1
I stood outside Birchbrook Café wearing a wedding dress, my heart pounding. The whole journey here, my pulse was racing and I was trying to take deep breaths to warn off the panic that threatened to overwhelm me. I had become an expert at pushing it to one side but today, it was proving harder than usual to beat.
Sucking in one more deep breath, I walked inside the café, all conversations ceasing instantly as I had feared they would. Even the staff behind the counter froze to take a look. I longed to shout out,Have you never seen a woman in a wedding dress, trainers and her hair in pin curls before?!but I settled instead on looking around at the staring faces for the one I had come in to find.
‘Daisy!’ The woman I wanted to see jumped up and hurried over to where I hovered by the door. ‘Your text freaked me out; I was about to leave to come to your wedding. Are you okay?’
‘The wedding is off,’ I said, conscious that everyone was still staring and blatantly listening to our conversation. ‘Maybe we could…’ I gestured outside.
‘Oh yeah, of course, come on,’ she said, grabbing my arm and steering me out of the cute café with her into the High Street, which was currently bathed in late-May sunshine. We walked out of sight of the large window and my cousin, Willow, pulled me in for a tight hug. I leaned against her, the adrenaline of the last two hours draining out of me. ‘What happened? Are you okay?’
I half-fell against her, my heart still thumping. ‘Not really, but I hope I will be.’
Willow leaned back to look at me. My bridal make-up made me look most unlike myself, I knew. She frowned with concern.
We hadn’t seen each other for five years but she looked just the same to me. Her glossy brunette hair was in its usual messy bun, her dark brown eyes pretty and large, and her frame was still petite. But unusually for her, she wore a dress ready for my ‘big day’. It was midi-length and floaty floral, and I felt guilty seeing how lovely she looked in it, knowing she wouldn’t need to keep it on now.
‘Have you really run out on your wedding?’
I winced at the words even though they were true. I stepped out of her embrace and nodded. ‘Yeah, I have. I didn’t know where else to go.’
‘You did the right thing in coming to Birchbrook. Come on, let’s go to the farm and you can tell me what happened. Plus, you probably want to get out of your wedding dress.’ Her lips twitched and despite the situation not being at all funny, she let out a giggle. And just like that, the panic slipped out of me and I laughed along with her. I knew, in that moment, I had done the right thing in coming to see Willow.
‘How did you get here?’ Willow asked me as we started to walk to where her car was parked.
‘I jumped into a taxi that had brought a guest to my wedding,’ I said, the irony not lost on me. I had sent a message to Willow as I approached the town to make sure she hadn’t left yet for my wedding, and she told me she was in the local café picking up a coffee so I’d headed straight there to see her.
‘Alone?’ she asked me gently.
‘Yeah.’ I looked away. Willow had been the only guest coming to the wedding just for me. Everyone else had been invited by my groom-to-be’s parents. I tried not to feel the sting of Willow being my only family or friend invited but it was impossible not to. Right now, I felt alone. And that was something I had been desperate to avoid for five years.
‘It must have been so hard to leave on your own,’ she said, her eyes full of empathy. I knew she understood. To a point. She lost her mother five years ago. I didn’t have either of my parents, though.
‘It was,’ I whispered, unable to fully comprehend that I had left Henry.
She slung an arm around my shoulders. ‘Don’t worry. You’re not on your own now. It’s really good to see you again. It’s been too long.’
I nodded, grateful that she was being so kind to me. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ It had been mostly my fault. The last time I had been to Willow’s home, Birch Tree Farm, was the day of Willow’s mum’s funeral. The wake had taken place there, and the farm, which had given me such joy growing up, felt forever changed. That day had brought up so many painful memories of my parents’ tragic car accident two years before that I left feeling like I needed to get away from it all. I’d decided to move to the city, a few hours away from Birchbrook, and we had grown apart.
Five years later though, I was running away from the new life I had made there.
We reached Willow’s car then and as she opened it, she glanced over and said, ‘Let’s go home.’
My heart swelled with gratitude for my cousin. Willow could have turned me away but that wasn’t my her style, thank goodness. My wedding venue, a stunning countryside stately home, was only an hour away from Birchbrook so I had managed to get here before she left to come to the wedding.
We climbed into the car and set off towards the farm. ‘I know that I never met Henry,’ Willow said as she drove, ‘but your wedding invite was beautiful and that venue is gorgeous. It sounded like it was going to be a fairy tale. What went wrong?’
I sighed. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘I bet. You don’t have to explain. You can relax at the farm first.’
‘That sounds good. I felt like such a fraud today. I didn’t feel at all like me. I want to feel like me again.’
Willow glanced across at me. ‘You do look very different. Gorgeous, Daisy, as always but…’ she trailed off uncertainly.
I glanced out of the window, catching a glimpse of my reflection. And I saw myself through Willow’s eyes. I was only a couple of years older than her but I looked more than that today.
My light-brown hair had been highlighted into a honey-blonde colour. I had on bright-red lipstick. The sweetheart neckline of my lace wedding dress, which had been designed to fit to the curves of my body perfectly, had such a full skirt, I rolled it up to get into the car. Still on my finger was the huge diamond ring I’d been wearing for six months. It was so expensive, I was terrified of it being stolen or lost. But at least I’d had time to swap the designer stilettos I was nervous to walk down the aisle in for my trainers before diving into the taxi.
