You were either in or you were out. You either got married or you moved on.

And I never wanted to move on. Oliver was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and I couldn’t let him un-happen. If that meant fighting about bands and arguing about venues and making peace with his mother and endlessly rehashing a fucking balloon arch, then…then it was worth it.

It had to be worth it.

Because otherwise, what were we?

Chapter 40

THE GOOD THING ABOUT GETTING married—I mean, apart from the whole spending your life with the person you loved bit—was that it gave you a lot to do. Which made it very difficult to have complicated feelings. Or, to put it another way, very easy to avoid having them. And that worked for me right until the night before the wedding.

I’d gone to bed early because I was trying to be responsible, but then I’d had to get out of bed to throw up. Then I’d gone back to bed, but I’d had to get up again to throw up again. And, after throwing up for the third time, I called Bridge. Being Bridge, she answered. Even though it was three in the morning.

“Luc?” she asked—sleepy but doing her best. “Is everything okay?”

I lay down on the bathroom floor. “No. I keep vomiting and I think that probably means something.”

Mumbly Tom noises drifted down the phone. Then I heard him getting up and moving into a different room, reasoning correctly that this was going to be a long call. Then Bridge’s voice again, “What did you have for dinner?”

“I didn’t have dinner. I felt too much like I was going to be sick, and then I was. Loads. And I feel like I’m going to be sick again, except I don’t think there’s any sick left to be. So I’m just sweating and heaving.”

Bridge thought for a moment. “It’s all right to be nervous…”

“This isn’t nervous, Bridge. This is my body telling me something is profoundly wrong.”

“Well.” She thought for another moment. “Take some milk of magnesia?”

Another wave of nausea swept over me. “No, I mean profoundly wrong emotionally.”

“It’ll calm your stomach down,” she insisted.

Still feeling wobbly in six different ways for six different reasons, I crawled upright and checked my bathroom cabinet. “I don’t have any. I have”—I took another look—“ibuprofen and Bonjela.”

“I’ll bring you something.” I could already hear her getting out of bed.

“You don’t have to. Not bring something. I mean, you should stay at home in your home where you live with your husband who you’re married to.”