by Ali Harris
‘Ready?’ Cal says gently like I’m one of his two-year-old twins.
I DON’T KNOW! I think. ‘Yes, ready!’ I squeak instead.
Cal goes to open the doors of St Withburga’s Church and I start to hyperventilate a little. The thick lace of my dress is making me itch. I resist an urge to claw at my thighs.
‘Take this, will you, bro?’ I say, thrusting my beautiful bright bouquet of yellow primulas (I can’t live without you), blousy honeysuckle ranunculuses (radiant charm) and forsythia (anticipation of an exciting moment). Milly ordered them for me when I called her in a panic because I’d forgotten. She was still at work but went to her local flower shop in Greenwich just before it closed and asked specifically for the yellow wedding flowers I wanted. My handful of sunshine. They kindly made up the bouquets and buttonholes at the last minute and presented them in a vintage wooden crate that had the shop’s name – ‘Cosmos Flowers’ – painted on the side along with a smattering of stars. She and Jay arrived with it at the crack of dawn this morning. Cosmos are my birth flower and, when I saw the name painted on the crate filled with my favourite flowers, it felt like a sign that I was doing the right thing. But now . . .?
Oh God, I feel sick.
‘You OK, Bea?’ Milly repeats as she steadies me.
‘I think my dress is bringing me out in a rash,’ I groan as she tries to locate the itch. ‘Maybe I’m allergic to it?’
Milly grasps my chin and makes me look at her. ‘You have nothing to worry about. All you have to do is walk down that aisle. I’ll be right behind you, OK?’ She lifts up my train and Cal nods in agreement and squeezes my hand.
I take a deep breath and tell myself that most brides feel this amount of fear, doubt and overwhelming anxiety. It’s perfectly normal. But once you get that ring on your finger, all your misgivings fall away. Yep, I’m positive that’s what happens.
‘Adam is the right guy, Bea,’ Cal says as if reading my mind. ‘He always has been. It just took a while for you to realise it. Now, remember, all you have to do is take it one step at a time . . .’
I nod, marvelling at how my little brother got so grown-up. And how I got so scared.
‘Let’s do this thing!’ I squeak and give a little mini air punch for good measure.
Cal heaves open the church door and looks at me. I notice his porcelain-blue eyes so like Loni’s are glistening with emotion as Mendelssohn’s Wedding March floods through the open doors and the guests’ heads execute a perfect Mexican wave as they turn to gawp at me. I take Cal’s arm and smile nervously behind my veil.
‘You look beautiful, sis,’ Cal whispers through his smile as we begin to walk slowly down the aisle. ‘Now,’ he adds with a grin, ‘whatever you do, don’t wee at the end like you did at Auntie Cath’s wedding.’
‘I was three,’ I hiss but I laugh anyway.
As we carry on down the aisle I find myself desperately looking for Dad. No one knows this – not even Cal – but he’s the real reason I was so determined to get married in this church so near my childhood home. I’ve never let go of my dream that it would be here on this special day that we would finally be reunited. I’ve spent months telling myself that even if the invitation I insisted on sending to Cley-next-the-Sea, his last known local address before he disappeared, didn’t reach him, or if he didn’t see the wedding notice Adam put in his favourite national paper, then maybe, through some cosmic connection, he might just sense that his daughter was getting married today. He’d instinctively know that I’d never wanted to get married without him. He’d recall how I told him when I was a little girl that I’d get married in this church one day. He would sense that, even at the age of thirty, I still missed him every day. And that’s why I can’t help but hope, even though I haven’t seen or heard from him for twenty-three years, that maybe, just maybe, he’ll be here to watch his daughter walk down the aisle. I know it’s ridiculous. I know I should just let go, move on, but I’ve never lost hope that my dad will one day come back into my life. Today feels like his last chance, the final milestone before I say goodbye to being his daughter, Bea Bishop, and begin a new life as Mrs Bea Hudson.
My eyes dart desperately over the guests seated either side of me. Caleb squeezes my arm and I know he’s realised who I’m looking for. He tries to understand but Cal has never seemed to feel Dad’s absence as much as I do. My little brother’s always just . . . got on with his life – in an understated but rather incredible way. Not only is Cal a brilliant dad to his two-year-old twin girls, a loving partner of their mum, Lucy, his girlfriend of almost ten years (commitment problems clearly don’t run in the family . . .) but he’s a great support to me. And he lives close to Loni (which means I have the freedom to live where I choose) and on top of all that, he saves lives every single day in his work as a paramedic. In other words, my kid brother, who used to run around wearing Superhero costumes, is now basically a real-life one. Dad would be so proud. It always amazes me that two siblings with the same roots can grow to be so different.
A memory reverberates in my mind as I see an image of Dad, arms outstretched to me.
Come here, my little climber . . .
I feel a sharp jolt of pain as I recall Dad’s nickname for me, given because I was so clingy. I close my eyes for a moment and replay the memory of running into the garden and entwining myself around his legs, looking up at him as he laughed and pulled me into his arms.
I continue to scan the congregation, stumbling as my eyes fill with tears and my heart with disappointment when I realise that of course Dad isn’t here. It was stupid to hold on to such a farfetched dream.
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself sternly. I don’t need him any more. I’ve got Adam now . . .
Everything will be fine if I can just make it to him, but the end of the aisle seems so far away that it is almost in soft focus. Everything goes blurry.
I gasp and briefly put my hand to my forehead whilst trying to keep walking towards Adam. But it’s like I’ve stood up too quickly and someone’s turned the lights out. The itchy dress is unbearable, I feel like I’m being suffocated and my head is ridiculously heavy. A hundred people are looking at me and taking photos, and I realise I’m holding my breath like I’m about to dive into the sea.
I keep taking steps forward. I think I’m still walking down the aisle but it feels more like I’m being pulled back, pulled under.
Drowning.
And then I see him and feel a wave of relief crashing over me. Because there waiting at the end of the aisle for me is Adam. My tall, strong, so-sure-of-himself Adam. He’s standing with his back to me, next to Jay. I stare at his broad, solid silhouette, his perfectly pressed suit and the slightly unruly curl of his dark hair on his crisp white collar. It must be the only thing in his life a little out of place. Unless you count me. He turns then and I stare into his calm wide-set grey eyes that are sheltered by thick, dark, arched eyebrows. He is the calm to my storm, I realise.
I raise my hand and wave at him. He smiles, a gentle beam that starts at the corners of his mouth and then rises like the dawn until it reaches his eyes and burns brightly like the midday sun, bathing mine in light. He nods deliberately, then gestures for me to come to him. Then he turns back to face the priest. So certain of his every move.
I look to my left and it is then that my world collapses like a house of cards. He’s here. Not my dad, like I’d hoped, but another man. A man I’ve spent the last eight years trying to forget. I feel bile rise in my throat as the memories rush at me like a tsunami, flattening every wall I have made, everything I have built to protect me from the past. I can’t believe he is here after all this time.
Kieran Blake. My first real love.
He’s staring at me intently. His face is instantly recognisable, even after all this time. He’s lost the wild, straggly, indie-boy hair he used to have that was streaked blond from years of travelling. It is now shaved in a dark buzz cut, making his forest-green eyes even more dazzling. I try to look
back at Adam, but I can’t. I can’t drag my eyes away from Kieran. He lifts his hand then, swipes it over his head, and it is then that I see the glint of silver on his finger and I’m lost again in the past, taken back to a place, a moment, a time I’ve tried so hard not to return to.
I promise I’ll come back. Once I’ve sorted myself out. Wait for me, please? I’ll wear this ring till then and you wear yours . . .
I look down at my right hand, at the finger where my platinum promise ring used to be until I gave up waiting for him and took it off.
‘Kieran Blake,’ I murmur, and Cal shoots me a look.
‘What did you say?’ Cal whispers, his eyes scanning the congregation until he spots him. He looks at me with horror. ‘Did you invite him?’ I shake my head and, as I do, I stagger sideways. It’s as if my feet don’t want me to go on any more.
I try to move forwards. Why now when I want to be so sure of every step towards my future, do I feel this overwhelming pull to my past? It feels like I’m being torn in two different directions. I push through the doubt and force my vertiginous heels to clip onwards across the cold, tiled floor.
‘Hey, Bea,’ Cal says. ‘Watch ou—’
His warning comes too late. I feel my feet slip and the ground disappears. I hear the wedding guests take a collective gasp as I cry out and am thrust backwards. Cal tries to grab my arm, but he can’t hold me and I crash to the ground.
As I do, I feel my life flash before my eyes, exactly like they say it does when you’re about to die.
Oh God, am I dying? No, surely not. I don’t want my epitaph to be a Daily Mail headline: ‘Tragic size 12 bride dies on wedding day’ (the tragedy clearly being that I was a size 12, not that I died). I’m struggling to stay focused, present, as the searing pain in my head shoots through my body. I’m clinging on to my life. Except . . .
I blink again, feeling my eyes roll backwards into the impending blackness. It’s not my life I’m clinging to; it’s my lives. The one I had before and the one I was heading to up till now. I can make out Adam and Kieran next to me or have I just imagined them? I’m not sure what is happening or where I am, but I feel like I can see the ghostly white shapes of my future and my past grappling with each other in some ethereal fight. One is on my shoulder, like an angel, desperately pulling me forward. The other is dragging me back. Two loves, two possible lives – but which one is mine? Which path am I meant to take? I can’t decide. I drop my head back against the tiles and begin to see stars. Then there’s just black.
Chapter 2
I’m sitting on a chair in the small, cold chapel to the side of the nave, rubbing my head as Cal examines me. It was Adam’s deep soothing voice that pulled me back out of the darkness. I don’t know how long I was out for, or what he was saying, I just know that since I woke up I’ve felt different. Like I’ve lost my anchor and I’m drifting out to sea. Loni, Cal and Adam are flanking me as I clutch my head in my hands. Adam’s parents George and Marion are looking on, as are Milly and Jay. They think I’m just in pain – and they’re right: but not because of the bump to my head.
I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience. The world has rewound and I’m back there, back then, with Kieran on Cromer Pier.
It’s all my fault: my thought applies to both then and now.
Cal pulls my eyelids back and studies my pupils. I feel like I’m about to be interrogated except I’m the one with all the questions. Am I losing my mind? I want to ask him. You did see Kieran, didn’t you? It was him, wasn’t it? He’s here. He’s come back. Seven years later than he promised, but he’s back.
I don’t get any answers from Cal’s drawn eyebrows and frowned concentration.
‘I was worried there for a moment, sis,’ he mutters.
‘That I wasn’t going to make it or make it down the aisle?’ I manage to say.
A muscle strains in his cheek and he shakes his head, then he looks at everyone. ‘No concussion,’ Cal says, smiling as he steps back from me. ‘Or brain damage. If we’re lucky it might even have knocked some sense into her!’ There’s a ripple of relieved laughter from the semicircle of family and friends.
Someone hands Cal an ice pack and he presses it to my forehead. ‘Ow!’
‘Here, let me,’ Adam says and Cal steps obediently away. Adam has that effect on people. They listen to him. I listen to him.
‘Shall we go ahead now then?’ our priest says brightly, clapping his hands and then glancing at his watch.
‘Can you just give us a moment, please?’ I reply shakily, and he looks at me for a beat too long before he ushers everyone out of the chapel. Cal is the last to go, giving me one long lingering look before leaving Adam and me alone.
I look up at at Adam, he kisses my forehead then replaces the ice pack. The contrast of the warmth of his lips and the cold of the ice feels symbolic somehow. His grey eyes are cloudy with concern and I feel the urge to cup his perfectly carved jaw and mould the imprint of his generous lips to mine so I always remember my final kiss with the man who has made me happier than I ever thought possible. The man who has brought calm and security to my life when before there was only noise and chaos. The man I thought could save me from my past, even if I couldn’t bring myself to be truly honest with him about it. I think of Kieran, waiting out there, and feel sick at what I’m about to do.
‘How you doing, huh?’ he says, crouching down and removing the ice pack. ‘Ready to get back out there and face the bridal music? That was quite a stunt you pulled there, you know! Definitely one to tell the kids about one day . . .’ He grins and laughter lines appear around his eyes like cracks of glass cutting into my heart. He’s so perfect.
Too perfect for me.
I have to tell him. I have to do this. I have no choice any more. Besides, I don’t deserve him.
I look at the ice pack, at the melting opaque cubes swimming before my eyes and blending with my tears so they seem like a river that my perfect future is being carried away in.
‘Come on,’ he says gently, cupping my elbow with his palm.
I shake my head. I can’t look at him. I feel like I’m an executioner, about to drop the guillotine. ‘Adam,’ I whisper, pushing his name out past the lump in my throat. ‘Y-you know I love you. I hope you’ve never doubted that—’
‘Of course, that’s why we’re getting married!’ He smiles, leans in and kisses me softly. I close my eyes and put my fingers to my lips. ‘Come on,’ he says, getting up and holding his hand out to me. ‘Let’s do this. Just promise me, no more acrobatics down the aisle, OK? You almost made Dad stop checking his emails!’ He grins, but I don’t mirror it. His hand is still stretched out waiting for me to take it in mine.
‘Adam,’ I say quietly, trying desperately to control the tremble in my voice.
‘Bea, I know you’re nervous but there’s nothing to be frightened of. We’ll get married and then everything will go back to normal. Nothing has to change, not really.’ His voice is soft, soothing, melodic. He’s doing that thing where he metaphorically talks me off the ledge. ‘Remember when we got engaged? You were so scared of taking the next step that I decided the only way to stop you hyperventilating with fear when I proposed was to slip the ring in a little bouquet of lavender, jasmine and orange blossom to calm you down, relax you and ease the shock . . .’ A smile forms on my face at the memory. I loved the gesture, it was so thoughtful and showed how well he understood me. I see Kieran’s face again and am hit by a wave of anxiety. I don’t deserve Adam’s kindness. If he knew . . .
I have to just get this over and done with. Throw myself off the edge of the cliff. I have to finish this.
‘I can’t do this. I can’t marry you, Adam,’ I blurt out abruptly like I’m ripping off a plaster. I close my eyes. It still hurts. ‘I – I’m so sorry . . .’
He dismisses my statement with a stroke of my hair. ‘You don’t mean that. You’ve just had a bit of a shock. You’ll be fine as soon as we get back out there . . .’
&n
bsp; I want to believe Adam but it feels like Cal’s right, finally some sense has been knocked into me with my fall and I can’t pretend any more. Kieran’s come back and everything has changed. Adam doesn’t deserve this, but he also doesn’t deserve me. I can’t keep burying my past, pretending that my life began when I met Adam. No, it ended the night of the tragedy. And all because of me.
I lift my head, my eyes on the ice pack. The ice is still melting. All of it is melting away. ‘No, Ad. I’m sorry, I can’t. I just can’t . . .’ My voice is uncharacteristically firm. There is no wavering, my decision has been made.
Adam stares at me for what feels like an eternity, his face passing through stages of disbelief, denial, shock and hurt before he steps away from me.
‘You really mean it.’ His voice is low, a whisper. I bury my face in my hands, feeling like I’ve just plunged a knife into him and then me.
Adam walks over to the cold stone wall and leans against it like he can’t hold himself up. ‘Why?’ he says quietly. His broad shoulders seem to have shrunk. His left hand is against the wall, his fingers splayed as if to give him much-needed support but also to remind me of the glaring absence of a ring on his wedding finger. His other hand is raised to his forehead, as if it were he who had experienced a severe blow to the head. Which I suppose he has. ‘The least you can do is tell me why?’
‘I – I don’t know . . . I just can’t . . . I can’t explain . . . I’m sorry . . .’ I’m trying and failing to find the words I need to say: that I love him and need him and miss him already but that I don’t know who I am. I got lost a long time ago. I gaze up at Adam desperately, tears pouring down my face, wishing that things could be different but knowing that in that one split second before I fell, everything changed. Because Kieran came back.
Chapter 3
The cold tiles are like ice against my bare shoulders as I come to. Did I faint or am I dead? I open my eyes and blink to try and disperse the black fog in front of them. I can see I’m all dressed in white, like an angel, oh God, I was kidding about the dead bit. It all comes back to me, then. Well, nearly all. I have a vague recollection I should be looking for someone but I can’t remember who. I feel different, but I don’t know why.