There Goes the Bride

by Holly McQueen

  “I didn’t know she was seeing a coun …” Grace bites back her words, as if she knows that the only response she’ll get from me is Well, I didn’t know my little sister slept with my fiancé. “Sorry. Carry on.”

  “There’s not much to carry on with. It’s just that. I’ve been reading her emails. That’s how I found out about the letter. In an email I read last night.”

  “Right. Right. OK.” Grace looks at a total loss to know what to say. She swallows, hard. “Bella, I’m so sorry.”

  “About what? That I found the letter? That I found it the night before the wedding? That Polly wrote the letter at all? That she slept with Christian? That that’s why he dumped me, and that’s why I got in the car that night, and that’s why I was crying so much I smashed into that bloody oak tree, and that’s why …?”

  My voice cracks. I think I need to stop talking.

  In the silence that follows, Grace does a thing that truly astonishes me. She crosses the room, sits down next to me on Polly’s old bed, and puts one of her cool, perfectly manicured hands on top of mine.

  Short of the huge, enveloping bear hug from Liam that I really, really want at this moment, it’s the most comforting thing anyone could possibly do for me.

  “It wasn’t the way you think,” she says softly after a few minutes.

  “How do you know what I think? I don’t even know what I think.”

  “It wasn’t her. I mean, yes, of course, she went along with it. But it was him. It was all him. I mean, she was only seventeen, and he was …” She shrugs. “He was Christian.”

  Yes. Christian. Charismatic. Good-looking. Ten years older than Polly, when he took her to bed.

  “And I don’t know if this will help at all, but it didn’t last long.”

  “Christian never did.”

  Grace lets out a laugh, then stops herself, as if she doesn’t know whether it’s OK to take it as a joke or not. “I mean, things were over pretty quickly between them. It was …” She seems to be thinking about how she can say this in a way that doesn’t make me think she’s being blasé. “… only a handful of occasions.”

  “Did she come down to Bristol to see him?”

  “Mmmm.” I can tell she’s torn between protecting Polly’s secret and—perhaps as someone who’s been cheated on herself recently—telling me what I need to know. “But not at your flat, not after the first time. They’d meet at his brother’s, or at a Holiday Inn. I think Christian thought he was impressing her, taking her to a hotel.”

  Yes, he would have done.

  And I can imagine that Polly would have been duly impressed. The way I was when I first met Christian. The way you are when you can’t quite believe that this gorgeous man is gazing into your eyes and flirting with you. And the way that, temporarily at least, you start to see in yourself what he’s telling you he sees in you.

  “Honestly, though, Bella, she got her act together pretty fast. Not fast enough, maybe. But as soon as it really dawned on her what she was doing, she ended it.”

  “And he wouldn’t accept that she’d ended it.”

  She looks surprised that I know, and then obviously remembers that I’ve read the letter. “Exactly. Which was when Polly and I decided she was going to have to tell you. Which was when she wrote this.” She holds up the letter. “And she would have sent it, too, if it hadn’t been for …”

  “My accident.”

  “Yes. Your accident.”

  I remember now, as clearly as if it was just yesterday, waking up in the hospital right after the emergency surgery. Waking up to Polly, sitting next to my bed. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face deathly white and streaked with the indigo mascara she favored back then. I remember that she was holding my hand, the way Grace is doing now, and that the moment I opened my eyes, she whispered, “I’m sorry, Bella. I’m so, so sorry.”

  If I could turn the clock back ten years to that moment, would I demand of her, like I’ve just demanded of Grace, exactly what it is she’s sorry about? Sorry about sleeping with Christian; about Christian breaking up with me; about me waking up in a hospital bed with no chance, ever, of having a baby?

  Or would I keep holding her hand and tell her that it’s all OK?

  “Because it wasn’t her fault.”

  Wait—was that me who just said that? I suppose it must have been.

  “It wasn’t Polly’s fault.” Definitely me this time. I can feel my mouth moving around the syllables. It’s a little bit like I’ve flicked onto some kind of autopilot. Like my brain has slipped into override—finding letters, words, whole sentences, even, that after all those years of trying to find someone or something to blame for my accident, I would never have thought I could say.

  But here I am, saying them. And more to the point, meaning them.

  “My accident wasn’t Polly’s fault. How could it have been? Was she the one who made me get in the car? Was she the one who made me keep going, even though I knew I was driving dangerously?”

  “Well, no,” says Grace, “of course not. But …”

  “I could have pulled over, howled for an hour at a rest stop, and then carried on without ending up tangled with the tree. Or maybe I would still have ended up tangled with the tree. Maybe I would have blinked at the wrong moment, or been dazzled by a headlight, or swerved to avoid a squirrel. Who knows? I don’t. Polly certainly doesn’t. In fact, now I come to think of it, it’s a little bit typical of her that she’d assume she does know things like that.” I can feel a wry smile inching across my face. “That the universe has her sufficiently at the center of it to make all things within it, good and bad, mostly down to Polly.”

  A flicker of a smile crosses Grace’s face as well. “Fair point. But whatever the reason, she tortured herself with it. I mean, she only met Dev because of the accident. And she already felt horrible enough about betraying you like she did …”

  “She didn’t betray me. Well, OK, maybe she did betray me, a bit.”

  Grace pulls an awkward face. “She slept with your fiancé.”

  “She was seventeen.” It’s that brain-override thing again. “And Christian was ten years older than her. Yes, she was a fool, but we’ve all been fools when it comes to unsuitable men. For crying out loud, I’m twice the age now that Polly was then, and I’m not exactly immune to stupid relationships myself. Wasting my time with someone, even though I know it’s got no future. I’ve betrayed myself just as much as Polly betrayed me.”

  Grace doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then she says, “None of my business, I know, but are you talking about Jamie? Because I couldn’t help noticing he’s not here for the wedding.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” I turn to look at her. “That’s sort of my point. If Polly hadn’t done what she did, I might still be stuck with Christian. Then I would never have met Jamie. And if I hadn’t met Jamie, I would never have met …” I hesitate.

  “Liam?”

  I’m shocked. “You know about me and Liam?”

  But nobody knows about me and Liam. I quite specifically haven’t mentioned a single word about Liam to anyone. Not to Anna, because I’m mindful of the fact that her doctor has told her not to get herself worked up or overexcited about anything. Not to Polly, because I didn’t want to detract her attention from doing anything more arduous than walking down an aisle and just getting bloody married.

  And, I suppose, because I want to keep whatever it is that Liam and I have a little bit protected from the outside world for now. And because if there is going to be a serious future between us—and I know it’s absurdly early, but I really think that maybe there is—then the very first people who should know about it are his daughters. Sally and Chloe, who he’s with back home in Cork, for New Year’s Eve, right now. Who, if everything works out with the job he’s been asked back for a second interview for, should be coming to join him in London as soon as possible in the next few weeks.

  �
��I know there was another gorgeous Irishman at your party on Christmas Eve,” Grace is saying, “who couldn’t take his eyes off you. And I know his name was Liam. I’m just putting two and two together. I’ve no idea if I’m making four.”

  I grin at her. “You’re making four.”

  There’s a flurry of noise in the corridor outside, before the bedroom door suddenly opens.

  Polly is standing in the doorway, wearing her wedding dress. It’s a simple, ivory sheath that I helped her pick out only a couple of days ago, with a shimmer of crystals on the bodice and long, romantic fluted sleeves, to keep out the December chill. Her hair is loose, in glossy waves over her shoulders, and it’s adorned with a single cream rose, to match the ones in the bouquet she’s holding.

  She looks perfectly, completely beautiful.

  I grab the letter from Grace’s hand and slip it, surreptitiously, under the pillow.

  “Guys! The car’s arrived! And I need you to tell me if the makeup is too much. I’m not keen on the eye shadow, but Mum says it’ll look good in the photos, and …” Polly stares at us, as it seems to suddenly dawn on her that we’re sitting next to each other on the bed, and looking … I don’t know … companionable, I suppose, for once. “What’s going on in here?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.” I get to my feet. “Grace was just helping me with my hair. I decided to put it up, actually, if that’s OK with you.”

  “Yes, of course, it’s fine … You look gorgeous, Bells. You too, Gracie.” She glances between the pair of us, her confusion giving way to something different. “I can’t tell you, both of you, how glad I am that you’re my bridesmaids.” She takes a deep, suddenly wobbly breath. “That you’ve both done so much for me, that you’re so happy for me, even though … even though …”

  I take a step forward, put my arms around her, and squeeze her very tightly. “We’re not just happy for you, Dood,” I say quietly, but so that Grace can hear as well. “We’re happy, full stop. Both of us. OK?”

  Polly gulps, squeezes me back, then pulls away just as the car lets out a hoot on the street below. “Shit! Oh, God, that doesn’t sound very bridal, does it? I mean, bother. We need to get going! Are you both ready? Tell me honestly about the eye shadow. No, it’s too much, it’s too much,” she suddenly yelps, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the back of the door. “Dev will think he’s marrying a walking cosmetics counter …”

  She hurtles back to the bathroom, graceful in her long dress, to get Anji to tone down the eye shadow.

  “I’ll go and tell the car we’re on our way down.” Grace gets up and walks to the door. She stops beside me as she gets there and looks at me. “And … um … the letter?”

  I already know exactly what I’m going to do about the letter.

  I go back to the bed, take it out from under the pillow, then lean down and put it in the shoebox, hidden away again where it came from.

  After all, Polly’s forgiven herself, enough to marry Dev and be happy, at least. And as for me … well, it’s like I said to Grace. There’s nothing I feel the need to forgive her for.

  “My life is good,” I tell Grace as I straighten up to look at her. “Actually, it’s pretty great. And there’s no need for the past to get in the way of the future.”

  “So … it’s our secret?”

  I nod. “God. Who’d have ever thought you and me would share a secret?”

  A wide smile lights up her impassive, perfect face. She opens her mouth to say something just as the car hoots again below. “All right, all right, we’re coming! See you down there, Bella.”

  After she’s left the room, it’s very quiet for a moment.

  Then I hear the buzz of my mobile, from inside the satin clutch bag I’ve left on Polly’s dressing table.

  When I open the bag up and take out my phone, I can see that it’s a new text message. Two new text messages, in fact—both of them from Liam.

  The first one is just words: Me and the girls on the beach at Barleycove. We think you’d love it here. L xx

  The second one is a photo. It must have been taken by a kind passerby, because Liam is in it himself. He’s looking freezing, and wind-swept, and very, very happy, with the Atlantic Ocean in the background and his arms around a pair of little dark-haired girls standing in front of him.

  The two sisters are smiling at me, and waving.

  THE END

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to all at Atria Books, especially my (truly terrific) editor, Greer Hendricks, and Sarah Cantin, who are warmth and charm personified, both in transatlantic email form and when I “pop in” for a visit all the way from London. And thanks as ever to Clare Alexander, not only the best agent but also the best coconspirator on the cake front.

  We hope you enjoyed reading this Atria Paperback eBook.

  Sign up for our newsletter and receive special offers, access to bonus content, and info on the latest new releases and other great eBooks from Atria Paperback and Simon & Schuster.

  or visit us online to sign up at

  eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com