Feather After // Chapter 68 // The Ultimate Truth

Read the first few chapters for this.

Aria's POV

I stood at the corner of the room, and saw everyone, even though nobody wanted me to get married, they were very happy about the rehearsal dinner, Nanna was rushing from here to there, grandma was trying really hard to fix grand dad's bow tie for the past four-five minutes. Her hands were shaky but his spirit was remarkable, he stood there silently as she fumbled with it.

Mother and Father were nowhere to be seen. I could see Gemma come down the stairs. She looked pretty, she was wearing a white dress that reached her knees and she had her hair open. Who knew she could look that good. The whole dining room was chaos. Everyone was running and screaming. Everybody wanted to be there at the rehearsal dinner on time and wanted to look the best they could. I guess, at the end of the day the whole place was going to be bombarded with paparazzi.

I couldn't believe that tomorrow was the day, tomorrow was the day, and I was getting married, at the age of seventeen. Nobody thought that it could happen, but I guess, my mother proved everyone wrong. I was getting married and did I feel happy or maybe excited or even joyous about it? No, I didn't.

All I felt was, that I had to get over it, I had to just say yes, when the priest asked me if I took Zachariah as my husband and probably just you know, smile a little bit here and there, but the easiest part was forgetting Ignatius, I mean I just had few memories with him here and there, and what else, nothing more and nothing less.

I could do it. I could fall in love all over again with Zachariah. At least that's what I tried to tell myself. I thought I could do it, I could fall in love with him and just forget everything that I have with Ignatius.

You know what the strangest part was, that I never imagined myself falling in love with someone, falling in love with anyone, and suddenly Ignatius came in and changed everything, he made everything feel so strange, I never thought I could go out of my comfort zone until I met him, I met him and boom. The most important part is that when he came to my life, I didn't even feel his presence. I felt nothing at all it was almost like a feather, his presence but the irony is that he affected me and my decisions more than I had ever imagined he could and what happened after was another story.

"Aria, it's time, come on!" I heard Nanna shout and she tried to get everyone out of the house, first Gemma walked out and then my uncle and aunts. "Everyone come on, it's time to move. Otherwise, we all will be late!" But nobody gave a damn, grandma was done with grand dad's tie and they were slowly moving towards the gate.

"Let me help you," I heard granddad ask grand mum.

"I don't need help, you need help!" She exclaimed but then hit his hand anyway.

I held on to my golden gown and started walking towards the door, I looked up at Nanna and she smiled at me, "you look so beautiful, sweetie, so beautiful," before I could even comprehend what she was saying, I saw tears in her eyes.

"I'm going to miss you so much, when you're gone, so very much!"

I had never thought about it until then. Yeah, I was going to move out, you'll be okay, come on. "My make up! Nanna, it took me ten years to get this right! Don't make me cry."

"You did you makeup? Girl, you're looking like a girl because a professional make-up artist did your make up!" She rolled her eyes at me. Today, everyone's emotions were at a peak. Nobody knew what to do. Nobody could even do anything even if they wanted to.

We sat in the cars and left for the place we had to meet Zachariah's family. The rehearsal dinner was anything but ordinary, I hadn't seen my mom all day but I saw her and father already sitting there, with Zachariah's family, apparently, they wanted to see if all the preparations were exactly the way they wanted.

We sat at our respective positions with Zachariah's father at one end of the seat and my father at the opposite side. To be honest, even though everyone was having fun, it felt like a business deal. The dinner went surprisingly well. Zachariah's and my family mingled very nicely, nothing went wrong. Even my grandma was having a good time when everyone was chatting for a moment, I actually forgot that it was a rehearsal dinner; it almost felt like good family time. Zachariah looked at me and smiled, I smiled back. It was not his fault, not his fault, I reminded my self again and again.

Soon, the rehearsal dinner was over, after desserts were served, everyone stood up and started hugging everyone, kissing in each other's cheek and welcoming each other into each other's family. Although it was said that the groom and bride shouldn't meet each other, one night before the wedding, things were okay.

We sat in our cars and got home. I didn't even realize that we had reached home until Nanna elbowed me. I guess I was too preoccupied with the whole rehearsal dinner. I went up to my room; my emotions were over the top. Nobody said anything; I guess everyone knew how I felt, and what I felt. I went to my room and my mother's assistant was already sitting there.

"Oh, you're here!"

"I'm just here to help you out of your dress, ma'am especially made sure that someone was there to help you out."

I heard a stone being smashed against my window, while I was trying to get into the golden gown from mom's fall collection. Her assistant had told me that it was the most expensive piece of her whole collection. I don't know if I was supposed to feel honored or pissed. Anyway, I just smiled at her and let her be. As soon as she got the gown off me, she hurried out of the room, I quickly locked it, took a deep breath and picked up the hem of cloth that I was wearing under my gown. I walked slowly and steadily towards the window and I saw Zachariah standing there. He wasn't ready. I had never seen him wear anything else but formal clothes. For the first time, I saw him, wearing a pair of blue jeans, a white top, and a gray leather jacket.

"What do you want?" I asked him, as I started to see him climb up, just the way Ignatius had done it.

He didn't say anything but soon he was right outside my window, and even if I didn't want to open the window, I had to. I had no other option. I had no other option what so ever. I cleared my throat and looked at him. 'Open the window,' I saw his lips move and I snapped back into reality. Whenever I saw Zachariah I had to continuously remind myself that it wasn't his fault that we were getting married.

I quickly opened the window, and when he saw that I had opened the window, he quickly jumped in, took a long deep breath and exclaimed, "Took you long enough."

I looked at him, up and down and then asked him, in the most polite way I could and tried my best not to sound irritated, "what are you doing here?"

"I have to tell you something, maybe then I'll feel lighter, I just have to tell you something, but-"

"I know you do, so you might as well, start talking."

"I don't mean to hurt you a lot, but there is no other way we could roll, you know. I was working in office today," and he looked at me, as if he was trying to make sure, I was listening to what he was saying and when he made sure I was, he continued, "I-I realized that I was going to be married to you tomorrow and I don't know why but I do want you to know this. I even tried to talk to you in the rehearsal dinner but I wasn't sure if you would listen to me."

Suddenly, I kind of felt weird, I had never seen Zachariah act weird, most of the times knew what he was doing but today, everything felt unplanned. I was scared all at the same time too, what the hell was he talking about? "Okay, continue," I told him and he nodded.

"Remember when your car crashed, on your second or third day from school here? The day when you went to the hospital and your family were called back from their business trip?"

I narrowed my eyes at him, "how the hell do you know all that?"

I heard him take a gulp, "well, and do you also remember, someone helped you out of your car and helped you, reach the hospital. Do you remember that? Do you remember someone climbed from the window into your room? Do you remember what happened after that?"

My head started to ache, I did remember most of it, but I did not remember every detail, "What are you trying to tell me? It's all very blurry."

"Have a seat," he said and made me sit on my bed and say next to me. What the hell was going on?

"What are you doing here? Why is my head spinning now? Oh my god! What is going on?" I looked at him, I knew that he knew the answer to all my questions but the only question was how?

"You need rest calm down Aria, please calm down! You're freaking me out!" He said and stood up, and started walking from left to right.

"I'm freaking you out? You're freaking me out! How do you even know what happened that day? You're freaking the hell out of me! What are you trying to do?"

I heard him sharply take a deep breath and then he turned towards me, "I'm trying to tell you that, I know I have to tell you stuff and that I don't want you to marry me tomorrow without knowing this. I'm sorry, I had to hide things from you but I had no bloody option. I'm trying my best to tell you, so please sit down," he said and pointed at my bed and continued, "Please sit down until I find words to describe to you what exactly you don't know."

I took a deep breath, what was he talking about?

"I think you have two memories of the hospital, you messed it up, your mom messed with it. The first time you came to the hospital you had memories of me. Your mom was furious that I had helped you out. Our wedding had been being planned for the last two years ago. Remember when your car crashed because of your good for nothing driver? I came to save you."

"What do you mean?" I was almost crying, the whole god damn thing was a lie.

"The guy who climbed into your hospital room to meet you was me. I was the one who had helped you out. Remember the guy who called you hot in that diner? That was me too. Your mom was very upset because she thought I would tell you about our whole plan, so she tried to make you forget about meeting me. She fed you pills that kind of altered your memories, you got confused and thought you were hallucinating. That's why you have two sets of memories of going home."

"What?" I couldn't believe what he was saying, "but that guy had ginger hair, and his arms were full of tattoos!"

"I dyed my hair, my hair color is ginger, and for the tattoos," he removed his jacket and it fell on the floor. I looked at Zachariah and my heart skipped a beat, he was the same guy, I had met at the diner and he was the guy who had helped me out. And all this time, I thought he was Ignatius. I had met Ignatius later on but because of what my mom had fed me, I felt something different.