Nearly two years ago she’d walked up to a church to say goodbye to a man she’d thought she loved and ended up here instead.

Today, she’d walked up to a church to say yes to a man she did love. Yet somehow, she’d ended up, once again, on a park bench in Central Park. The same park bench.

Audrey tipped her head back up to the sky, wishing for the sun to warm the chill coming from within her body. But her wedding day was cloudy, and there was no sun to take away the ache.

She couldn’t do it. She’d thought she could, and sometime in the middle of a sleepless night, she’d even convinced herself that marrying a man for reasons that had nothing to do with love was tolerable. She’d convinced herself as she’d put on the dress, as she’d had her highlighter and lash extensions applied, as she’d sat and watched as a manicurist fixed the chip on her index fingernail. It would be enough. Even being married to a man she loved who didn’t love her back was more than she deserved.

But when she’d stepped out of that limo, it had hit her. She couldn’t get married.

Not because she didn’t deserve marriage. But because she deserved more than the marriage being offered. Audrey had been so focused on the damage she’d done to Claire and Brayden’s relationship, and to a lesser extent to Brayden and Naomi’s, that she hadn’t realized until today that none of the past two years was about Brayden.

It may have been their simmering resentment and borderline hate for Brayden that had brought Naomi, Claire, and Audrey together, but it wasn’t what had kept them together.

It had been love. Love had kept them together. Not love for Brayden, but for one another, three women who’d become like sisters.

And although Audrey cherished the love she had with her friends, she wanted real love, fairy-tale love. She was worthy of it. And she would wait for it.

Audrey exhaled and opened her eyes, taking in the fresh blooms of spring, the damp dirt from last night’s rain, even the openly curious stares from people trying to ascertain why a woman in an enormous white wedding dress was sitting alone on a park bench and not crying. She was too numb for that.

She knew that Claire and Naomi would figure out where she had gone and come for her eventually, but for now, she was glad they’d given her space to think. Or rather space to try not to think about what Clarke must be thinking right now, if he was panicked about his father backing out of the deal or wondering…