on some work he needed to get finished, and she was doing some planning for the wedding. The thought of her walking down the aisle, feeling miserable, could not go away from her mind. She had to tell him, it was never too late.

“Johnathan,” she said with a sorrowful face.

“Yes honey?” He said looking up from his laptop

“I don’t think I can do this. It is just to much and I don’t think I like it.”

“Well if you don’t want to go with white tablecloths we can always go with blue.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I don’t think I can get married.”

“Why would you feel that way? We love each other and that’s all that matters,” he was now standing up and talking in somewhat of a yelling tone.

“I just don’t know if I’m ready for all of this. We are still young and I don’t want to go through all of this if I’m not fully ready.”

“Why are you doing this to me? You know how much my family has done for you and you still want to ruin everything? No, I’m sorry you can’t back out now. We are in way to deep, we can figure things out after we are married.”

Her heart dropped and she was giving everything in her body to keep herself from bursting out into tears. How could Johnathan do this to me? If he really loved me he wouldn’t put me through this. If he really loved me he would try to understand what I am going through. Everything had gone back to the same it was before the conversation, as if nothing happened.

The next day she had woken up still upset from the day before, but feeling relieved she had told him the truth even if it wouldn’t change anything. It was the week before their wedding and the only thing that was keeping her sane was knowing that it she could get a divorce after and she would be able to live a normal and free life without Johnathan. She had never seen that side come out of him before. He had always been a kind, gentle hearted man, but yesterday she saw another side of him. She had known that there was no way she could go through with this marriage and she would file for divorce right after the wedding. But now, she had a bigger issue in mind. She was pregnant with his child and she still hadn’t figured out how she was going to handle it. She was still only 24 years old and she didn’t know how she was going to take care of the baby let alone not having the father around. She thought about this long and hard and even though adoption might have been the safest route, it was something she would never be able to do. Maybe she should stay with a Johnathan for the baby’s sake? His family would be able to support a baby while her father could barely support her own family let alone a baby. She felt her anxiety kick and and she knew that she needed to get some fresh air.

She went down the elevator, through the man lobby, and walked outside to the noisy, crowded streets of Los Angeles. She could feel the cold breeze whisk across the side of her face and she could feel her mood getting lighter already. She strolled down a few blocks and saw a familiar face.

“Rachel Lee. Is that you?” She said in her high pitched, annoying voice. It was her enemy from high school, Emily Cramer. They had been best friends leading up to their sophomore year of high school when she tried to steal Jonathan away from Emily. They had become rivals when Johnathan chose her over Emily, and she had been jealous and angry ever since.

“Hi Emily, how have you been?”

“I’ve been amazing, I just got married a month ago, got a job at the Starbucks just across the street, and I am pregnant with my first child! How are you doing? I got the invitation to the wedding and I can’t wait!”

She fell silent. She knew she had not given her an invitation to the wedding so it must have been Johnathan. How could he invite the girl that almost ruined their relationship to their wedding? This walk had not been as productive as she thought.

The next day she was finishing the last minute preparations for the wedding that was now a week away. As she was sitting on the couch, with her legs propped of on the white colored ottoman, she could smell the new keurig coffee pot brewing her morning special and she could see the city of downtown LA when she looked through the door-sized window panels across her apartment. She reaffirmed the venue, cake decorators, and the catering company. Jonathan walked in with his black suit that fit perfectly on his body. They had still barely spoken a word to each other since their argument. He would often ask her about the wedding but had acted completely different than before. He would even occasionally roll his eyes when she said something and would yell at her if she had done something wrong. She had gotten a feeling that he wanted to marry her for the wrong intentions.

“I thought you were going to work today.”

“No, it’s my day off. I’m going to hang out with some friends from high school.”

“So you don’t want to spend your day off with your fiancé?”

Now having an angry expression on her face, she had gotten up and was only a few feet away from him.

“I thought you didn’t even want to marry me. Now you want me to spend the day with you?”

She went to sit back on the stiff, uncomfortable couch and thought that for once he was right. How she said she wanted him to spend time with her when she had already told him she didn’t want to get married to him.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

He than left and slammed the large, heavy door behind him. She could not believe she had never noticed how cruel he could be until now.

It was the day of the wedding and she was still trying to figure out how this would all work out. After they got married she could arrange a very secretive divorce so that they would let their family and friends know when the time was right. She was getting her hair and makeup done and she heard a knock at the door. She hoped and prayed that it was anyone but Johnathan. She opened the door and it was Jonathan’s mother, she came in and immediately gave her soon to be stepdaughter a hug.

“You look so beautiful! Aren’t you so excited!”

“Yeah, I think I’m just getting a little nervous.”

“Oh honey, just as long as you love him and you know that this is what you want you should not be nervous about anything.”

She felt her whole body get numb and considered telling her soon to be step mom how she had really felt. That she had not felt any of those things and she was only getting married to him because she didn’t realize before that it was a bad choice. And a part of her thought that if she left right then and ran as far as she could, it would ruin Jonathan and he would never forgive her.

“Actually I…”

“Oh I almost forgot.”

She bent down and reached into the purse perched on a chair in the corner of the room, pulled out a box as big as her palm, and placed it into her hands. She opened the box to find a silver necklace with a heart locket laying in the box. She opened the locket and sees the engraved symbols J and R forever, aka Rachel and Johnathan forever.

“What do you think?”

She tried to hold in her emotions as much as she could.

“I…”

She paused for a moment trying to find the right words to come out of her mouth.

“I love it.”

She seemed timid and unconvincing. She looked into her scared and almost in tears eyes.

“You are sure about all of this?”

“Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”

She gave her one last hug before exiting the room. She could tell she knew something was wrong. Almost everything in her was telling her to run as far away that she can and never come back, but that small part of her was so convincing that she stayed. Her bridesmaids came in to her room shortly after, getting their hair and makeup done, and helping her get into the $10,000, white Givenchy dress she had picked out. It was long and elegant and  she felt like a princess wearing it. You could only see a small baby bump forming as they had to refit the dress after she found out she was pregnant. It was her dream wedding dress and she couldn’t believe she was actually wearing it. That was the only part of the morning she enjoyed, she couldn’t enjoy the rest because it was filled with people telling her how perfect her and Jonathan were for each other and asking how happy she was. When she was really just lying the whole time.

It was an hour before she would walk down the aisle and she had never felt more upset. It was all just an act to the outside world and she wished they could have just waited another year so they might have been able to work things out. But no, he had to propose. She could feel her hands shaking and her palms getting abnormally sweaty. Their wedding coordinator came into the room and told her it was time. She was an old, sweet, gray-haired woman that reminded her almost of her grandma.

“Come with me sweetie.”

She picked up the part of the dress that touched the ground and walked behind the old woman. As they got to the right place she saw her dad standing there waiting for her. She had never felt this nervous in her life and felt like she was going to puke all over the floor like she had done before the engagement party.

“It’s time.” The wedding coordinator said.

The gigantic doors opened and she could see thousands of people standing there with huge grins on their faces and she could see her fiancé waiting for her.

“I can’t do this.” She yelled

She ran away in her expensive dress crying away all of her mascara as she took off her five inch black heels to run away from the nightmare that just occurred. It didn’t seem real to her, she felt like she was one of those runaway brides in the movies, except, this was real life. She stopped after running for about an hour at a motel that looked like it hadn’t been revamped since the 1980’s.

“This will do.”

When she got inside the only thing that she could smell was wet dogs and cheap cologne. But she then remembered that she had stashed a wad of cash in the secret pocket of her dress that would last her about a week. She walked up to the front desk.

“Rough night?”

“Yeah, can I just get a room.”

She handed her a key and when she went up to the dirty, old hotel room she fell onto the bed and thought about what she would do, but she had no answer for her questions. She just closed her eyes and plummeted into a deep sleep.