And she’s right. There’s a rural feel to the peninsula; the Welsh hills are only across the River Dee. My dress is rather country-style, too. Floaty, off the shoulder, white, and a faux daisy chain in my curled hair. I’m our Kit’s best woman, rather than a groomsmaid, but he’s relieved me of doing a speech later, bless him. He ordered a small bunch of fresh daisies for me to hold, knowing how much I like – well, need – something in my hands these days, and he’s simply delighted I’m here with a smile on my face.

And I am. Smiling.

For our Kit.

There’s nobody I want to be happier than my little brother. He’s the best person I’ve ever had the privilege to know, and he’s in love. He’s loved. I might be sad inside, but it’s easy to smile today.

I usher the guests having a quick ciggie inside. My mum and my nan link arms and my dad leads them to the front row. Yesterday, I spent the day here with Kit and Gareth, decorating the grand hallway where the ceremony is taking place. Ivy entwines the banisters and creates a beautiful archway at the bottom of the stairs. It was a team effort, and we only took a break when the pizzas arrived. We laid out eighty chairs, forty on each side. Now, they’re almost full.

‘Alright Chloe,’ a man says, touching my shoulder. I don’t recognise him. ‘You haven’t changed a bit. Must be twenty years since I last saw you.’

‘I was a redhead twenty years ago,’ I say with a smile and a forced singsong in my voice.

‘Blondes have more fun, eh?’

I laugh, wishing I was sixteen again and experimenting with hair colour.

I wave at a few faces I do recognise, peering through a window to my past. Our Kit’s school mates who I bossed around as a kid and avoided as a teenager. His uni pals I went out drinking with when I visited him during his three years in Manchester. Relatives we saw lots when me and our Kit were little, and never now we’re grown up. I walk down the aisle and take a seat in the front row beside my mum and dad. I keep waving, say a few hellos. I don’t want anybody’s pity, anybody feeling sorry for the poor sister whose boyfriend died. Unless they don’t know. Which is worse – it arouses that dark, sunken feeling that Jack never existed.

Jack.

My recent mission to connect with him had failed. I knew we didn’t have everything in common. I mean, who does? It’s where our banter lay. It made us find adorable silliness in each other. Or was that the picture I’d painted, perhaps? In what Kit had called my ‘little Chloe bubble’?