Affection Smells Sweet. You? Nasty.

I've been able to smell people's emotions since I was a child. Affection smells sweet. Sorrow smells bitter. Disgust and anger smell spicy. I'd been with Bruce Dawson for ten years, and the scent that clung to him had never changed. It was always sweet, cloyingly so. The only thing that ever shifted was the day my older sister left the country. That night, when he came home late, his scent had turned bitter enough to make me frown. But I never connected the two. Not until three years later, when my sister came home to get married. That day, his scent was bitter laced with something spicy, a mix I'd never smelled on him before. It struck me as strange. Without thinking, I followed him when he stepped away from the reception, and outside in the stairwell I heard his voice, low and pained. "That's enough, Jasmine! You'd rather marry a stranger just to make me give up on you?" My sister's voice cracked as she cried back at him. "What else can I do? You're my brother-in-law. Rosalie is my sister. We can't keep doing this to her!" I froze in the doorway, my whole body shaking with shock, my heart wrung out like a fist closing around it until I couldn't breathe. That was when my phone lit up with a reminder: my wedding to Bruce was next week. I stood there blank for two seconds. Then I called the hotel and canceled the wedding. Chapter 1 I saw two people trapped in a painful emotional struggle. The scent pouring off them was so bitter it seemed to spill out into the hallway. My sister, Jasmine Ford, had her face in her hands, sobbing, her shoulders shaking. "Bruce, let's leave it here. We can't keep doing this to ourselves." She looked up at him, grief written all over her face. "I'm getting married. Next week, you and Rosie are getting married too. Rosie and I have only had each other since our parents died. Don't hurt her. I'm begging you." I leaned against the wall. My heart throbbed with a thousand tiny pinpricks, like needles under the skin. The sheer absurdity of it made me laugh, then cry, then laugh again, until I didn't even know what my own face was doing anymore. My sister. Bruce Dawson. I had never once put those two people together in my mind. Even though, over the years, the distance between them had always felt strange, like they were strangers to each other, and I was the only bridge connecting them. Every holiday, he'd show up at our house with a gift and call her out of politeness. She'd nod back distantly and say nothing more than, "Have a seat." Every time Bruce left, my sister would stroke my hair, as if she were holding something down inside herself. "Our Rosie has to be happy. No matter what." Back then, I never understood the sadness in her eyes when she said it. Now, I did. Out in the stairwell, Bruce was shaking his head. He reached for my sister's hand, his own fingers trembling. "Don't do this. Jasmine, please don't do this to me." My sister closed her eyes and wrenched her hand free. "I told you, it's over! Bruce, let's just accept that we were never meant to be." Bruce's fists slammed into the wall. Those hands, the same ones that held a scalpel every day, were suddenly streaked with blood, though his eyes were redder than the blood itself. "I don't believe that we were never meant to be! Jasmine, I'll take you away. Let's leave this place, just the two of us!" She pulled free, her eyes hard with resolve. "I won't hurt Rosie. If you try anything, I'll never speak to you again as long as I live." His whole body went rigid, his spine drawn as tight as a bowstring pulled to its limit. Then he let out a bitter laugh, and the tension drained out of him all at once. He bowed his head. "Fine..." His shoulders dropped. "You win, Jasmine. You win. "I'll be good to Rosie. For the rest of my life." I closed my eyes and laughed at myself, bitterly. It was nothing but self-mockery. I left in a daze, my footsteps unsteady, all the color drained from my face. A while later, Bruce came back and sat down beside me. "What's wrong?" He brushed a thumb under my reddened eyes, his voice full of concern. "Why have you been crying?" I looked up and pressed my fingers into my palms. He'd gone back to looking gentle, as if nothing that just happened had been real, as if I'd imagined all of it. I pulled away from him without meaning to. "It's nothing." He didn't ask any more questions, because the lights in the banquet hall had already dimmed, and his attention had shifted to the doors that were about to open. "And now, please welcome the bride!" As soon as the emcee finished speaking, my sister came walking down the aisle in her wedding gown. She looked at me first. Her eyes only swept over Bruce for an instant, but there was loneliness in that glance. As for Bruce, his hands were clenched tightly as he suppressed his emotions. I watched it all, and when I breathed in, a grief I couldn't hold back rose up in my chest. Because out of the three of us standing there, not one of us smelled sweet. Up on the stage, my sister exchanged vows of forever with the man beside her, and then it was time for the family to say a few words. The emcee held out the microphone. "Let's have the bride's only sister come up and give her blessing!" I was just about to take it. Bruce, who had been silent this whole time, suddenly stood up beside me and snatched the microphone away. Chapter 2 I froze. The emcee froze. A ripple of surprise passed through the room. Up on the stage, Jasmine's body went rigid. She shook her head at him. Bruce lowered his eyes, then looked at me, his gaze full of doting warmth. "Let me say it, please? I'm afraid if you try, you'll end up crying too hard. It'd hurt me to see that." He didn't wait for me to answer. He raised the microphone. His voice carried through the banquet hall, perfectly level, as if he were reading off a company memo. "Rosie wanted to say that you look beautiful today, and that she hopes you'll be happy forever, and that you'll always stay true to yourself. "And if you're ever unhappy out there, come home anytime. We'll… we'll always be here." Jasmine smiled faintly. "I know. I'll make sure of it." The two of them looked at each other across the room, then quickly looked away from each other. I was the only one who could smell the bitterness between them. The toast ended. The wedding carried on smoothly. I turned my head and studied the man beside me, distracted. "That's not what I was going to say. Didn't you hear me practicing at home? Besides, I could've said it myself." Bruce only snapped back into focus then, smoothing over the complicated look on his face, then reached out to pinch my cheek. His smile was doting. "Your eyes were puffy from crying before the ceremony even started. I was worried you'd burst into tears halfway through a sentence." He seemed to find this funny. His voice went gentle. "You've always been so heartbreaking." Then he pulled me into his arms and held me tight, no different than he'd ever been. If I hadn't sensed that the sweetness in his emotions had already faded away, I might have actually believed he loved me. "Is that so." I tried to smile. "Well, thanks." He didn't catch the edge in my voice, because Jasmine had arrived, raising her glass for a toast. "Rosie, you're getting married next week." She touched my hair. "Our Rosie really has grown up." I lowered my eyes. A dull ache spread through my chest, along with waves of nausea. She turned to look at Bruce. "You'd better treat my sister well. I hope you remember what you said." Bruce, who never drank, downed his glass in one go. "I will." The two of them looked away from each other almost too fast. Jasmine moved on to the next table, and laughter spread through the hall. Bruce kept pouring himself drink after drink. I watched, and I said nothing to stop him. There wasn't any point. That night, Bruce got completely drunk and collapsed onto the couch the moment we got home. "Jasmine... Why did we never get our chance? Tell me..." I sat beside him, listening quietly to my fiancé call out my sister's name in a drunken dream. That was when the hotel called about the wedding I'd already canceled. "Miss Ford, we noticed you canceled your reception. Has something come up? Just so you know, the deposit isn't refundable." I gave a soft hum. "It's canceled. That's all. You can keep the deposit." After I hung up, Bruce mumbled, "Rosie, my throat hurts. Get me some honey water." I ignored him. I went straight to the bedroom and shut the door. I returned every last bit of the wedding favors, the cigars, the wine, the jewelry, then bought myself a plane ticket to Iceland. I'd always wanted to go. Bruce had always said he was too busy. Now was as good a time as any. I lay in bed, unable to sleep, going back over everything, year by year. The more I looked, the more I found clues I'd never noticed before. Like the way he'd gone strangely quiet the day my sister left the country. Like how, the year she graduated, he'd insisted on tagging along with me to congratulate her. Or how, in every photo the three of us ever took together, his head was always tilted toward her. I didn't know when it had started. But I knew this was the moment it needed to end. The next morning, Bruce was already up and making breakfast by the time I got out of bed. He'd always been the one to cook, all these years. He'd never once let me touch a pan. "Morning." He set everything out on the table, then asked, almost offhandedly, "I had too much to drink last night. I didn't say anything weird, did I?" I looked at the strawberry jam on the table, the kind I didn't even like, the kind my sister loved, and lost myself for a second. "No." He let out a quiet breath of relief, then frowned. "You didn't even leave me a blanket, no honey water either. I woke up freezing, and now my head's pounding." I didn't pick up the food. "I'm not obligated to take care of you." I looked up and met his eyes straight on, my expression flat. The indifference in it seemed to catch him off guard. Bruce pressed his lips together, forcing down some vague irritation, his eyes complicated. "What's wrong? Did someone upset you? Or is something bothering you about next week's wedding?" I didn't answer. I just dropped the bread with the strawberry jam on it into the trash. "I've always hated strawberries." I laughed under his stunned stare, but the smile never reached my eyes. "The one who loves strawberries is Jasmine." Chapter 3 I left the apartment and wandered the streets without any direction. A light rain was falling, the kind too fine to bother with an umbrella, though it was enough to strip the leaves off the sycamore trees and scatter them into the mud. I passed our old high school and stopped. Bruce and I had been classmates. My sister was a year above us. Back then, she'd worried about me walking home alone after night classes, so she'd have me wait for her to finish so we could walk back together. Then, somewhere along the way, Bruce started showing up behind us too. She used to tease me about it, saying he was just there to protect me. I barely knew him, even though we were in the same class. But from that point on, my eyes kept drifting toward him without my meaning to. After my high school finals, my sister encouraged me to confess to him. So I did. He looked stunned for a moment. Whatever refusal had been on the tip of his tongue never made it out. Instead, what came out was, "Okay." And from then on, Bruce became part of my world, and my sister's. I kept walking without any destination. My hair grew damp, and my steps grew heavier. I found myself thinking. What if he'd only wanted to be with me to stay close to my sister? What if the sweetness in his emotions that I'd sensed all these years had only been an act? I didn't dare think it through. A thought like that could drive me out of my mind. I squeezed my eyes shut, took a deep breath, and walked to the curb to hail a cab. I'd just gotten in when Bruce's car sped past. "Follow that car," I told the driver, my voice hoarse. That direction led neither to the hospital where he worked nor to his parents' house. Where could he be going? An answer was already forming, but I clenched my hands and refused to believe it. The car wound through several turns before stopping in front of a small house on the outskirts of town. I never knew he had a hideaway like this. I got out and heard the sound of two people arguing. Jasmine's voice was breaking apart. "What did Rosie mean by that? Bruce, you promised me she'd never find out! You promised you wouldn't hurt her!" Bruce's lips were pressed thin, his jaw tight. "She won't find out. She's probably just in a bad mood. I asked her if I said anything strange last night, and she said no." That seemed to calm Jasmine down. She said through tears, "This is the last time I'm coming here. From now on, we go our separate ways." Bruce's voice dropped low. "Is that so? Can you really let it go that easily? We bought this house five years ago. Think of all the memories we made here. Can you really forget all of it? Jasmine, don't lie to yourself." Then she sank into his arms, and the two of them held each other tight. They were acting as if I were the executioner who'd torn them apart. I couldn't make out anything else they said after that. There was only a ringing in my ears. I leaned against the doorway, and that was when I noticed the archway in front of the little house was strung with jasmine flowers. Proof of their love, everywhere I looked. Memories came flooding back, one after another. Four years ago, on New Year's Eve, the two of them had each claimed they were working late, and I'd spent the holiday alone. Three years ago, on Valentine's Day, they'd both told me they had business trips, so the dinner I'd made ended up in the trash. Two years ago, when Jasmine was still abroad, on her birthday, Bruce suddenly told me he had to fly out for a surgery. And that same night, I couldn't reach her either. One thing after another, laid bare in front of me. The truth wound around me like a poisonous vine, until even breathing felt difficult. I went home. I didn't confront them. It still wasn't the right time. I packed my bags on my own. When Bruce came home, he looked low, but the moment he saw me, he forced a smile onto his face. He pulled me into a tight hug, but I couldn't sense even a trace of sweetness from him. "Sorry about this morning, about the strawberries. I had too much to drink last night; my head wasn't clear. Are you mad at me?" I looked at him quietly, then smiled. "Of course." He let out a breath of relief and went straight into the shower. I let my smile drop, and my eyes went distant. Chapter 4 Jasmine came back to visit three days later with her husband. She held my hand, smiling warmly. "Our Rosie is all grown up now. I can't be your bridesmaid next week, but I can walk you down the aisle myself and hand you off to Bruce. That's something too." I lowered my eyes. "Really? You're not disappointed?" She blinked, then laughed it off. "Not being a bridesmaid doesn't bother me. Mom and Dad are gone. As the oldest, it's my place to give you away." I hummed and pulled my hand back. She didn't seem to notice. She just said, "I'll go see what your future husband's cooking up," and went into the kitchen. The meal was lavish. Bruce had actually been scheduled for surgery that day, and he was a man who put his patients above everything else. But that morning, I'd heard him on the phone with his supervisor, swapping his shift. All so he could cook a meal for Jasmine with his own hands. At the table, the two of them sat at opposite corners. The farthest distance possible. "Rosie told me you like seafood, so it's a seafood feast today. Though don't overdo it; seafood runs cold." I sat there and listened. Every detail he rattled off about her preferences, so effortlessly, landed on me like a slap. Because I'd never once mentioned any of it to him. Jasmine gave a cool hum in response, then turned and put a large shrimp on her husband's plate. Bruce's face fell, just for a moment. I saw it, but by then I felt too numb for it to stir up anything in me. Everyone at that table, except for my sister's husband, ate with their minds somewhere else entirely. In the afternoon, Jasmine's husband went to work. Jasmine and Bruce came with me to try on my wedding dress. I looked at myself in the mirror, glittering, and went still for a second. Bruce had designed this dress himself. It was covered in embroidered petals. That day, he'd pulled out the finished sketch like he was presenting me with treasure, holding it up to me. "Rosie, I want you by my side for the rest of my life. When we're old, I want to be the one holding your arm, taking you to see all the places you love. Walking every road we've ever walked, together." I doubt I could have imagined, back then, that just six months later, the whole truth would come crashing down. I lost my parents at eight. This year, at twenty-three, I was losing my sister and the man I loved. I kept wondering if I was just cursed to lose everyone. Why did it seem like I could never hold on to anything? The staff member arranging my skirt behind me laughed and teased, "This dress is called Pure Jasmine. I guess your name must have something to do with jasmine, Miss Ford?" My whole body went stiff. So that was what the dress was called. I'd never noticed the little details. The petals weren't roses, the flower after my name. They were jasmine. Self-mockery and absurdity crashed over me at once, and I yanked the veil off my head. The staff member looked uneasy. "Miss Ford, is something wrong?" I stared down at the veil on the floor, my voice gone hoarse. "It's fine. Better than fine." Then I took off the dress and walked out. The two of them were standing far apart, like strangers. Bruce looked startled. "Hm? Why didn't you come out and model it for us?" I forced a smile. "What's the surprise if I show you before the wedding?" Bruce smiled, doting as ever. Jasmine reached over and stroked my hair indulgently. All I felt was a cold shiver run through me. By wedding tradition, the bride and groom weren't supposed to see each other the night before, so Bruce went to stay at a hotel. When he left, he hugged me tight, his heart racing. "Tomorrow I finally get to marry you, Rosie. I'm happy." I nodded, my face blank. In the middle of the night, I packed everything and headed for the airport. The plane took off before dawn. Right before boarding, I posted a photo of the little house that was their secret love nest to our group chat, the three of us. I didn't write a single word. Then I turned off my phone. Twelve hours later, the plane landed. The wedding time had already come and gone. I turned my phone back on, and a flood of calls and messages came pouring in like they'd lost their minds.