Kylie Cantrall's Arc

Chapter 51 of 78

The last risk was closed, but a smaller one crept back that night. Kylie stood in her bedroom and looked at her red gown, the one with gold hearts. She had ordered it without asking Arianna. Now the wedding was three days out, and she still didn't know what Arianna planned to wear. If they stood on the island in clashing colors, their private vows would start with a flinch. Kylie had promised to decide things together. She had broken that promise again without noticing. She walked down the hall and knocked on Arianna's locked door. She had learned to knock. "Can I come in?" "It's open," Arianna said. Kylie stepped inside. Arianna sat at her desk with a garment bag laid across the bed. "I have to ask you something," Kylie said. "I never asked what you're wearing Saturday. I picked my dress alone. That was wrong. If you want to choose the colors with me, we can start over." Arianna smiled and stood. "I hoped you'd ask." She unzipped the garment bag. Red slid out, deep and bright. A crimson gown, sleek and long, cut to fall straight to the floor. "I ordered it the day you showed me yours. I wanted mine to answer yours, not fight it." Kylie stared. The two dresses were the same red. Where hers had gold hearts, Arianna's had none, just clean lines meant to sit beside them. "You planned this," Kylie said. "You planned it before I even worried." "I've been planning to marry you for a year," Arianna said. "I wasn't going to leave the dress to chance." Kylie laughed, and the tight feeling in her chest let go. She had come to fix a mistake and found Arianna had already covered it. For once, being out of control felt like a gift, not a threat. "They match," she said. "We match." They carried both gowns to the closet and hung them side by side. Two reds, one with hearts and one without, waiting for the same day. Kylie took a photo on her phone, then deleted it at once. No footage. Nothing to leak. Just the two of them and the dresses and the plan. "The island Saturday," Kylie said. "Kara flies in the license. We stand at the pool by the fountain, under the palms, and we say it." Arianna nodded. She touched the necklace at her throat, Kylie's grandmother's gold heart. "Then there's nothing left to fix." But there was one thing. Kylie's mother still didn't know the wedding was real, only that an engagement rumor existed. The record label was circling that rumor. In three days Kylie would vanish to the island for a full weekend, and her mother would call, and the label would call, and no answer would arrive. Silence like that would start its own story. Kylie looked at the two gowns and knew the wedding was set. Now she had to disappear without anyone chasing her to the shore.