I look at her, trying to judge whether to say what I want to say, to hold my tongue, or to get up and leave. We are at an impasse. A stalemate. I’m trying to fight my inner child, the one who feels like he’s losing his grip. And I’m failing.

Chapter Twenty-Five

KAT

Lou saw my mood as soon as we met up in town. I’d been waiting for her outside Debenhams, and was planning on suggesting breakfast somewhere nice before the fitting. She took one look at my face – all pale skin and bags beneath the eyes – before dragging me into McDonald’s for a Breakfast Wrap whilst she tried to pummel information out of me that I wasn’t ready to give.

And then it was time for the fitting, and my life went from abandoned babies to pending weddings in less than an hour. I reach for the designer bottled water and top up my champagne glass. Though it’s carbonated, the bubbles don’t fizz like the Moët in Lou’s, though her second glass is now empty. She’s obscured from view by a golden shot silk changing curtain. I can hear her giggling with the dress fitter, having declared she would show me her dress before I got sight of mine. It’s barely half past ten. Opulence surrounds us.

I wait, mind full, wondering how to explain to my boss, Gail, that I came to be in Susan’s house last night. Wondering about Rhys and all he said to me this morning. Thinking about Daniel. Revisiting our years together, the holidays, the trips to his parents’ house on a Sunday, the times we talked about getting married. This might have been me trying on dresses whilst sipping champagne. Except we didn’t talk about it, not really. It was something I would occasionally bring up, to be fast muttered about and then moved on from. There’s a fizz of excitement around me and I tell myself to suck it up. I need to put these things aside and remember that this is my best friend’s big day. I need to be enthusiastic. This is her big dress. Or maybe it’s a small one – who knows what she settled on in the end. Because that’s the thing about Lou, you can never second-guess her.

Maybe I should talk to her about things. Sometimes she shares a wisdom I forget she actually has. What would she say about the last twenty-four hours? It’s all replaying constantly in my head. It’s no small relief that she’s about to come out of the changing room.‘Oh my God, Kat. I can’t believe how beautiful this is or how lucky I am or how amazing this is going to be. This lace is…’ She trails off as the curtain opens and she glides out to stand on a box before the mirror. Apparently the box is important for height. Despite the interruption of odd formalities like this, my breath catches in my throat as she carefully steps up onto it, reflected like a fairy-tale princess in the giant, gilt-edged mirror. All thoughts of last night, of Rhys and Susan, disappear, as Lou and I blink back great big, girly tears at the sight of her. I’ve been so consumed by my own worries that I completely underestimated the impact of her ivory, silk and lace-clad glory.