060 : wedding day part two

❝ I LOVE YOU ❞

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Tom was beaming, unnaturally so, when Scarlett and her entire bridal party stepped out of the hotel room indefinitely, preparing to get her hitched to a man who'd break her heart; not if Tom could stop it in and use the evidence as clear as day he had on his phone.

He stared blissfully at Scarlett who briefly handed him her bouquet of angelic white roses so she could flatten any obvious and annoying bumps and lines in her dress.

"You look too perfect." Tom whispers, only audible to Scarlett herself, and she whips her head up in confusion, raising her eyebrow.

"Thanks..?" Scarlett questions, reaching down to pick up the hem of her dress with one hand, her other extending to Tom so he could pass her flowers back.

Tom was twitching in anticipation, wondering at what point would be suitable to bring up the devestating news to his best friend, to the love of his life as they travelled to the Rolls Royce awaiting perfectly outside the hotel.

"Tom you're in the car with me. Everyone else is in the Jeeps." Scarlett mumbles, to everyone's surprise. That was not the plan. Joan would go in the car, she'd be walking her down the aisle.

"Are you sure?" Tom leans into Scarlett's ear, and when he pulls away, she was blushing red. But the furious kind.

As everyone mumbles and comments on Scarlett's impromtu last minute decision, Tom picks up the remainder of Scarlett's dress that hung out of the car door when she sat, before gingerly closing the car door.

"Are you drunk or something? Breathe onto my face." Was what Scarlett first said as soon as the engine revved and the car began to move along. Tom furrows his eyebrows, laughing.

"No! I'm not some morning alcoholic." He shakes his head, verg aware of how Scarlett's legs were angled toward him, even after he assured her he wasn't drunk. Their knees touched, and it made Tom bite his lip furiously.

"Then what's all this complimenting shit about?" She spits, and Tom grew less confident by the second, pathetic butterflies fluttering in his guts, alerting him the time was now.

"I- Scarlett, it's your wedding day, you're bound to look-" Tom fumbles with his words, despite the effort going into the annunciation of them.

"Don't! Don't even try to lie!" Scarlett almost shouts, and Tom's eyebrows upturn in a sadness that only love could describe. He saw the determination Scarlett had in her eyes, to get married today.

But he didn't care. He had to carry out a duty, as her best friend at the very least.

With a total lack of confidence, but full burst of knowledge in what he was going to say, Tom's head turned downwars slightly so his eyes were exploring Scarlett's, taking a deep breath, sighing almost.
"I love you."

The words alone immidiately created a gaping distance between the friends, Scarlett's knees no longer reassuring Tom, her hands pushing her to the other door of the back seat of the car. She was panting heavily, tears blurring her vision.

"No you don't." She whimpered, her head seemingly never not shaking in all Scarlett's disbelief.

Tom crawls closer to Scarlett in the enclosed space of the car, and she closes her eyes, wanting the dream, nightmare, whatever it was to end.

"I do, I wouldn't joke about something like that. I'm in love with you." Tom repeats, more confidently this time. Tom saw in his perephial vision thay the driver of the car was getting all he could hear, his eyebrows raised and eyes widened visible in the rear view mirror.

Scarlett pushes Tom away angrily, to his surprise.
"Don't fucking do this. Not today. Don't be selfish." She pleads, but Tom shakes his head in defiance, earning a shocked scoff from Scarlett, who had tears spilling down her face.

"I need to. I can't live the rest of my life beating myself up because I never ballsed up and just asked you out when we both knew we loved eachother." Tom stammers, clasping his hands together as the anxiety built up inside him like acid.

A bellowing silence followed, and Tom stared at his best friend. Her undereye was smudged black, her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and her hands wouldn't stop trembling. Tom would take her hand, but he'd worry she'd kill him in response.

"You wouldn't have told me unless you had something to your advantage." Scarlett whispers, breaking the deafening silence. Tom whipped his head up, feeling the back of his throat dry up as he attempted to swallow and moisten it.

"What's your advantage?" She asks, more pressing this time as the car came to a slowing halt outside the church. Tom peeked and saw Oliver making a face at Tom, asking why he was in the car instead of Joan and why they weren't getting out.

"Theo." Tom squeaks, his hand raising to Oliver to signal they'd be a minute. Scarlett rolls her eyes, scoffing loudly.

"Can you leave for a moment, please? I need to talk to my best man." Scarlett aims the command at the driver, who nods nervously, opening and closing the driver's side, and Tom saw Camila and Chris approach him with demands and questions.

"You have a problem, Tom. Stop trying to implicate my husband, to ruin my life, just because you love me!" Scarlett screams at her highest volume, her patience now run dry. Tom swallows thickly, pressing his lip into a thin line in shame, but shakes it off.

No, he had to do this.

"Are you even listening to me? You're just going to occupy yourself on your phone, like a fucking coward?" Scarlett presses as she watches Tom idly take his phone out of his pocket, noticing Scarlett was pink in fury.

Scarlett's mouth opened once more to continue her rant, to demand Tom he'd answer her first question, but it was cut off when Tom's voice echoing through the speaker on his phone.

"You know, surprsingly you're the last person I want to see today." Tom's voice said robotically, and he recalls the whole conversation again and again.

As soon as Theo's voice is heard in the recording, Scarlett raises her eyebrows curiously, her temper cooled down a bit.
"What is this?" She asks harshly, but Tom shushes her.r

"Listen." He instructs, and she submissed. The two men's voices dominated the whole car, and time passed too slowly for Tom's liking, but he patiently watched Scarlett's face the entire time.

He watched her face drain of all colour, despite the thick layer of foundation and bronzer she wore on her face, her eyes well with tears as she stared down at Tom's phone with a questioning look. Practically asking it why it was doing this to her.

The recording came to an abrupt ending, thick silence replacing the sound of Tom's own voice, and his eyes were still fixated on Scarlett, as always. She was frozen, apart from the quiver of her lip that wanted to speak.

"I don't believe you." She cries, her hand clamping over her mouth in order to prevent it crying out painfully as she wanted to. She didn't want to believe it. Not in a million years. She was about to stand at the altar with this man.

"Run away with me." Tom begs, disregarding Scarlett's statement of no confidence; he took her hands that were shaking so hard, and she didn't pull away. She stayed with Tom's hands over hers as she tried to suck all the tears back in.

"I planned for a rental car to park up around the corner of the church," Tom carries on, pointing to a little cul de sac that was behind the church, which Scarlett followed, listening intently.

"I've got a little suitcase packed in there with some of your clothes that are still in the house and mine, our passports-"

"How did you get my passport?" Scarlett asks in a choked cry, and Tom briefly shows a toothy smile to Scarlett.

"You kept it in your hotel room, I took it before I left." And Scarlett almost wanted to laugh at Tom. He stole her clothes and her passport in order to carry out some intricate plan that had been in the works for months.

"And we can just go wherever, whenever. Just us. Because, don't you feel it too, Scarlett? The love, the passion, the chemistry? It's been there for years and we hid behind it." Tom says, and Scarlett laughs once more, the disbelief overtaking once more.

"I-" She starts, but pauses. She couldn't bring herself to say to Tom that she didn't love him, because she knew why, everyone knew why.

"I want to get married now, with you as my best man." She manages to choke out, and Tom's eyes widen in surprise, taken aback. Could Scarlett really be in that much denial she still wanted to get married?

But he nods, knowing that he couldn't force her to be with him any longer, the chime of the bell signalling that they were late for the ceremony.
"Of course. But Scarlett-"

"Yes?" She turns around, her hand clutching the door handle but her head turned to Tom and her eyes burning into his. Scarlett wiped the smudges off her face in expert fashion, and she seemed calm one more.

"You can always change your mind."

Scarlett gently bites her lip, careful not to take off her lipstick, nodding cautiously as the door handle was pulled, and the ray of the late morning sun got rid of Tom's vision. He still picked up the hem of his best friend's dress, careful for it not to drag against the grimy pavement.

Joan's head popped out of the door of the church, scolding Scarlett, muttering something in Spanish that Tom didn't know what it was word for word, but got the vague tone that it was telling her off.

"Come on, babe, let's get you hitched." Zendaya beams uncomfortably as her eyes wander to Tom, a look in her eyes asking him "What did you talk about in that car?" But it was dismissed when Tom averted his gaze.

Scarlett takes her mother's open arm, and Zendaya takes Tom's as planned for chief bridesmaid and the best man, and Scarlett takes in a deep breath, looking like she forgot whatever Tom told and proposed to her minutes ago.

It hurt Tom, but he knew now that he had to move on.

The organ began to play, and everyone sat in stood, facing the back of the church to where Scarlett, Joan and the bridesmaids (and Tom) paraded down the aisle. Theo turned around, and he smiled when he saw Scarlett, but in a more relieving way, she saw. He wasn't smiling at her radiating beauty, like she imagined, but more in a way that he was just glad she showed up.

The smile on Scarlett's face was worn enough as it was, but this was testing her trust in Theo, aswell as her trust in Tom.

Joan gave her daughter away happily, but paused a little when she looked over Scarlett's face that was riddled in thought and worry. She squeezed her arm, silently asking if she was ready, and Scarlett looks over, nodding gently.

Scarlett joined Theo face to face at the altar, but she didn't hold his hands, just staring blankly at his face, trying to figure him out.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered to witness the Holy Matrimony of Scarlett Nicoletta Cabello and Theodore James Paptilkis," The priest begam to bore on, and the ceremony had begun just like that.

Throughout the religious mass (due to both Scarlett and Theo's upbringing as Catholics), Scarlett took quick and subtle glances at Tom, who wouldn't take his eyes off of her, and it made her blush everytime. Like the boy opposite her wasn't there at all.

When it came to the time of the vows, Theo was to go first, and he sighs deeply, smiling lovingly.

"Scarlett, I may have met you almost a year ago, but it feels like I've known you forever," Scarlett wanted to laugh, the cringe rolling off of his tounge as if he stood and practiced increasing the cheesiness infront of a mirror.

"I promise you that I'll give you the family you've always wanted." Lies, Scarlett thought. You have a family with Sophie now.

"I promise to be with you every day of our lives until the day we die." More lies.

"And to never stop loving you." The biggest lie of them all.

Scarlett smiled stiffly, and the priest nodded toward her. It was her turn to say her vows, and all she had in her head was that fucking recorded voice of her fiancé, stabbing her with his words.

"I want to know, that there are no secrets. Because that's what marriage is about. Honesty. Everything out in the open, you know?" Scarlett stares into Theo's eyes, and she saw him clench his jaw in tension straight away, so she decided to carry on.

"Because when you're meant to have known someone your entire life, despite knowing him five minutes, what more can you ask for than complete and total honesty?" Scarlett bats her eyes innocently, feeling the power she had in this moment.

Theo chuckles, "Is this going anywhere, sugar?"

And that was the final straw.

Nodding her head, Scarlett puffs out her chest confidently, straightening her back entirely, a smile so genuine and wide and you know, a smile that told Scarlett she was doing the right thing.

"Yeah, I'm leaving." She says casually, followed by the audible gasps and shocked murmurs coming from the entire list of guests. Apart from Tom, who smiled proudly, standing from his wooden pew at the very front, catching everyone's attention.

Scarlett turns her head to Tom, smiling as she walks slowly toward him- away from Theo- their shoulders and arms grazing against eachother when they walked proudly back up the aisle under the watchful eye of over a hundred people.

Their walk became a jog, and their jog became a light run as Scarlett so desperately wanted to escape the hell she was about to live, and to be safe with Tom, the man who was always there for her.

The man she truly loved.

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that's it!
that's the official end of
the pact

i hope you've enjoyed my
babies, but i'm not nasty
and horrible ( lmao i am jkk )
and i'm gonna treat u lot
with an epilogue too.

proper thank you's and that
after the epilogue, followed
by newsssss

i love you, so so so much
thank you for this journey
india x