CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“You’re going to hate me so much.”
“Gee, Gwen, I love conversations that start like that.”
When she doesn’t so much as crack a smile at my sarcasm, I step aside and let her into my apartment. We’re not the type of friends who show up at each other’s places unannounced; we’re both firm believers that’s what cell phones are for. Her impromptu appearance, coupled with the way she’s wringing her hands as she bustles past me, has apprehension bubbling up inside me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She strides into the kitchen and spins around to face me when she reaches the fridge. “Do you have any wine?”
I glance at the wall clock behind her. It’s four-thirty on a Thursday afternoon.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” she says, as if reading my mind.
“There’s an open bottle of rosé in the door. I’ll pour while you sit and tell me what’s going on.”
She rounds the kitchen counter and hoists herself onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar. “Something happened with the photographer’s camera during the wedding, and at least half the pictures are ruined.”
My hand freezes as I go to pour the second glass of wine. “Ruined? As in…?”
“They remind me of pictures we used to end up with on old film cameras and disposables. Everything is distorted and blurry and…blobby.” She clasps her hands in front of her face to hide the trembling in her bottom lip.
“Oh no,” I breathe, reaching across the counter and gripping her arm. “I’m so sorry. Are any of them salvageable?”
“Some,” she says. “The pictures she took of us girls before the wedding, plus all the shots from the ceremony. But the group pictures and the ones from the reception are….are just…” She covers her face with her hands.
The apprehension in my stomach has turned into a sick feeling. I know how much it meant to Gwen to have a plethora of pictures from her wedding day. Her parents never got married and she doesn’t have many pictures from her childhood because her dad was a busy single parent. She’s been borderline obsessive about documenting her relationship with Evan in pictures and videos. When she told me how many thousands of pictures she took on their honeymoon, I asked her if she slept at all or just took pictures twenty-four hours a day for two weeks.
I set the wine bottle down and go around the counter to hug Gwen from behind. She drops her hands from her face and grips my arms, holding on tight.
“Such first-world problems,” she says with a sniffle. “But those pictures meant a lot to me.”
“I know, sweetie, I know,” I say soothingly. “But wait…why would I hate you over that?”
Gwen stiffens in my arms. “Uhh, well, that’s where the wine comes in.” She releases her grip on me and guides me onto the stool beside her before reaching for the wine. “The photographer was quick to offer solutions to make it up to me. She feels just awful.”
“I can imagine.”
“After some back and forth, we figured out the perfect solution. Well, perfect in theory…”
“Spit it out, you’re making me nervous.”
“We’re going to recreate the reception,” she says in a rush. “I’ve already talked to everyone else and most people are on board. Not everyone who was there can come, but the main group and a few close friends have all agreed. Hugh and Ivy said I could have the Village’s event space again, and they even booked the same DJ. We’ll all dress up in the same clothes we wore to the wedding, and the photographer can get a whole new set of shots.”
“Is it safe to assume Jasper will be there?” I ask, and she nods. I nod along too, my head bobbing like a demented puppet on faulty strings. “Y-you want us to…you expect me to…” I pause long enough to down half my glass of wine. “You want me to relive one of the most humiliating and painful nights of my life?”
Gwen’s face flushes from forehead to chin. “It’s a huge ask.”
“Huge,” I echo numbly. “Monumental.”
“But you know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. To some people they’re just pictures and it’s the memories that matter. That’s all true, but it’s about more than that for me. I want to remember that day forever. Evan meanseverythingto me and the Perrys are my family now. You and Ivy and Hugh are my family. Please, Willow. I feel like the world’s biggest asshole for asking this of you, but youknowI wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important to me.”
When I don’t say anything—Ican’t, my tongue feels like lead in my mouth—Gwen barrels on. “I would never try to downplay what happened that night. I can imagine how awful it was for you, and I hate that you associate those memories with my wedding day. But it wasn’t all bad, was it? We had fun until…”
“Yeah. Until.”
“Think of it as a do-over of sorts. You’ve told me you already suspected something was off with Jasper that day. Seeing him again will be painful, but you’d see him eventually anyway, and at least now you know. So you can dance and have fun and enjoy your night, all while avoiding the eldest Perry. Evan and I will do our best to run interference.”
