Chapter One

Only she remembered what happened at her wedding. The darkness made sure of that. Everyone saw one thing while in reality Jessica suffered a much more painful plight.

Everything looked picturesque. It was staging to be a storybook wedding. Just two hours before the ceremony, Jessica and her maid of honor Brenda were dressing in the bridal suite of the Biltmore hotel and enjoying the stress-free environment.

“What time do you have,” Jessica asked as she peeled the plastic wrap from her pearl white ruffle and lace covered gown.

“It is right around ten, about ten minutes after you asked me last,” Brenda answered with a smirk and a wink into the wall sized mirror in from of them.

Jessica let her guard down and let out a laugh. She realized at that moment she wouldn’t be here without Brenda. They were both the same height, five foot four inches, and both curvaceous yet Jessica is a fair skinned Irish woman while Brenda body adorns a light brown skin of an immigrant from Nicaragua.

Brenda touched up her lipstick one more time as she reflected on the moment. “You have come so far, and I am so glad to be a part of this journey with you.”

“Now your going to make me cry,” Jessica answered as her voice cracked mid-sentence.

Brenda put the lipstick away and hugged Jessica from behind while they looked ahead at the mirror and whispered to her.

“Shhh. This is your day. You deserve this. Think about it. Born to a woman who thought nothing of her unborn child and used drugs. Heroin of all things. When you were born, you were only three pounds, three ounces. They gave you a fifty-fifty chance of surviving that night. But you kept breathing through your whole body shaking from withdrawals. And from what I heard, you cried. A lot. The nurses in the NICU ward were so empathetic that they cried.”

Jessica pursed her lips. “Yes, that is what they told me.”

Brenda stroked Jessica’s perfectly curled hair. “Your mom went from the hospital to jail, as they found large amounts of Heroin, crack cocaine and bundles of cash in her car as well as her motel room. Then charged with drug trafficking, as it was an election year and the prosecutor was trying to make a name for himself. She got twenty years but only served twelve. After she got out, she laid down in bed one night, put a gun under her chin, and pulled the trigger.” She pondered the next thought. “She never told anyone who your father is. If you knew who your dad was, you could have had a relationship with him. He could have gave you away today.”

Jessica nodded and fought back tears. “Trust me, I have thought about that pretty much every day.”

Brenda squeezed Jessica’s shoulders and then checked her teeth for lipstick, while continuing the narrative. “From the NICU, you went to a foster home where you shook the addiction but struggled. You didn’t talk for a long time. They were starting to wonder if you would ever talk. But you did. You struggled so much in school. You barely graduated but did. You then got a job at that Speedway gas station. Cashier.”

Jessica started to put on her dress as the two of them reflected. “Yes, that’s when I met Jeremy. He stopped in to get gas and a coffee and started talking to me.”

“That’s right. What was it you said to him that caught his attention?”

“Well, he came in wearing a suit he probably spent close to two thousand on. He strode over to the coffee machine, got his latte, and then cut in line like he owned the place. I asked him to wait his turn.”

Brenda laughed as she squeezed into her dress. “That’s right. But there was more.”

“Oh yes, he asked me where I was the day before. I told him I had gone to a concert the night before that, so I took the day off to sleep in. He asked who I saw, so I told him. Bullet to the Heart. He said he didn’t know who that was. Do you remember what I told him?”

“Yes, I do,” Brenda answered. “You said if you didn’t live under a rock, you would know who they are.”

They high-fived as they both shared a stress-relieving laugh.

“He then asked you to work for his firm. As his secretary.”

“Yes, he did,” Jessica said as she turned to Brenda who zipped her up. “I was nervous, but I was barely making do so I couldn’t turn down the bump up in pay. I started right away. He was married at the time, so we were just friends at work. Nothing more.”

“Yes, I remember. It was then the rumor was that Donna, his wife, got an E-mail from Jeremy that he was looking to get a separation, and was asking her to move out before he got home. Or something like that. She then texted him to say she was going to the bathtub to take a bath and then cut her wrists. He was in a meeting so didn’t have his phone. You looked at his phone to make sure it wasn’t important and then realized it was, so got it to him immediately. Bit it was too late. She was gone.”

Jessica nodded stoically as she went back to that moment. “He was a zombie after that. Inconsolable. This went on for weeks. I started to help him more with the day-to-day operations as he was still in a fog, and forgetting important business matters. It was around then when he asked me to go out of town with him to where our company was negotiating a merger. I went with him and stayed in my own room. We did go out to dinner after the merger, and for the first time, got to know each other. When we got back, we dated some more. He asked me to move in with him. I told him I needed a ring first. He didn’t even hesitate. He proposed on the spot.”

“And here we are girlfriend,” Brenda said as she winked.

They stood back from the mirror, and they both radiated exuberance of the moment. Jessica looked forward to her new life with Jeremy, but with one condition. She remains close friends with Brenda. After all, they had grown up together at the same foster home.