“I don’t know,” she finally admitted weakly. “I—I promise you, Layla, I haven’t ever felt unsure before now, before last night. It was like, you said the thing about doing your residency in Boston, and I thought,every decision I make from now on has to do with Michael.”
A pretty late-breaking revelation!Layla thought, in the kind of exclamatory tone that reminded her of Cara—of Rosie, too—but she tried to keep her face serene, leaving Emily the space to say more.
“And then once I thought ofthat, I snowballed, I guess? Like, all this stuff I’ve been doing for the move, and the wedding, is that avoidance? Am I avoiding the reality of what I’m doing? Marrying Michael, and moving abroad? Moving abroad as a newlywed?”
“Well, I—” Layla began uncertainly during the pause that followed, still processing all this, but as soon as she started to speak, Emily burst forth with more.
“But like, what am I going to do about itnow? We arehere, right?” She flung a hand toward the still-closed drapes. “Paris isout there, and you know how my parents are about Paris, and there’s all these activities we planned and people coming, so what am I going to do? Once I started thinking of that”—she pressed her palms to her eyes—“I panicked more. You can’t get married just because you made a plan to, you know? It’s not anevent; it’s amarriage. Marriage is forever!”
In the aftermath, there was an awkward silence—Emily dropped her hands from her eyes, looking guiltily at Layla as her eyes welled again.
“I’m sorry!” she said quickly. “I can’t believe I—”
“It’s okay,” Layla responded, even though it did smart, hearing it. Hearing her own years-ago naivete mirrored back to her.
Her mind wincing away from the sting, Layla landed on a more practical thought. A more bureaucratic one.
“Wait,” she said. “Haven’t you and Michael already done the paperwork back in the States? Aren’t you, you know…already married, technically?”
Emily shook her head, deflating onto the wastebasket-slash-bed across from Layla. “We were going to do the courthouse ceremony when we got back home, so the official date would be exactly a year from when we first met. I thought that would be really special, you know? Kind of a bonus anniversary. Now I can’t decide if it’s a blessing or a curse that nothing’s legal yet.”
Layla was quiet, caught for a moment in her own indecision about all she’d heard. On the one hand, everything Emily had said so far could be the sort of blandBrides get nervousbullshit Layla had offered to Griffin Testa back in that courtyard, when she was still flailing from shock and fear over what she’d potentially screwed up.
On the other, though—well, on the other, Emily’s anxietieswerereal, prompted by real things. Moving abroad was big. The MacKenzie lore about and love for Paris was big.
And marriage was big.
Not really because it was forever, but more because sometimes it wasn’t, and that was the biggest thing to reckon with of all.
For the first time since she arrived in Paris—maybe for the first time sincebeforeshe’d arrived in Paris—Layla was able to truly block out everything except Emily. She didn’t, for once, think about her divorce and how she’d failed at it; she didn’t think about the MacKenzies’ disappointment in her, or Griffin Testa’s angry desperation.
She didn’t think about this hotel room like it was a hospital, about Emily like she was another version of an anxious Willa on the plane, or an embarrassed patient who’d been sneaking cigarettes after a surgery.
She thought only about the Emily who had once been her sister.
The Emily she’d known for years, earnest and kind and genuine; the Emily she’d seen yesterday morning, full of excitement; the Emily from last night, so authentically in love that Layla was grateful to witness it.
She did not want that Emily to make the sort of decision she couldn’t take back.
So she leaned forward and took her hands, ducking her head to meet Emily’s eyes.
“Honey,” she said, using a word she’d only ever used with Em, back when they were so much closer.
Emily sniffed and smiled weakly, as though she recognized the gesture.
“You have to know,” Layla said, “how much pressure you are under right now.”
Emily nodded miserably.
“And I know you feel overwhelmed, and tonight and the week ahead feel like a lot.”
“So much,” Emily whimpered.
“But is it…is it possible that making another huge decision right now—calling off this whole week, this wedding—when you’re this upset, might be a mistake?”
Emily sniffed again, soggy and uneven. “It’s possible.”
It felt like a huge victory, like stopping something from catching fire. Part of her wanted to stand up and open the curtains, let some natural light in, but then she thought of the view again, and decided it was too soon: that crushing pressure of Paris perfection all spread out before a bride who’d planned her whole wedding around it.
