YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO WITNESS THE MARRIAGE

OF

DELILAH MARIE LAWSON

AND

HENRY WILLIAM PREACHER

ON THE

5TH OF SEPTEMBER

I gloss over all the other details as I hold onto a beautifully crafted wedding invitation of my bestfriend slash sister . This has been the longest time coming and I couldn't be more thrilled that she's finally marrying the love of her life and honestly the best brother I could have ever asked for.

Sitting down on my couch I grab my phone and dial her out, "Hey Lilah-" , "Yep, it is so beautiful!" , "Dinner tomorrow? Okay." The phone cut off and I look at it , she seemed a bit nervous ....

The next day came and I got home early from work . I decided to get into something a bit more casual since I didn't know how long Lilah and I were going to be . She mentioned my favorite burger place so I made sure to eat as little as possible all day . I knew the calories I was going to inhale would cap me out for my limit .

My personal trainer tracks all my meals so hopefully he won't get too upset when I log this in later. About 20 minutes later I'm out the door and driving to meet my sister.

"Aria!" she waves at me as soon as I enter . I wave back at her and make my way to the booth.

"I got you your favorite , cookies and cream milkshake," she says as she pushes the cup towards me .

I give her a funny look, she normally doesn't do this , so something is definitely up, "Okay, spill it."

She gives me her puppy dog eyes , "First, I want you to know that I tried so hard in your favor. But William wasn't going to budge ."

Delilah starts off, I can already feel the knots forming in my stomach, "As you know , Dylan is going to be there," the knots tighten , "he's going to be the best man ."

I knew the possibility was always going to be there , I was hoping that he would've made an excuse to not come. But now here we are , my sister looking nervous as all hell, "Ar, you guys will be walking down the aisle together since you're my Maid of Honor."

And there it is , the final tug to the rope . Suddenly I was no longer hungry, "Lilah, you can't ask me to do that," I argue with her.

Looking absolutely apologetic, "I know, I'm sorry . But I need you and he's going to be there," she looks like she has more to say to me.

Already irritated, "What?"

"Dylan is bringing a date," it feels like my ears are in some drums that are beating , "he's bringing his fiance."

"Fiance?" I say in disbelief.

She nods at me , "We just found out that he popped the question to her . We're not entirely sure he wanted to ask her but here we are."

I start nodding my head , "I can't go," I fluster out.

"You have to come ! You're my baby sister and my bestfriend. Plus you can't let that ass of a 'man' scare you off like that. You know that there will be times you'll see him at gatherings."

I groan knowing she's right . I sit back and try to calm myself down , "I know . But what the heck am I going to do?"

She gives me this knowing look, "You're going to show up like the amazing bad ass woman I know you are . You will not let Dylan win . You will not show weakness to that dog and his rat."

I smile , "she is a total rat."

The fiance is the same girl I walked in on while Dylan decided he was bored of me and needed some excitement , in the form of his assistant. The images in my mind have been burnt in there.

Imagine to my horror when I decided to surprise my boyfriend of 3 years at his office . Only to walk in on him bending her over while she screamed out some dirty words. I was stunned into silence as I watched him .

It took less than ten seconds of me being there for them to realize I was in the room. Sheer panic washed over Dylan and that smarmy bitch just smiled at me . I picked my jaw off of the floor and booked it out of the place , with him chasing after me.

After that , I went straight to our apartment and since the name was under me, I asked the landlord to change the locks immediately. I grabbed all his things and stuffed it in a trash bag. Left it out by the front door with a note letting him know that this was my way of taking out the garbage.

He texted me hundreds of times and called me just as much , trying to "explain" himself. Eventually he got the memo and finally left me alone. That was 6 months ago . And now, he's engaged . Ugh .

"Aria, I don't know what he sees in Brittany, she's had so much work done, I'm surprised she hadn't popped or deflated yet. You, you're an absolute catch . Beautiful , funny, smart and successful," she begins to pour out the compliments .

I give her a tight smile , "And yet he's engaged to that thing. I told him I didn't trust her , I should have known."

"And now this is your second chance."

○○○

"He's ENGAGED?! And the Best Man?!" Sonja exclaims as I recount my dinner to my bestfriend and roommate . We had known each other since college and when everything went down, she had my back. Sonja wanted to give Blair a 'beatdown' but I talked her out of it and into my apartment.

"I know! This is nuts and I can't back out," I explain to her.

"No, you won't back out because you my dear friend will show him what he's missing!"

After our break up I had gotten into a bit of a slump , stayed home and ate gallons of ice cream, drowned myself in chinese take out and cheap wine . All of that caught up to me as I couldn't fit into a lot of my clothes several weeks later. That's when I got a personal trainer, Tony.

I worked extra hard to get back into shape and have been very consistent with my training schedule . It's what really helped me power through the break up . The evenings that scheduled bag class were my favorites because I envisioned those two when I kicked and punched.

"You need to bring a date . A hot date, preferably, " Sonja says.

"I'm over men," I cut her off.

"Right...." she doesn't believe me.

"I'm not ready-" I begin my spiel .

Before I can continue she cuts me off, "The date is purely for show, Ar. I know you're not in the right headspace for a relationship but this is your chance to show Dylan how much his presence is NOT missed."

Sonja didn't always hate Dylan. In fact she used to plan our wedding until that fateful day . And because she's fiercely loyal to me she has condemned Dylan to the fiery pits of hell and then some . I can see the gears in her head working doubltime as a devious smile stretches over her face.

"You need to download this app," she begins while grabbing my phone and unlocking it . Yes we're that close that she has the passcode to it. Once she's done she hands the phone back to me.

"What is this?" Feeling lost and confused.

"This my dear is your ticket to finding 'THE ONE- for the wedding' ," she snickers .

"I don't know if I trust these things . Don't most people on here use it to find a hook up?"

Sonja laughs, "And finding a date the old fashion way worked out ?" I nod at her and she continues, "besides, escorts cost too much money and I wouldn't dare let you spend it on one day just to show that jerk off."

"Okay fine, how does this work?"

After playing around and finding the most attractive photo we could use , Sonja shows me the ins and outs of this whole program . It's quite simple . It's like Tinder but with an option to save a candidate to come back to . The best part, this has a bit of a matchmaking algorithm because it requires a personality test as well as specifics on hobbies .

We spend the next hour or so drinking some red wine and swiping through the throngs of men .

"Nope, ew, definitely not , maybe, okay --" we say outloud until we land on one extremely good looking man.

"He's it!" Sonja says with excitement.

I shake my head, "I don't know. He seems way out of my league," I begin to explain.

She turns to me with her hand on her hip, "How is he out of your league?"

I shrug , "look at him!"

"EXACTLY! LOOK AT HIM!" before I can protest any further she swipes on him and on several other guys.