“Nope! Trust me, Josephine, nothing good happens after midnight.”
“Is this another luck thing?”
I laugh. “It’s an experience thing. Besides, I don’t want to be all mopey at your wedding if things don’t go well.”
“All right,” Jo says. We turn back to the TV, but I don’t take any of it in.Ollie’s here, I think. I wonder what he’s doing. If he’s thinking about me.
Jo looks me over. “You okay?”
“I think so.”
“Do you know what you’re going to say?”
“Yup.”
“I think it’ll work,” she says.
“You’re biased.”
She shrugs. “So’s he.”
“Hopefully in the right direction.”
“He is,” Jo says. “How are things with your parents, by the way?”
I sigh. “They’re okay, I think. We still talk, but I told them I need some time before I start visiting with them again. It’s too hard to be around them right now... I just... panic. I’m working on not letting their problems affect how I feel about everything in my own life. Iknowthat if Ollie and I work things out, we won’t be like them, but it’s still hard to see.”
Jo sits up and turns to face me. “You really have changed, you know. You’re so much more... open.”
“You don’t miss the old me?”
She scoots closer and rests her head on my shoulder. “There is no old you, Nina. This is the person you’ve always been. You’re just... more here. I get more of you now. How could I miss the way things used to be?”
“The jokes were better when I was emotionally constipated,” I say.
Jo laughs. “I don’t know, I think they’re still pretty good.”
“Oh, Josephine. I really ought to kidnap you. I’ll force you to write a letter saying you’ve gotten cold feet, but really you’ll be my hostage in some abandoned Irish castle. No one will suspect a thing.”
Jo snorts. “If I’m ever kidnapped, everyone will know it was you. Except maybe Greyson. She’d think it was aliens.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and aliens will kidnap both of us.”
“Grey would be so jealous. We can’t do that to her.”
“Yeah,” I sigh, “I guess you’re right. There goes my last escape route.”
“You don’t need one,” she says. “Everything will be fine, even if it’s not.”
I hope she’s right. Jo and I have been through it all. Who knows if the worst is behind us or not? Instead of everything that can go wrong, I think of all we’ve overcome and how much possibility is ahead.
Everything is about to change. In what way, I’m not fully sure. But it doesn’t feel like a storm out there on the horizon.
It feels like a sunrise.
***
The next morning, I’m squeezed in between Britt and Jo’s nieces on the couch as Jo’s sister helps her into her wedding dress.
