Work Text:
By 11:30, Andrea had approved two features for the October issue and sent back a profile because the writer had somehow managed to make an Oscar-winning actress sound like a regional bank manager. It was, in other words, a perfectly ordinary morning at Runway.
Jin came through the open door carrying a leather correspondence tray against one hip, her expression giving nothing away.
“Mail.”
Andrea glanced up from the layout spread across her desk. “Anything requiring an actual decision?”
“Three dinners, two launches, something from the Costume Institute, a fragrance thing in Paris, and an invitation to a private screening.”
Jin set the tray down neatly beside Andrea’s keyboard. Most of the envelopes were immediately recognisable by their logos, embossed lettering or aggressively expensive restraint. Andrea had long ago stopped opening all of them herself, but there were still enough personal ones mixed through that Jin brought the important-looking pieces in rather than sorting them into the office machinery downstairs.
Andrea reached for the Costume Institute envelope first. The screening went into the no pile within thirty seconds. A jewellery dinner survived marginally longer. She made a note beside the Paris invitation and slid another envelope towards Jin’s side of the desk to have details checked before committing.
One remained.
It had been placed at the bottom of the tray, perhaps because it did not carry a company name. Heavy cream stock, her name written by hand in dark ink across the front, the calligraphy elegant without becoming ostentatious. The envelope itself was thick enough that Andrea could feel the weight of whatever sat inside before she even picked it up.
There was something vaguely familiar about the handwriting, although she knew almost immediately that she was imagining it. Nobody she knew wrote like that anymore. Nobody except professional calligraphers, wedding stationers and people who had developed very strong feelings about fountain pens.
Andrea turned the envelope over.
Her attention snagged on the small embossed initials pressed into the flap.
E.C.
For one irrational second, she simply held it.
It did not have to mean anything. There were thousands of people with those initials in New York alone, probably dozens who had some reason to invite the editor of Runway somewhere. Andrea had spent years reaching a point where the sight of two letters could no longer alter the temperature of a room, and she was not about to discover at forty-something that she had somehow failed.
She took the letter opener from beside her keyboard and slid it beneath the flap.
Inside was a single card on even heavier stock. Minimal border. Black lettering. No photographs, no ribbons, nothing trying too hard to announce the fact that somebody had spent an obscene amount of money making paper look effortless.
Andrea unfolded it.
You are cordially invited to celebrate the marriage of
Emily Charlton
and
Benjamin Barnes.
Her eyes stopped there.
For several seconds, she was aware of absolutely nothing else. The muted traffic beyond the glass, the soft movement of people outside her office, the phone on Jin’s desk beginning to ring and being answered almost immediately, all of it continued somewhere beyond the page in her hands.
Andrea read the names again.
Emily Charlton
Benjamin Barnes
She had known Emily was seeing someone.
It had been difficult not to know. Benjamin Barnes had appeared beside Emily at enough events over the last three years to move from rumour to assumption to established fact, and Andrea had seen photographs. She had read his name in captions. She had once found herself staring at a picture of the two of them outside some charity dinner for long enough that her phone had dimmed in her hand.
None of that had involved marriage.
She lowered the card slightly, then lifted it again as though the wording might have altered.
It had not.
You are cordially invited to celebrate the marriage of Emily Charlton and Benjamin Barnes.
Andrea became aware that her thumb was pressed too hard into the edge of the card and deliberately loosened it.
There had always been a certain cruelty to Emily's name when it appeared somewhere unexpectedly. An email chain, a seating plan, an article, a photograph attached to a piece about Coach. Andrea had become good at absorbing those moments without allowing them to become anything larger. Emily existed. Andrea existed. They occupied overlapping professional circles and occasionally the same rooms, and that had been true for long enough that it no longer required analysis.
Andrea forced herself to look further down the invitation.
September fifteenth. Late afternoon ceremony. A venue in the Hudson Valley she recognised immediately, because Runway had once shot there and because Emily had mentioned it years ago.
Andrea's hand went still.
That memory had no business being intact. She was twenty-two again for half a second, lying crosswise across Emily’s bed with one foot hanging over the edge while Emily sat against the headboard in one of Andrea’s shirts, talking with the distracted certainty she applied to subjects she had already decided were facts. The venue had come up because of a magazine spread, Andrea thought, or perhaps because somebody famous had married there. Emily had said she liked the grounds but hated the chairs they used for outdoor ceremonies. Andrea had laughed at her for having opinions about chairs at a wedding she was not planning.
The memory came back with an unpleasant amount of detail.
Andrea folded the card closed.
“Andrea.” Nigel's voice arrived from the doorway almost simultaneously. “Oh, good, you got one too.”
Andrea looked up.
Nigel had one hand against the doorframe and another envelope tucked beneath his arm, identical cream card visible between his fingers. He walked into the office without waiting to be invited, which was a privilege he had been exercising for a while now.
“Miranda got hers this morning,” he continued. “Apparently Amari did as well. Charlie, I assume, too.” Andrea said nothing. Nigel was already examining the invitation in his hand. “Must be a business acquaintance thing. Old Runway people. Very tasteful, actually.”
Andrea kept her eyes on the closed card.
Nigel continued for another few seconds before the silence apparently became strange enough to penetrate even his own commentary.
He stopped. “Andrea?” She looked at him. His expression changed almost imperceptibly. “Oh.”
Andrea felt something defensive rise before he had even said anything.
“What?”
Nigel lowered the invitation.
“Are you all right?”
“Of course I’m all right.”
He gave her a look.
Andrea hated that look. It contained approximately twenty years of knowing her, several years of knowing Emily independently, and far too much information about the comparatively brief period in which those two categories had become inseparable.
She placed the invitation on the desk with deliberate care.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Nigel sat down opposite her.
Andrea sighed.
“Nigel.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re thinking very loudly.”
“I’m trying to work out whether I’m meant to pretend I don’t remember.”
“There’s nothing to remember.”
His eyebrows rose.
Andrea leaned back in her chair, immediately irritated by the way that answer had sounded. Too quick, too absolute. It invited precisely the scrutiny she did not want.
She corrected course.
“What Emily and I had was twenty years ago. We were twenty-two, twenty-three. It was misguided and silly and juvenile, and it ended because it was supposed to end.” Nigel watched her. Andrea gestured towards the invitation. “She has a life. I have a life. This isn’t some great unfinished tragedy.”
“No,” Nigel said mildly.
She looked away from him and reached for the RSVP card. The paper was just as expensive as everything else.
Nigel watched her turn it over.
“You’re actually going?”
Andrea found the box beside accepts with pleasure.
“Of course I am.”
He did not answer immediately. Andrea picked up her pen. It should not have felt consequential. It was a wedding invitation, not a treaty. Emily had invited her. Andrea would attend. Adults did this all the time. People once involved with each other eventually married other people and sometimes those people attended because enough time had passed.
Twenty years was enough time.
It had to be.
Andrea marked the card. Nigel looked at the small black tick.
“You’re sure?”
Andrea capped her pen.
“Yes.”
There was no point examining the decision after making it. That was one thing she had learned from Miranda, although Miranda would probably have phrased it with considerably less introspection and substantially more contempt.
Andrea pressed the intercom.
“Jin.” A moment later, her assistant appeared. Andrea held out the RSVP card. “Can you make sure this goes out today?”
Jin took it without looking at the front. “Sure.”
“Thank you.”
She disappeared again. Nigel remained where he was. Andrea picked up the layout she had been reviewing before the mail arrived and found that the photograph in front of her had become briefly incomprehensible.
“You can stop looking at me like that.”
Nigel rose, smoothing the front of his jacket.
“If you say so.”
Andrea glanced up at him.
He paused at the door. For once, he seemed to decide against whatever he had been about to add. When he left, Andrea waited until his footsteps had disappeared into the surrounding office before looking down at the invitation again.
She knew exactly how long it had been since Emily had last kissed her. She knew the apartment they had been standing in, what Emily had been wearing and the ridiculous argument that had preceded it. She knew that Emily had left a toothbrush at Andrea’s place for nearly four months while insisting she did not live there, and that Andrea had once carried a specific brand of tea across Manhattan because Emily had complained twice about the one in Andrea’s cupboard. She knew where Emily had wanted to get married before either of them had been old enough to admit they might someday want to marry anyone.
Apparently, Andrea knew the venue too.
She closed the invitation again and slid it beneath the stack of layouts until the cream edge disappeared completely.
Then she went back to work.
By September fifteenth, Andrea had managed to spend almost four months proving to herself that attending Emily Charlton’s wedding was an entirely ordinary thing to do.
The proof had survived remarkably well in Manhattan. It had survived the dress fitting she had not technically needed because she already owned several perfectly appropriate dresses, the hotel booking Nigel made and then cancelled when Miranda decided they would all use a car, and the gradual accumulation of wedding-related information that reached Andrea without her seeking any of it. Serena was a bridesmaid. The ceremony would be outside if the weather held. Emily had apparently refused peonies because they were overused. Benjamin Barnes had a best man Andrea vaguely recognised from photographs and no professional reason whatsoever to know by name.
Andrea had received all of this information with the detached interest of someone discussing a colleague’s wedding.
It was considerably harder to maintain once the car turned through a set of wrought-iron gates and the venue appeared at the end of a long drive.
The manor sat back from the road behind acres of clipped lawn and old trees beginning to show the first signs of autumn, large without being ostentatious, pale stone softened by ivy and tall windows reflecting the clear September afternoon. Staff directed arriving cars towards the entrance while guests crossed the gravel in formal clothes, champagne already appearing on silver trays near the terrace.
Beside Andrea, Nigel adjusted his cuff.
“You’ve been very quiet.”
Miranda sat opposite them, scrolling through something on her phone with the expression of a woman who did not care for any small talk.
“Perhaps Andrea is conserving her energy,” she said.
The car stopped before Andrea could decide whether either of them deserved an answer. Outside, the weather had conspired to be perfect. Clear blue sky, warm sun without the heaviness of summer, enough of a breeze to move the trees around the edge of the property. Andrea stepped onto the gravel and immediately found herself looking towards the manor as though Emily might be standing at one of the windows.
She wasn’t.
Of course she wasn’t. Brides did not generally hover near entrances to inspect arriving guests, and Emily certainly would not. Somewhere inside that building, she was being zipped, pinned, powdered and generally prepared for the best day of her life.
Andrea had no reason to picture any of it.
She pictured it anyway.
Nigel came around the car behind her. Miranda was already walking towards the terrace.
“Still time to develop food poisoning,” he murmured.
Andrea started after Miranda. “I’m fine.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t.”
She ignored him.
The reception before the ceremony was scattered across the terrace and adjoining lawns, elegant enough that Andrea could immediately see Emily in it despite not having seen Emily herself. White flowers without the enormous sculptural arrangements Andrea had expected, low tables, pale linen, champagne in actual glasses rather than the increasingly fashionable coupes that were impossible to hold while speaking to anyone. A string quartet was positioned far enough away that conversation remained possible.
It was beautiful, in a very irritating way.
Andrea accepted champagne from a passing waiter largely because Nigel did, and within ten minutes she had accumulated enough familiar faces to avoid thinking about why she was there. Serena appeared first, immaculate in dark green silk. She hugged Nigel, kissed Miranda’s cheek, then turned to Andrea with genuine warmth.
“You came.”
The wording caught slightly.
Andrea smiled. “I was invited.”
Serena looked at her for one brief second before smiling back. “She’ll be glad.”
Andrea took a sip of champagne. Before she could decide whether to ask how Emily was, someone called Serena’s name from the house.
“That’s me.” Serena touched Andrea’s arm as she turned away. “See you after.”
Andrea watched her disappear through the open doors.
“She’ll be glad,” Nigel repeated quietly.
“Don’t.”
He smiled into his glass and wandered away to greet someone from Bergdorf.
Andrea remained where she was for a moment, looking across the lawn. There were people she knew everywhere. Editors. Designers. Executives. A singer Andrea had interviewed twice. Several technology people whose fortunes had apparently granted them access to every event in fashion despite none of them ever dressing particularly well. Charlie was near the bar talking to Amari, who had somehow managed to wear cream to a wedding without it looking remotely bridal. Miranda had already joined them, and from Charlie’s expression she had been criticising something for at least thirty seconds.
It should have helped.
Andrea knew how to inhabit rooms like this. She had spent most of her adult life learning to move through them, first beside Miranda and then without her. There was always somebody to greet, somebody to avoid, somebody whose latest project required just enough conversation to remain useful. For a little while, Andrea let herself do exactly that.
Then she saw the children.
They were sitting together on a low stone wall near the far end of the terrace, separated from the nearest cluster of adults by several feet and displaying the unmistakable air of two people who did not necessarily want to be there.
Andrea knew them from photographs.
Bronwyn was fifteen now, tall and fine-boned, her dark blonde hair pinned back from a face Andrea had always thought belonged predominantly to Emily. In person, the resemblance was stronger. Not exact, but enough that Andrea felt it before she had time to prepare for it. The same eyes. The same ability to look across a crowded space as though whatever had attracted her attention bored her senseless.
Roark, thirteen, was beside her with his tie already loosened. He was saying something under his breath that made Bronwyn glance sideways at him without moving anything except her eyes.
Andrea nearly laughed.
That was Emily too.
Something under her ribs shifted unpleasantly.
She had seen the children before, technically. Photographs online. A Christmas card Nigel had once shown her without thinking. One distant glimpse of Bronwyn with Emily outside a restaurant several years earlier. They had never been people Andrea knew. They belonged to that part of Emily’s life Andrea had trained herself not to examine too closely, along with school runs and family holidays and the thousand small domestic things that accumulated around a person once their life moved beyond the shape it had held at twenty-three.
Now they were sitting thirty feet away from her.
Bronwyn looked up. Their eyes met. There was a moment of slight recognition before she said something to her brother. Roark followed her gaze.
Andrea considered pretending she had not noticed.
That lasted approximately half a second.
She crossed the terrace. Bronwyn stood first. Roark took another moment, apparently deciding whether manners required it, then got up as well.
“Hi,” Andrea said. “I’m Andrea.”
Bronwyn gave her a look that suggested she knew perfectly well who Andrea was.
“Bronwyn.” Something almost amused moved around the girl’s mouth. “This is Roark.”
He held out his hand to Andrea with the grave formality of somebody parodying an adult greeting while still technically performing one.
“Roark.”
Andrea shook it. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
Up close, the resemblance became worse.
Roark had Emily’s mouth and something of her restless physical manner, shifting his weight as though remaining still was a temporary inconvenience. Bronwyn was more controlled, but there was an unnerving familiarity in the way she watched Andrea before speaking.
“Mum mentions you sometimes,” Bronwyn said. Roark turned his head. Bronwyn looked at him. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Andrea’s fingers tightened slightly around the stem of her glass.
She could have asked. It would have been very easy. What does she say? How often? In what context? Does she mention me casually, the way people mention an old colleague, or does my name still require some specific change in her voice that her children have learned to recognise? Andrea did not ask fifteen-year-olds to provide intelligence on their mother’s emotional life at said mother’s wedding.
“That’s either very flattering or slightly concerning.”
“I mean,” Bronwyn considered that. “Probably both.”
There it was again.
Emily.
Andrea looked between them and experienced a brief, almost dizzying sense of temporal confusion. Twenty years had happened. Emily had gone from a woman who used to leave hairpins on Andrea’s bathroom counter to someone with two nearly grown children who carried pieces of her around in their faces and gestures.
There should have been comfort in seeing evidence that Emily had built a life. Instead Andrea’s mind betrayed her completely.
She saw a kitchen.
Not this manor, not the expensive rooms behind them. Something smaller. Somewhere outside the city, perhaps, although the idea of convincing Emily Charlton to live full-time in the suburbs was absurd enough that Andrea nearly dismissed the entire thing on principle. There would have been school bags on chairs despite repeated instructions not to leave them there. Roark complaining about breakfast, Bronwyn coming downstairs late and entirely unimpressed by everyone. Andrea reading something for work at the table while Emily complained that nobody except her understood the purpose of a laundry basket.
A cat would have been on the counter.
Definitely a cat.
Emily had always been a cat person, despite claiming for years that she did not have time for pets. A sleek black thing, probably, spoiled beyond reason and nominally belonging to Andrea because Emily would have insisted she had never agreed to it while allowing it to sleep on her pillow every night.
Andrea could see it with such appalling clarity that her stomach turned.
She had no right to imagine herself in Emily’s life that way. Worse, she had no idea where the image had come from. Andrea had never seriously discussed children with Emily. They had barely been old enough to discuss next Christmas. Their relationship had existed in rented apartments, late-night takeout, work schedules and the kind of certainty that came from being young enough to assume anything intense must also be permanent.
There had never been a house.
There had never been children.
There had certainly never been a cat.
Yet Andrea looked at Bronwyn and Roark and thought, with a suddenness that frightened her, that she could have loved them. Not these exact children, obviously - That was not how lives worked. The thought was irrational enough to border on grotesque, taking Emily’s actual family and inserting herself into a place that had never belonged to her.
Still, beneath it sat something simpler and considerably more painful. She could have had a life with Emily. The possibility had existed once. Perhaps only briefly. Perhaps they would have destroyed it within a year. Perhaps they had been exactly what Andrea had told Nigel they were, misguided and silly and juvenile, two young women confusing intensity with compatibility until adulthood pulled them apart.
But for one ugly second, Andrea wanted the version where they had been wrong about that.
A woman Andrea assumed was part of the wedding staff appeared at the terrace doors and called the children’s names. Bronwyn checked the time on her phone.
“We’re supposed to do photos.”
Roark made no attempt to conceal his despair.
Bronwyn stepped down from the wall. “It was nice meeting you.”
“You too.”
Roark followed his sister, not bothering with separate goodbyes. Andrea watched them cross the terrace together, Bronwyn saying something low to him while Roark apparently defended himself. They disappeared through the doors into the house. For several seconds, Andrea remained facing the empty space where they had been. Her champagne had gone warm in her hand. She set it on the nearest tray.
The terrace suddenly felt crowded in a way it had not five minutes earlier. Conversations overlapped around her. Somebody laughed too loudly nearby. The quartet had shifted into another piece, and from somewhere inside the house came a burst of movement as staff began directing people towards the ceremony lawn.
Andrea swallowed.
Her stomach gave another unpleasant roll. Nigel appeared beside her, apparently summoned by whatever instinct had allowed him to locate Andrea’s distress from across ballrooms for decades.
“I saw you met the children.” Andrea nodded. “Charming, aren’t they?”
“They look like her.”
Nigel glanced towards the house. “Yes.”
Andrea hated how little effort the word required from him. She picked up another glass of champagne from a passing tray and immediately realised she did not want it.
“I’m going to find the bathroom.”
Nigel looked at her face.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No.”
His expression softened. Andrea wished it wouldn’t.
“I’m fine,” she said, quieter this time. “I just need a minute.”
Nigel nodded.
She left before he could say anything else.
The guest bathroom should have been easy to find. There were discreet signs inside the house and enough staff positioned throughout the ground floor that Andrea could have asked any one of them. Instead she took a wrong turn almost immediately, found herself in a corridor that appeared to lead towards private rooms and kept walking because turning around would have meant passing the same cluster of guests twice.
The further she went, the quieter it became.
She passed a closed drawing room, a narrow staircase, two doors she did not investigate and a table covered with emergency wedding supplies that suggested she had wandered somewhere guests were not expected. Somewhere above her, footsteps crossed a room quickly.
Andrea stopped.
She pressed two fingers beneath her ribs and breathed carefully. This had been stupid. Nigel had asked her months ago whether she was actually going, and Andrea had said yes because saying anything else would have meant admitting there was a reason she could not. She had treated attendance like an exam she could pass. She would sit politely through Emily promising herself to somebody else, drink champagne afterwards, compliment the flowers, hug the bride if circumstances required it and leave with incontrovertible evidence that whatever Emily had once been to her belonged exactly where Andrea had placed it.
In the past.
Andrea shut her eyes.
“Fuck.”
She opened them again and continued down the corridor.
At the end was a small brass plaque.
Bathroom
Andrea pushed through the door with considerably more force than necessary and found an empty room, cool and quiet, with marble sinks along one wall and three cubicles opposite them.
Thank God.
She went into the furthest cubicle, locked the door and sat down on the closed lid without bothering to arrange her dress properly beneath her. For the first time that day, there was nobody looking at her. Andrea bent forward and pressed her hands over her face.
She had not expected this.
That was the humiliating part. She had expected discomfort, perhaps. A small sting when Emily appeared in the dress. A few memories she could manage privately and then put away again. She had not expected to spend the afternoon imagining children that had never existed, houses they had never bought and a stupid black cat sleeping between them in a bed they had never shared.
She had not expected to feel grief for something that had never happened.
Andrea stayed there until her breathing evened out and the pressure behind her eyes receded enough that she trusted herself in front of a mirror. Then, somewhere beyond the cubicle, the bathroom door opened.
Andrea went completely still.
Footsteps crossed the tile, the door closed again, a tap turned on. Andrea waited, listening to the steady rush of water into the basin, and wondered briefly whether she could remain exactly where she was until whoever had entered finished and left. The water kept running.
Andrea frowned.
A few more seconds passed. Then she heard someone breathe out, shaky and controlled at once, followed by the faint movement of bracelets or jewellery against porcelain. Something about it made Andrea stop thinking about her own embarrassment.
She stood, smoothed her dress and unlocked the cubicle. The door swung inward and Andrea stepped out, looked towards the sinks.
Emily Charlton was standing at the middle sink with both wrists beneath the running tap.
For one second, Andrea thought the sight had to be some trick of timing, her brain furnishing exactly the person she least needed to see because she had spent the last twenty minutes thinking about her too intensely. Then Emily lifted her head and their eyes met in the mirror, and startled hard enough that water splashed across the marble.
“Jesus fuck.”
Andrea stopped where she was.
“Sorry. God, Emily, I’m sorry. I didn’t know this was private, I couldn’t find the guest bathroom and I took a wrong turn, and then I was already in here before I realised I probably shouldn’t be.”
Emily stared at her reflection for another second, breathing a little too quickly. Then the familiar machinery returned. Her shoulders settled. Her mouth tightened. She removed her wrists from beneath the tap, turned it off and reached for a hand towel.
“It’s fine.”
Andrea nodded too quickly. “Right.”
Emily dried her hands.
Andrea had imagined seeing her in the dress several times despite making an active effort not to. Every version had been wrong.
The gown was ivory rather than white, clean through the bodice and softer through the skirt, structured enough to look deliberate without making Emily appear trapped inside it. The neckline sat low across her collarbones. The sleeves were sheer and fitted to the wrist, fine embroidery becoming visible only when the light caught it. There was no enormous veil or excessive train.
Her hair had been swept back from her face, blonde now rather than the red Andrea still occasionally expected when thinking about her too quickly. Small pieces had already worked loose near her temples. The makeup was immaculate, although Andrea could see where some of the colour had gone from Emily’s face beneath it.
She looked beautiful.
The thought arrived so simply that Andrea had nothing to defend herself with.
Emily folded the towel once and placed it beside the sink.
“How are you?”
Andrea almost laughed. It was so absurdly polite.
“Fine.”
Emily nodded. “Good.”
Andrea looked at the cold water still beading along Emily’s fingers where she hadn’t dried them well enough.
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
Neither of them moved.
Andrea became conscious of the closed bathroom door behind her, the distant murmur of wedding guests somewhere beyond several corridors, the fact that Emily was dressed to marry someone else and standing three feet away from her looking as though she had been trying not to be sick.
She should leave.
That would have been the sensible thing to do. Apologise once more, wish Emily well and get back to the ceremony before either of them said anything requiring future analysis.
Instead Andrea looked at the dress again.
Emily noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was clearly something.”
Andrea shook her head. “You look incredible.”
Emily's expression shifted.
For all the years between them, Andrea suddenly remembered exactly how Emily used to react to sincere compliments when there was nobody else around. A brief loss of composure, almost irritation at having been caught pleased by something, followed by an attempt to make the moment smaller.
“Thank you.”
Andrea smiled faintly. “You’re welcome.”
The dress drew her attention again, and with it came another memory she had not asked for.
Emily in bed, twenty-two and furious because a celebrity wedding had been photographed badly. Emily explaining that if she ever got married, nobody would be allowed to use baby's breath because it looked cheap. Emily saying she wanted no sleeves, then changing her mind six months later because she had seen a photograph of some French actress in lace and decided sleeves could be acceptable if people knew what they were doing.
Andrea had laughed through most of those conversations.
Not because she thought Emily’s ideas were ridiculous. Mostly because Emily discussed hypothetical weddings with the same seriousness she applied to international fashion weeks despite insisting she had absolutely no interest in getting married anytime soon.
Andrea looked at the embroidery along Emily’s sleeve.
“Is it how you imagined it?”
Emily went very still.
Andrea immediately wished she could take the question back. It was too intimate, too specific. It reached past twenty years of carefully moderated acquaintance and put them straight back into dim bedrooms where Emily had once talked about things she claimed not to care about.
Emily gave a small, incredulous laugh. Then it disappeared. She looked at herself in the mirror rather than at Andrea.
“Yeah.” A pause. “Almost.”
Andrea felt the word somewhere low in her chest. She had no idea what to do with it.
Emily inhaled slowly and turned away from the mirror.
“I didn’t think you’d actually come.”
Andrea blinked.
“Okay.”
Emily's gaze flickered over her face. Andrea tried to understand what response was expected.
“Would you have preferred me not to?”
Emily shrugged, but there was nothing casual in it.
“I don’t know. I just thought it’d be weird, maybe.”
Andrea frowned.
“You did invite me.”
Emily shut her eyes briefly.
“Well, it’d have been weird not to invite you too.”
The silence that followed made the missing reason almost physical. Andrea looked down. Twenty years. Entire overlapping social and professional circles that had somehow allowed Andrea and Emily to remain adjacent without ever becoming close again.
Of course Emily had invited her. Not inviting her would have required explanation. Inviting her apparently required none.
The bathroom door opened. Andrea turned. Amari came through first and stopped almost immediately.
“Oh.” Miranda appeared behind her. Amari looked from Andrea to Emily, then towards the sinks. “I’m sorry. They told me this one was private, but the other bathroom has a queue and I thought that meant private for the wedding party, which technically I’m adjacent to.”
Her attention shifted fully to Emily.
“Oh my God, the dress.”
Emily's mouth tightened with something that might have been amusement.
“Thank you.”
“No, seriously, the sleeve construction is incredible. Is that hand embroidery?”
Miranda stepped farther into the room and allowed the door to close behind her. Her eyes moved once between Andrea and Emily, then again.
Andrea knew that look.
It was the same expression Miranda used when a junior editor brought her a supposedly finished layout containing a mistake only Miranda had noticed.
Amari was still examining the dress. “The skirt is perfect. I was worried you’d go fuller.”
“Amari.”
Miranda’s voice was calm. Amari looked over.
“Yes?”
“Use the bathroom.”
“Oh. Right.”
She disappeared into one of the cubicles. Miranda moved towards the sink and began washing her hands despite Andrea being reasonably certain she did not need to. Emily stood beside her. Andrea remained near the cubicles, intensely aware that Miranda had inserted herself directly into the space between whatever Andrea and Emily had nearly been discussing.
Miranda looked at their reflections in the mirror. Neither of them spoke. Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“I feel as though Amari and I have interrupted something… substantial.”
Andrea laughed, definitely too quickly.
“No.”
Miranda looked at her. Andrea immediately regretted producing any sound at all. Emily had gone paler. Miranda's attention shifted to her just as there was a flush of water from the cubicle. Amari reappeared and walked to the sink beside Miranda, apparently oblivious to the fact that the room had become unbearable.
“I was going to say, the flowers outside are actually much better than I expected. Whoever did the arrangements understood scale, although I think the ones near the east lawn could have been a little more architectural.”
Miranda took a towel. “We’re leaving.”
Amari looked at her. “I’m washing my hands.”
“Do it quickly.”
“I am.”
Miranda disposed of the towel and headed for the door. Amari glanced at Emily, clearly still wanting to discuss either the flowers or the dress.
Miranda opened the door. “Amari.”
Amari sighed and followed her out. Before the door closed, Miranda looked back once - at Andrea, not Emily.
Then they were gone. The latch clicked into place.
Andrea stared at it for a second before turning back to Emily. The latter was already looking at her. Something in her expression had changed. The composure was still there, but barely. She seemed to be holding herself together through concentration alone.
“She’s mistaken, surely.”
Andrea's stomach tightened. “What?”
Emily looked almost annoyed by the question.
“Miranda.” Andrea waited. Emily swallowed. “You’re not going to tell me to stop the wedding, right?”
Andrea stared at her. The room seemed to reduce itself suddenly to Emily, the dress and the engagement ring visible against her left hand. Andrea laughed because she could not think of anything else to do.
“Obviously not. Why would I do that?”
Emily gave a small nod.
“Right.”
Andrea heard how false her own answer had sounded. Emily had too. She looked away. Andrea's pulse had become unpleasantly loud.
“Unless you want me to do that.”
Emily looked back at her. Then she snorted softly, the sound almost disbelieving.
“Why would I want you to do that?”
Andrea nodded.
“Exactly. That would be insane, because you clearly love Benji.”
Emily shut her eyes.
“I wish everyone would stop calling him that and just say Benjamin instead.”
Andrea stared at her for half a second.
“Right. Sorry. Benjamin.” Emily opened her eyes again. Andrea tried once more. “You clearly love Benjamin.” Something about the sentence felt wrong in her mouth. She made herself finish it. “Right?”
Emily said nothing. Andrea felt her heart accelerate. The question had not been meant as a test. It had been reassurance, something obvious Emily could confirm so they could both recover and return to the correct version of the day.
Emily looked towards the floor.
“Jesus Christ. Yes, obviously.”
Andrea exhaled.
“Good.”
“We’ve been very happy together. He’s been really good for me.”
“Good.”
“I haven’t felt this happy in ages.”
Andrea nodded eagerly, hating herself for how relieved she was trying to appear.
“That’s good.”
Emily looked at her with something close to irritation. Andrea stopped speaking. Emily leaned back against the sink.
“He makes me feel like I’m twenty-two again.” The words landed between them. Emily's face changed immediately. “I didn’t mean that.” Andrea held very still. “I meant generally. Young. Whatever. It wasn’t a reference to you.”
“Of course.”
Emily rubbed her thumb against the edge of her engagement ring.
“That would be absurd.”
Andrea's throat felt dry.
“Yes.”
Silence returned. This time it was worse. Emily kept looking at her hand. Andrea watched the movement of her thumb around the ring and tried not to think about being twenty-two, about Emily stealing her clothes, about the way she used to fall asleep turned towards Andrea even after arguments, about all the things they had promised casually because neither had understood yet how long twenty years could be.
Emily spoke without looking up.
“I was happy then, though.” Andrea's chest tightened. Emily took a breath. “The happiest I’ve ever been, I think.”
Andrea looked at her. Emily finally lifted her eyes. Everything else in the room seemed to disappear. Andrea should have left it alone - She knew that.
Instead she said, very quietly, “Until Benjamin.” Emily did not answer. Andrea could hear her own pulse in her ears. She swallowed. “Until today.”
Emily's eyes filled so quickly that Andrea almost convinced herself she had imagined it. Her mouth parted. Andrea took one involuntary step closer.
“Em…”
Emily raised a hand.
“No.” Andrea stopped. Emily breathed in sharply and looked away as though the sight of Andrea had become physically difficult. “Do not say whatever you were going to say.”
Andrea's throat tightened.
“I wasn’t…”
“I’m not letting you unravel me right here, right now, on my wedding day.”
The last three words came out lower than the rest. Andrea stared at her.
“I’m not meaning to. I just…”
She stopped. Emily's hand was still lifted slightly between them. Andrea looked at her face, the bridal makeup, the loose strand of blonde hair near her temple, the expression Emily clearly hated having where anyone could see it.
“Emily, why am I even here?”
Emily's hand dropped. Her eyes closed briefly. Andrea waited. When Emily looked at her again, something had given way.
“In a really sick way, this was the last chance I’d ever get to see you on the day I get married, standing in a wedding dress.” Andrea forgot how to breathe. Emily's voice became quieter. “This is the closest I’ll ever get to you and me…”
She stopped. She did not need to finish. Andrea's hand reached blindly for the edge of the marble counter. The room tilted somewhere beneath her feet.
Emily looked down.
Andrea stared at her profile and felt twenty years rearrange themselves with brutal speed. The invitation, the venue.
Almost.
I didn’t think you’d actually come.
She had spent four months treating the wedding as proof that there was nothing left to feel. Emily had invited her because some part of her had wanted Andrea to see her as a bride. Andrea gripped the counter harder.
“What are you saying?” Emily shook her head. “Emily.”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Emily pressed her lips together.
Andrea watched her trying to regain control and recognised the effort immediately. Emily had always become more precise when she was close to losing it. Every movement smaller. Every word selected more carefully.
Now she simply stood there, unable to speak.
Andrea looked down at the floor. This was insane. Miranda had been joking. There were guests waiting outside. Benjamin was waiting somewhere. Bronwyn and Roark were dressed for their mother's wedding. Serena was probably upstairs wondering where the bride had gone. Andrea had absolutely no business being here. She muttered something under her breath.
Emily frowned.
“What?”
Andrea shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“What did you say?”
Andrea closed her eyes. She had been attempting to tell herself to grow a spine. It had not worked particularly well. She opened her eyes again.
“Emily, I can’t do this.” Emily's face tightened. Andrea forced herself onward before courage failed completely. “I can’t stand here and convince you that this is fine and you should get married and go ahead with this. This has obviously been very poor judgment on both of our behalves, and I’m going to leave.”
She turned towards the door.
“Wait.” Andrea stopped. Emily moved faster than she expected and put her hand on the handle before Andrea could reach it. “Don’t go.”
Andrea looked down. The engagement ring caught the light. For several seconds, that was all she could see - A diamond centre stone, round brilliant, set high on a thin platinum band with smaller stones running along either side. Beautiful, expensive and most importantly - wrong.
Andrea stared at it.
Emily noticed. “What?”
Andrea looked closer. “That isn’t the ring.”
Emily's hand went still on the handle. Andrea immediately wished she had kept her mouth shut.
“What?”
“The ring.” Emily stared at her. Andrea could feel her own heartbeat in her fingertips. “You used to say you wanted an emerald cut.” Emily did not move. Andrea continued, quieter now. “Low setting. Platinum. Tapered baguettes.”
Emily's eyes changed. Andrea looked up. Too blue, far too close. She could see the exact point where Emily's lipstick had faded slightly near the inside of her bottom lip, the tiny movement in her throat when she swallowed.
Emily's eyes were wet.
Neither of them looked away. Andrea could not remember who moved first. Perhaps neither did. There was only the small shift of distance between them, Emily's hand leaving the door handle, Andrea's fingers catching lightly at her wrist, and then Emily was kissing her.
Softly.
That was the worst part. There was no panic in it. No desperate collision, no attempt to make up for twenty years in ten seconds. Emily's mouth touched hers with the terrible familiarity of something Andrea's body recognised before the rest of her had time to object.
Andrea closed her eyes. Her free hand came up to Emily's waist. The fabric beneath her palm was smooth and unfamiliar.
Emily was not.
The kiss deepened by almost nothing, just enough for Andrea to feel Emily exhale against her mouth. Andrea remembered this - Not the exact mechanics of it. Those had changed, inevitably. Time had changed both of them. But there was something in the way Emily leaned closer, in the way her fingers found the side of Andrea's neck, that made twenty years seem temporarily impossible.
Andrea kissed her back.
For one suspended moment, she allowed herself to. Then Emily's ring brushed against her jaw. Andrea opened her eyes and pulled away. Emily stayed close, breathing unevenly. Andrea looked at her and felt guilt arrive so hard it almost made her nauseous.
“I’m sorry.” Emily's expression crumpled for half a second before she controlled it. Andrea lowered her hand from Emily's waist. “I’m so sorry.”
She put her hand over Emily's on the door handle. Emily did not stop her this time. Andrea turned it. The door opened onto the empty corridor. She looked back once. Emily stood beside the sink in her wedding dress, lips slightly parted, one hand still resting on the handle.
Andrea could barely get the words out.
“See you out there. I’m so sorry.”
Then she left.
Andrea made it back to the terrace without remembering most of the walk.
She knew she had passed two members of staff carrying trays, because one of them had stepped aside to let her through. She knew somebody had asked if she was all right and that she had answered yes automatically. By the time the noise of the reception reached her again, she had managed to arrange her face into something she hoped would survive casual inspection.
It did not survive Nigel.
He saw her from across the terrace and broke away from Charlie almost immediately. Andrea stopped near the edge of the lawn, suddenly conscious that her mouth still felt warm.
Nigel reached her and looked at her once. “Good God.”
Andrea frowned. “What?”
“You look pale as a sheet.”
“I’m fine.”
Miranda said nothing. Andrea would have preferred almost anything else. She could feel Miranda looking at her, taking in the colour of her face, the fact that she had returned alone, probably the microscopic evidence of a kiss Andrea herself would have needed a mirror to find.
Nigel remained beside Andrea, offering her a glass of champagne which she gratefully accepted. She took a sip and immediately regretted it. The champagne sat badly against the acid already climbing the back of her throat.
Miranda's gaze shifted towards the house.
“Where is Emily?”
Andrea's fingers tightened around the stem.
“I don’t know.”
Miranda looked at her again. The question beneath the question was obvious and Andrea refused to answer it. Amari, thankfully, either did not notice or decided against involving herself.
“The ceremony’s supposed to start in fifteen minutes.”
Charlie checked his watch. “They’re already moving people over.”
As if on cue, staff began guiding guests from the terrace towards the ceremony lawn beyond the house. The quartet stopped playing. Conversations shifted and thinned as people collected bags, finished drinks and began drifting in the same direction.
Andrea looked towards the doors she had last seen Emily. Nothing. She had said see you out there. It had been such a stupid thing to say, as though Emily would fix her lipstick, take a few breaths, walk outside and marry Benjamin Barnes after Andrea had kissed her against a bathroom door. As though Andrea had not just taken twenty years of carefully contained history and placed it directly in the path of Emily’s wedding.
Nigel touched her elbow.
“Come on.”
Andrea let herself be moved.
The ceremony had been arranged on a broad lawn behind the manor, the chairs divided by a central aisle and facing a simple floral structure positioned beneath an enormous old tree. Beyond it, the grounds fell away towards a stretch of water Andrea had not noticed on arrival. The effect was elegant without looking staged, which she suspected had taken an extraordinary amount of staging to achieve. Their seats were close enough to the front that Andrea could see the wedding party clearly. Miranda sat at the aisle end. Amari beside her, then Charlie, Nigel and Andrea.
Andrea immediately wished she were farther away.
Benjamin stood near the front with his best man. She had seen him before, of course, but always at a distance or in photographs. In person, he looked slightly younger than Andrea expected, although that was probably the result of nerves. Dark suit, no tie, one hand repeatedly adjusting the other cuff. He was handsome in an uncomplicated way and looked genuinely happy.
That hurt more than Andrea had anticipated.
He was not some obvious mistake. There was no easy flaw Andrea could identify and privately use to justify what had happened. He had apparently been kind to Emily. Emily had said they were happy. Bronwyn and Roark had shown no signs of resenting him. He was standing in front of a hundred people waiting to marry a woman he presumably loved, while Andrea sat thirty feet away knowing exactly what Emily’s mouth felt like.
Andrea looked down at her hands. The guilt was immediate and deserved. She shut her eyes for a moment.
Nigel leaned closer.
“What happened?”
Andrea looked at him. His voice had been quiet enough that nobody else could hear.
“Nothing.” Nigel's expression made clear what he thought of that. Andrea turned her attention towards the front. “Not here.”
That was enough to make him stop asking. Five minutes passed, then ten.
The chairs filled around them. Conversations faded into a low, restless murmur. Benjamin checked his watch once and smiled at something his best man said, apparently still unconcerned.
Andrea stared at the aisle.
Her pulse had not settled since leaving the bathroom.
She tried to imagine Emily upstairs doing whatever brides were supposed to be doing in the final minutes before a wedding. Serena adjusting the dress. Someone checking makeup. A planner giving instructions. Emily looking at herself in a mirror and deciding that the last twenty minutes had been a temporary collapse in judgment.
That was what Andrea wanted.
She thought.
Emily had every right to proceed. More than that, Andrea had no right to want otherwise. A kiss did not erase several years with Benjamin. A conversation in a bathroom did not entitle Andrea to become the deciding factor in a marriage she had not been part of. She had left because Emily needed to make whatever decision came next without Andrea standing in front of her.
Now Andrea had to live with that.
Another five minutes passed.
The wedding planner appeared near the side of the ceremony space. Andrea recognised her from the terrace, a woman in a navy suit who had spent most of the afternoon moving with the controlled speed of somebody responsible for preventing several hundred small disasters at once.
She spoke briefly to one of the venue staff. Checked her phone, then checked it again. Andrea's stomach tightened. Beside her, Miranda shifted almost imperceptibly.
“Something’s wrong,” Amari whispered.
Benjamin was no longer smiling. He had stepped away from his best man and was talking to the planner now. Andrea could not hear them, but she could see the moment concern entered his posture. He looked towards the house. The planner said something. Benjamin frowned. Andrea's heartbeat stumbled. Nigel turned slightly towards her but she kept her eyes forward. Serena appeared at the top of the path leading from the house.
Andrea knew before Serena reached the planner.
There was something about the way she was walking. Not rushed, exactly, but stripped of every ceremonial quality she had carried earlier. She went directly to the planner and spoke close to her ear.
The planner shut her eyes, then nodded once. Too quickly. Then again. Andrea felt her heart drop. At almost the same moment, Benjamin saw Serena and his face changed. For one awful second, nobody moved. Then Benjamin stepped towards her, followed by his best man. Andrea could hear the blood moving in her ears.
“What did you do?”
Miranda's voice was very quiet. Andrea looked at her. Miranda had not moved her head. Her eyes remained on the front. Andrea's mouth went dry.
“I don’t know.”
Miranda finally turned. Andrea could not tell whether the answer had been convincing. More importantly, it had also been true - She had no idea what she had done.
The planner was talking to Benjamin now. Serena stood beside them, one hand pressed against her own wrist. Whatever she said made Benjamin look back towards the house again. His expression had gone completely blank.
Andrea wanted to get up. Nigel seemed to sense it because his hand closed briefly over her forearm.
“Stay.” Andrea looked at him. “Just for a minute.”
At the front, Benjamin said something sharp enough that the planner visibly flinched. Serena replied. He looked at her, then down. The best man put a hand on his shoulder. Around them, the guests had begun to notice. The low conversation grew louder, speculation moving through the rows in small waves.
Bronwyn sat forward, Roark looked at her. She looked at her brother and shook her head. Andrea's chest tightened so hard it hurt.
Those were Emily’s children.
Whatever was happening was not taking place in a vacuum. It was happening to them too. To Benjamin. To Serena. To everyone Emily had asked to stand beside her while she made a promise she had apparently stopped being able to make.
Andrea thought suddenly of Emily in the bathroom. This is the closest I’ll ever get to you and me. She felt sick. The planner walked towards the microphone positioned discreetly near the front. The conversations around them faded almost immediately.
“Good afternoon.” A few people shifted in their seats. The planner glanced once towards Serena. “Thank you all for your patience. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, Emily isn’t feeling well and we’re going to need to pause proceedings for today.” A murmur moved through the guests. The planner continued, voice still professional despite the strain in her face. “We appreciate your understanding. The family will be in touch with everyone directly. For now, staff will be available to assist with transportation and anything else you may need.”
Andrea barely heard the final sentence. Her attention had gone to Benjamin. He stood exactly where he had been meant to get married. His best man had moved closer. Serena was saying something to him, quietly. He did not appear to hear her.
Andrea looked away. Immediately, she found four people looking at her. Charlie looked confused, Amari looked alarmed, Nigel looked as though he had worked out enough to be less worried and more curious. Miranda looked unsurprised.
Andrea hated all of them.
“Could everyone stop staring at me?”
Charlie blinked. “I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
“I was definitely staring,” Amari admitted.
Miranda said nothing. Andrea stood.
Nigel caught her wrist. “Where are you going?”
“To find Emily.”
He released her.
The movement around them was becoming chaotic. Guests were standing, turning towards one another, checking phones. Staff moved quickly along the edges of the seating area. Andrea stepped into the aisle and immediately had to stop for a group of people trying to leave in the opposite direction.
She pushed past them.
By the time she reached the manor, the calm precision of the afternoon had collapsed. Nobody knew whether the reception was still happening. Cars were being called. Someone had started directing guests towards the terrace for drinks while the family dealt with whatever had occurred. Andrea caught fragments of speculation everywhere she went.
Food poisoning, panic attack, cold feet.
Andrea went farther down the corridor and found two rooms standing open. One contained garment bags, boxes, shoes and several empty champagne glasses. The other looked like a bridal dressing room, flowers everywhere and mirrors lit around a long table.
Serena appeared in the doorway behind her. Andrea turned to find her looking exhausted.
“Where is she?”
Something changed in Serena's face.
“Andrea.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.” Andrea stared at her. Serena rubbed both hands over her face. “She left.”
“Did she say anything?”
“Just that she couldn’t do it.” Serena sighed, “She just changed and… left. Her phone’s still here.”
Andrea closed her eyes. Serena did not ask what had happened in the bathroom. Perhaps Emily had told her, perhaps she hadn’t. Andrea suspected Serena knew enough.
“Right,” Andrea nodded, more to convinced herself than Serena. “I’m going to find her.”
Serena's gaze returned to her.
“Maybe don’t make this worse.”
Andrea flinched.
“I’m trying not to.”
Serena looked at her for a long moment, then stepped aside.
Andrea left to find Bronwyn and Roark standing out front with Charlie, who was attempting to occupy Roark by letting him inspect something on his phone while Bronwyn watched guests leave.
Andrea stopped in the doorway.
Roark looked at Andrea.
“Do you know where Mum is?”
Andrea's chest tightened.
“No.”
Bronwyn's eyes narrowed slightly. Andrea had the distinct impression she was about to be cross-examined by a smaller Emily.
“Did you see her?”
Charlie looked down at his phone. Andrea understood the gesture for what it was. Privacy, to the extent possible.
“Yes.” Bronwyn waited. Andrea chose her words carefully. “Earlier.”
“In the bathroom?”
Andrea stared at her. Roark looked between them.
“How do you know that?”
Bronwyn shrugged.
“Mum came back upstairs and Serena asked where she’d been. She said the bathroom.” Bronwyn's expression did not change, but something in her eyes sharpened. “Was she upset?”
Andrea swallowed.
“Yes.”
Roark sat up straighter.
“Why?”
Andrea looked at him.
There was no version of the truth suitable for this room.
“I don’t think that’s mine to explain.”
Bronwyn continued watching her. Andrea recognised the look because Emily had used it on her for years whenever she thought Andrea was avoiding an obvious answer.
“Do you know where she would go?”
Bronwyn finally looked away.
“If Mum doesn’t want to be found, you won’t find her.”
That sounded so exactly like something Emily would say that Andrea almost smiled. Andrea tried several more questions and got nowhere. Emily had not contacted either of them. She had left the house less than half an hour earlier. Serena had arranged for the children to go home with someone they knew once things settled.
Andrea thanked them and left before she could make the situation any stranger.
Nigel found her back near the terrace. Most of the guests had gone or were in the process of leaving. Staff were quietly collecting untouched champagne from tables that had been meant for the reception. Andrea stood near the stone wall where she had first met Bronwyn and Roark.
“She’s gone.”
Nigel nodded.
“I heard.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “You know what she’s like. When she’s hurt, she disappears somewhere nobody can get near her.”
Andrea looked towards the gates. “I should keep looking.”
“Where?” She had no answer. Nigel's voice softened. “Andrea.”
“I kissed her.” The words came out before she had fully decided to say them. Nigel went very still. Andrea stared at the lawn. “In the bathroom.”
He took a breath. “All right.”
“She kissed me back.”
Another pause.
“That does complicate things.”
Andrea laughed once, without humour.
“I think that might be the understatement of the century.” Nigel did not disagree. Andrea rubbed at the heel of her hand with her thumb. “I left. I told her I was sorry. I told her I’d see her out here.”
Nigel looked towards the ceremony lawn. “And then she called off the wedding.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know that was because of you.” Andrea turned to him in sheer disbelief. Nigel raised one hand. “I’m not saying it wasn’t. I’m saying Emily is an adult who made a decision.”
“She was meant to marry someone today.”
“I know.”
“And I kissed her.”
“Yes.”
Andrea shut her eyes. Nigel waited. When she opened them again, the terrace looked wrong. Too empty. The flowers were still perfect. The tables were still set. Everything that had been built for a wedding remained in place except the wedding itself.
“I need to get out of here.”
Nigel nodded.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
Andrea shook her head.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Nigel hesitated, then leaned in and kissed her temple. Andrea let him.
“Text me when you get home.”
“I will.”
She found Miranda near the entrance with Amari and Charlie. Miranda looked at Andrea once but did not ask a single question. Andrea was grateful enough for that that she almost said thank you.
Instead she told them she was leaving.
“Andrea.” She turned. Miranda looked towards the house, then back at her. “Whatever Emily has decided today, allow her the dignity of having decided it herself.”
Andrea stared at her. Miranda did not wait for a response, instead she walked off to talk to another group of guests that was undoubtedly discussing what had happened. Andrea stood alone on the gravel for several seconds before opening the Uber app. By the time the car pulled through the gates, the light had begun to change. Andrea watched the venue disappear behind the trees.
For the first half of the drive, she kept checking her phone despite knowing Emily did not have hers. Nothing arrived - no message from Serena, no call from an unknown number, no miraculous explanation. Eventually Andrea put the phone face down on her lap and looked out of the window.
She had eaten almost nothing all day.
The knowledge only became relevant once the adrenaline began to recede, leaving behind exhaustion and a hollow ache beneath her ribs. Halfway back to the city, she asked the driver to stop at a fast food place just off the highway. He looked at her dress in the mirror. Andrea looked back.
“Please.”
Ten minutes later she was carrying a paper bag that smelled strongly of salt and fried potatoes, which felt so absurdly normal that she almost laughed. The rest of the drive passed quietly. It was fully dark by the time the car stopped outside her building. Andrea thanked the driver and got out with her shoes beginning to hurt and the paper bag cooling in one hand. She wanted nothing except to take the dress off, wash her face and spend several hours staring at a wall until her brain stopped replaying the bathroom.
She walked up the short path towards the entrance, then stopped. Someone was sitting on the steps.
Andrea's first thought was that one of her neighbours had locked themselves out. Her second was that the blonde hair looked wrong against the oversized blue sweatshirt. Her third never fully formed.
Emily lifted her head.
The bridal makeup was still there. So was the hair, although most of it had started to fall loose around her shoulders. The dress was gone. In its place were dark joggers, trainers and a faded blue sweatshirt Andrea recognised before she had consciously understood why.
Andrea had bought it twenty years ago. Emily used to steal it so often that Andrea had eventually stopped asking for it back. For several seconds, neither of them spoke. Emily's eyes were swollen. Andrea tightened her grip around the fast food bag.
“What are you doing here?”
Emily stared at her as if the question were unreasonable. Then her face crumpled.
“Where were you?” Andrea stopped breathing. Emily sniffed and wiped angrily beneath one eye. “I’ve been here for two hours.”
Andrea stared at her. Two hours. She thought about the venue, the frantic search through corridors, Serena standing in the bridal room with Emily’s phone in her hand, Bronwyn and Roark looking at her as though she might know where their mother had gone. She thought about the Uber crawling through evening traffic while Emily apparently sat on these steps in twenty-year-old clothing waiting for her to come home.
“You were here?”
Emily gave her an exhausted look.
“Yes, Andrea. That is literally what I just said.”
Andrea almost laughed. The sound caught somewhere in her throat instead. She climbed the remaining steps slowly. Up close, Emily looked worse. The makeup had survived professionally, but the skin beneath her eyes was swollen and pink. Her hair was still pinned in several places, the careful bridal arrangement collapsing around her face in loose blonde sections.
And the sweatshirt.
Andrea could not stop looking at it. It had once been navy. Twenty years and presumably hundreds of washes had faded it into something softer, the cuffs stretched slightly, a tiny white mark near the hem that Andrea remembered acquiring while painting her first apartment after leaving the Mirror.
Emily noticed her staring.
“What?”
“That’s mine.”
Emily looked down at herself, then back up.
“It’s been mine for twenty years.”
Andrea blinked. Something blue. Andrea shut the thought down so quickly it almost hurt. She held up the paper bag instead.
“I have fries.”
Emily stared at it. Andrea had absolutely no idea why that was the relevant information.
“You stopped for food?”
“I was hungry.”
“I was sitting here.”
“I didn’t know you were sitting here.”
Emily pressed her lips together, then gave a small, helpless laugh. It was the first time Andrea had heard her laugh without tension since the bathroom. Andrea looked at her for another second.
“Do you want to come in?”
Emily's smile disappeared. She looked towards the building entrance.
“Yes.” Then she hesitated. Andrea waited. Emily rubbed her palms over the knees of her joggers. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
Andrea looked at her.
“When has that ever stopped you?” Emily let out another laugh, quieter this time, and immediately covered her face with one hand. Andrea saw her shoulders shake once. “Oh, Emily.”
She put the food down on the step. Emily dropped her hand, visibly furious with herself for crying again.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
Andrea crouched in front of her. There was a dark track beneath one of Emily’s eyes where a tear had finally defeated the makeup. Andrea wiped it away with her thumb before thinking about whether she should. Emily went still. Andrea's hand remained against her cheek. Neither of them looked away.
This was different from the bathroom.
There had been too much pressure there, too much panic and white fabric and the knowledge of Benjamin waiting outside. Everything had happened inside a few inches of space neither woman had known how to leave. Now there was only Emily on Andrea’s front step, exhausted and stripped of whatever certainty had carried her through the morning.
Andrea lowered her hand.
“Come inside.”
Emily nodded. Andrea picked up the food and unlocked the door. They did not speak in the lift. Emily leaned against the mirrored wall with her arms folded, looking down at her trainers. Andrea stood beside her and tried not to stare at their reflection together. Twenty years ago, Emily had spent enough nights at Andrea’s apartment that the sight of them in the same lift would not have registered as anything unusual. Now Andrea found herself absurdly aware of the distance between their shoulders.
The lift opened.
Andrea led her down the corridor and unlocked the apartment. Emily stepped inside slowly. Andrea closed the door behind them. For a moment, Emily simply stood in the entryway looking around. Andrea resisted the urge to explain anything. There were books, photographs, furniture accumulated over years, coats in the closet and unread magazines on the table. Evidence of relationships Emily had never been part of and versions of Andrea she had never known.
Emily took off her trainers.
That small act did something strange to Andrea. It was ordinary, far too ordinary. She put the food on the kitchen counter.
“You want water?”
“Yes.”
Andrea filled two glasses. When she turned around, Emily had sat at the end of the sofa. Andrea carried both glasses over and handed one to her. Emily drank nearly half of it immediately. Andrea sat beside her, leaving enough space between them that it could not be mistaken for anything.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Emily looked at the glass in her hands.
Andrea waited.
She had spent the entire journey home imagining explanations. Emily had panicked. Emily had needed time. Emily and Benjamin had spoken and decided to postpone. Emily had realised the wedding was too large, too public, too much.
None of those possibilities explained the sweatshirt. None explained why she was here. Andrea folded her hands loosely in her lap.
“Did you talk to Benjamin?” Emily nodded. “When?”
“Before I left.”
Andrea felt some of the tension in her shoulders ease.
“How is he?”
Emily stared at the water.
“Devastated.” Emily swallowed. “I told him I was sorry. I told him I couldn’t marry him.”
Andrea looked at her profile.
“Because of what happened with us?”
Emily closed her eyes for a second.
“No.” Emily opened them again. “Not exactly.” Andrea had the distinct impression that every word now required effort. “I kissed you and realised something I should have admitted before I ever got as far as putting on that dress.” Andrea's pulse quickened. Emily rubbed her thumb over the side of the glass. “I love him.” Emily continued. “I do. He’s kind. He’s patient with the children. He’s put up with more of my work schedule than any sane person should.” A faint smile touched Andrea’s mouth. Emily saw it and looked away. “We were happy.”
“I believe you.”
“I thought that was enough.” Emily took another drink. “And then I saw you today.”
Andrea looked down at her own hands.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” Emily turned towards her. “Stop apologising.” Andrea met her eyes. Emily's expression was tired but clear now, none of the frantic uncertainty from the bathroom left in it. “You shouldn’t have kissed me.”
“I know.”
“I shouldn’t have kissed you back.”
“I know.”
“But that isn’t why I left.” Andrea said nothing. Emily placed the glass on the table. For a few seconds, she seemed to gather herself, then she leaned back against the sofa and looked at the ceiling. “I left because he’s not you.” Andrea stopped breathing. Emily's eyes closed. “No one’s ever come close to you.”
The words were quieter than Andrea expected.
“I’ve spent the better part of two decades trying to construct something that could be close enough for me to be happy. And I was happy, sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. I don’t want to rewrite my entire life because of one terrible afternoon.” Andrea watched her. Emily opened her eyes again. “But the harder I tried, the more obvious it became that it wasn’t the same.” She looked down. “I’m tired of it.” Andrea's chest tightened. “I can’t be bothered trying anymore.”
There was something painfully Emily about that phrasing, as though twenty years of unresolved love had become an administrative burden she was finally refusing to continue carrying.
“And I’m not saying I want to be with you.” Andrea felt the words hit and forced herself not to react. Emily looked at her quickly. “I mean, I do, obviously, that was a terrible way to phrase that.”
Andrea almost smiled. Emily pressed her fingers briefly to her forehead.
“I’m saying I don’t expect anything from you.” Andrea stayed very still. “You have had an entire life without me. I’m not insane enough to assume I can arrive on your doorstep after twenty years, having just cancelled my wedding, and expect you to still want me because we had one emotionally catastrophic conversation in a bathroom.” Emily looked down at the old sweatshirt. “The fairest thing I can do for myself and Benjamin and everyone else is stop pretending.”
Andrea's throat tightened.
“He deserves someone who looks at him and sees him. Not someone who spends her wedding morning wondering whether the wrong person is sitting outside.” Emily's voice softened. “I think that’s what finally did it.”
“What?”
Emily looked at her.
“I was upstairs after you left.” Andrea waited. “Serena was fixing my lipstick. Everyone kept asking whether I was ready.” Emily's eyes filled again, but this time she did not look away. “And all I could think was that you were sitting outside.”
Andrea felt something twist low in her chest.
“I kept thinking that I could walk down that aisle and never have to see you again in any way that mattered. We could go back to being people who occasionally happen to be at the same dinner. You’d become someone I used to know properly.” She swallowed. “And I realised I couldn’t do it.”
Andrea's hands had started trembling. She tucked them beneath her thighs.
“I’m sorry,” Emily said.
Andrea frowned. “For what?”
“For all of this.”
Andrea shook her head.
“You don’t have to apologise to me.”
“I’ve turned up here looking like this.”
“You’ve looked worse.”
Emily stared at her. Andrea had forgotten how blue Emily’s eyes became after crying.
Emily's voice became quiet again. “I don’t know what happens now.”
Andrea looked at her. “I don’t either.”
“I just needed to tell you why.”
Andrea nodded.
“I’m glad you did.”
Emily looked at her for a long time, waited.Andrea realised, slowly, that she was waiting for something else, maybe for Andrea to say anything that mattered. Andrea's mind had become strangely empty.
There were hundreds of things she could have said. Questions about the intervening years. Explanations for why she had stayed away. A full inventory of relationships that had ended for reasons she had never properly examined because admitting the common denominator would have required admitting Emily remained somewhere inside them.
Instead Andrea heard herself say something else.
“Why?”
Emily frowned.
“Why what?”
Andrea looked at her.
“Why would I not still want you?”
Emily went completely still. Andrea had never seen recognition arrive across someone's face so slowly.
“What?”
Andrea swallowed.
“You keep saying you don’t expect me to still want you.”
“I don’t.” Emily stared at her. “It’s been twenty years.”
“I know how long it’s been.”
“You’ve had relationships.”
“So have you.” Andrea felt something inside herself give up resisting. “I got your invitation and read your name four times.” Emily's face changed. Andrea looked down. “I knew about Benjamin. I’d seen the photographs. I knew you were happy.” She took a breath. “But seeing it written down like that made me feel physically sick.” Emily said nothing. Andrea continued. “I spent four months telling myself I was going because it would prove I’d moved on.” Her voice came quieter now. “I thought I could watch you marry someone else and then I’d finally know for certain.”
“Know what?”
Andrea looked at her.
“That what happened between us was exactly what I told Nigel it was. Something stupid we did when we were twenty-two.” Emily's eyes flickered. “I said it was misguided and juvenile.”
Emily's mouth twitched.
“Then I met Bronwyn and Roark.” Emily's expression softened. Andrea hesitated. This felt harder to admit than the wedding invitation. “I looked at them and started imagining a life I never had.” Andrea looked down, embarrassed despite everything. “There was a cat.”
Emily's eyebrows rose.
“A cat?”
“You always liked cats.”
“I do like cats.”
Andrea laughed softly. Then the weight of what she was admitting returned.
“I stood there looking at your children and thought I could have loved them.” Emily's face crumpled. Andrea's chest tightened. “Not them exactly. I know that makes no sense.”
“I know what you mean.”
“I kept thinking you were the person I loved when I was twenty-three.” Andrea's voice dropped. “Then I saw you today and realised you’re still the person I compare everyone else to.” Andrea looked at her. “And I don’t know what that means tomorrow. I don’t know what it means for next month, or your children, or Benjamin, or anything else.” Emily's eyes were wet again. “But don’t sit here and tell me you’re being realistic because you assume I stopped wanting you.” She swallowed. “I didn’t.”
Emily looked down at her hands. For several seconds, she seemed unable to speak. Andrea waited. Finally, Emily gave a watery laugh.
“This is unbelievably inconvenient.”
Andrea smiled.
“Yes.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Emily rubbed beneath one eye.
“My entire life has just detonated.”
“I know.”
“And you’re sitting there telling me you still want me.”
Andrea shifted slightly closer. The gap between them had narrowed without either acknowledging it. Andrea could smell the remains of Emily’s perfume beneath the colder night air caught in the sweatshirt. Still Ombré Leather, still intoxicating.
Emily's eyes dropped briefly to Andrea's mouth before looking back up at her. Andrea leant in closer almost automatically. This time there was no ring brushing against her face, no wedding dress beneath her hand, no Benjamin waiting outside.
Emily met her halfway.
The kiss was tentative at first, almost careful enough to hurt. Andrea touched her cheek and felt Emily lean into her palm before the kiss deepened slightly.
Twenty years did not disappear. Andrea did not want them to. They were there in every moment of hesitation, in the unfamiliar shape of Emily’s hair beneath her fingers, in the way both of them seemed to be learning something they had once known without thinking. Emily's hand settled lightly against Andrea’s waist.
Andrea kissed her again. Soft, unhurried.
When they separated, Emily kept her forehead against Andrea's. Andrea's thumb moved once beneath Emily’s cheekbone.
“I’m exhausted.” Emily closed her eyes. “And I haven’t eaten.”
Andrea glanced towards the kitchen.
“I have cold fries.”
Emily opened her eyes.
“Charming.”
Andrea smiled. They stayed close for another second before Emily leaned back. Andrea stood and retrieved the paper bag. The fries were, indeed, cold. Emily ate them anyway. Andrea removed the remaining pins from Emily’s hair while Emily sat at the counter, handing them over one by one until the careful bridal arrangement finally collapsed completely.
By midnight, most of the makeup was gone too.
Emily emerged from the bathroom with a clean face, damp hair around her shoulders and Andrea’s faded sweatshirt still hanging from her frame. Andrea looked at her from the sofa. Emily stopped.
“What?”
Andrea smiled faintly.
“I haven’t seen you like this in a long time.”
Emily looked down at herself.
“I look dreadful.”
“You don’t.”
For once, Emily did not argue. Instead, she crossed the room and sat beside Andrea, close enough for their shoulders to touch. Emily looked down at their hands resting between them. Andrea turned her hand over. Emily looked at it, then placed hers inside. Andrea closed her fingers around it.
“We will figure this all out tomorrow.”
Emily looked at their joined hands for several seconds.
“Okay.”
She leaned against Andrea’s shoulder. Andrea rested her cheek lightly against Emily’s hair.
There were no promises beyond that. No attempt to recover twenty years before morning. No declarations about houses or children or cats. Somewhere across the city, Benjamin was hurting. Tomorrow Emily would have to face him, her children, her family and the consequences of a decision she had made in front of hundreds of people.
Andrea knew all of that, and so did Emily.
Still, when Andrea reached for the blanket folded across the back of the sofa, Emily lifted her feet without being asked and tucked them beneath herself exactly as she had done twenty years earlier. Andrea covered them both. Emily's thumb moved once over the back of her hand. For the first time all day, Andrea stopped thinking about the life they had missed.
The one in front of them was enough to begin with.