She let her in, and they sat for a while, listening in silence to the sound of Nirvana playing from downstairs.
“I'm worried about you,” Edie finally said, reaching for her hand.
“You don't need to worry about me. I'm fine. Truly.”
“Sitting on your bathroom floor, heavily pregnant and crying on your wedding night isn't fine.”
She had a point. Nobody could argue that.
The room fell silent again, and Daisy rested her head against Edie's shoulder. This was a classic Edie trick: a little dose of honesty woven into a prompt. She’d been trying to lure her in, and it had worked.
“It's just a lot,” she admitted. “The wedding. How fast everything is moving. This,” she whispered, cradling her bump. “That's all.”
“He loves you,” Edie said, then, after a pause, added, “It may not seem like much, but it is.”
She was right—some people searched their whole lives for love, and she had it right in her grasp. So why didn’t it feel like enough?
They sat for a while longer, listening to the commotion downstairs. She’d only known Edie as a work colleague and casual acquaintance, yet, in that moment, she felt more akin to a sister.
Edie had sighed, nudging her gently. “You know, if it doesn't work out, we'll buy a run-down chateau in the south of France and raise this kid. All of us. You. Me. Alec.”
Daisy laughed at the thought. “It'd last five minutes.”
“Maybe. At least we could say we tried, though.” Edie stood and extended her hand. “Come on, let's go. There's a man downstairs waiting to dance with you.”
She knew she should have gone with her, but opted not to.
“You know what, I think I might just hit the sack instead,” she said. “I'm exhausted.”
Edie didn’t press her on it and smiled. “Alright, I'll see you on Monday then.”
She watched as she left, unaware it would be the last time she would see her. Two days later, Edie had packed her bags and left London. There was no note, explanation, or reason. She simply vanished as if the pages of their story had been ripped from the book.
Daisy later found out through a three-page email from Edie that she and Alec had been trying for a baby for months in secret to no avail.
“It was triggering,”Edie wrote,“to see you so conflicted when you had the one thing inside you I would have sold my soul for.”She then told her that night, Alec had said no more IVF—they were done.“He didn't want to do it anymore, Daze. We'd been so caught up in trying to create a new love that we neglected the love that was already there. And you know what? It died.”
She offered no explanation as to where she’d gone or who she was with. As she put it,“I've always been a runner, and now I'm going to run towards something good—happiness.”
To this day, Daisy still wondered if Edie had found it.
Had Logan lied in one of his emails when he’d assured her that her life's transience was one of the most beautiful things? For her, instability and the unknown were terrifying, and once Callan deployed, she realised how much her soul needed him to anchor her.
Over the years, she’d drifted apart from friends who had overlapped her in the race. Where she’d been at home, heavily pregnant and attending antenatal classes with women half her age, those whom she’d once considered family were attending birthday parties and football matches. Without Callan, she was alone. That was until she sawhimagain.
There he was, crossing the road in a black overcoat and jeans. She’d been coming in the opposite direction, laptop bag in hand and water bottle in the other.
“Miss Daisy,” he’d called out, noticing her first.
She stopped, watching as he quickened his step. When he reached her, he grinned, gesturing to her belly stretching through the last two buttons of her coat.
“You're pregnant,” he said, as if it wasn’t obvious.
She laughed. “Well spotted. I am.”
“Congratulations. When did this all happen?”
“I'm due next week.”
