“After what?” Leo asks, returning from his trip to the loo. “Did the sexy French waiter say ‘umbrella’ again?”
“Who?” Ruby asks innocently.
“You’re standing on the wrong side of the lawn, by the way,” Leo continues. “On my way to the bathroom, I noticed they have trays of macarons on a table over there.”
“What?!” Ruby’s eyes widen to saucers. “You know my love of macarons and in France they’re bound to blow my head off. Lead the way, Leo. As if I almost missed them!”
Leo laughs and instructs us to follow him as we weave our way through the guests. I’m bringing up the rear when I feel a hand on my arm and turn around to see Matthew. Leo, Simone, and Ruby don’t notice, going full steam ahead toward the macarons. I’m on my own.
“Freya,” he says in this breathy voice. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I manage to say. “How are you?”
“I’m good.” He gestures to my dress. “You look nice.”
I do, in fact, look quite nice. This is not an accident. In theknowledge of seeing Matthew today, I spent about five hours getting ready. I paid a small fortune for a blow-dry this morning with Ruby at the posh local hairdresser’s that Cali recommended and spent ages getting my makeup just right, a look that I’d practiced at home with the guidance of some YouTubers, who seem to be about fifteen years old but really know their stuff. I ordered many, many dresses to try on for the occasion, took photos of my reflection in the mirror in each of them at different angles, and then studied those photos at my desk at work when Phil wasn’t looking. I’ve gone with the open-back teal midi-dress with spaghetti straps, which is looking even better than when I first tried it on thanks to my savvy application of fake tan last night.
The best thing about my outfit, though, is the ring. I took Niamh’s advice and decided to buy a ring to wear on my left hand. It’s a big, statement green gemstone set in a gold band, sitting on my middle finger, that I found after scrolling through affordable-jewelry websites on my phone while watching reality TV. Whenever I catch a glimpse of my left hand now, I don’t get a pang of sadness at what it’s missing. I see my fabulous new piece of jewelry and feel all smug and kickass.
“Thank you,” I say. “So do you.”
Not your shoes, though. This is why you need me.
Why don’t you need me?
“Thank you.”
This is so painful. He’s looking down at the ground now, not sure what to say.
“How have you been?” he asks finally.
“Great, thank you. Absolutely fine,” I inform him, careful not to hammer home the point too much, but hopefully enough that he stops giving me those pitying looks. “How about you?”
“Yeah. I’ve been okay.” He nods. “Look, about those phone calls to my mum—”
“They were a mistake,” I interrupt, frowning at him, upsetthat he’d bring this up. “I got your text, thanks, so there’s really no need for you to talk about it.”
“No, I wasn’t going to… Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable,” he says hurriedly, blushing. “I was going to apologize for my text. I saw Ryan recently and he told me how it came across and I hadn’t really thought… Anyway, the point is, I’m sorry if you read it in a cold way. I didn’t mean it to be.”
Huh. Interesting. This sounds like an apology, but at the same time, he’s saying that I’m the one who read it in the wrong way, not that he wrote it in the wrong way. Was he always this blameless? Always this patronizing?
“No apology necessary, thanks,” I say, bristling at his words. “I hope Gail can forgive me.”
“Of course,” he says, leaning forward slightly, and for a second I think he might be considering reaching out for my hand, because his sort of lingers in the air a bit and then drops down to his side. “Her and Dad send their love.”
I nod, not saying anything. Their love? God, it’s so hard being around him. I want out of this conversation. I am an overwhelming mixture of emotions. I want to run off and hide; I want to shout at him and throw stuff at him; but I also want to cry and hold him and beg him to love me again.
“I should go find the others.” I smile politely up at him. “Nice to see you.”
“Freya,” he says, quickly, stopping me from escaping, “I also wanted to say… thank you.”
I blink at him. “What?”
He exhales deeply, as though he’s been holding his breath all this time. “I’ve been wanting to say it to you for ages, but it didn’t seem fair. But seeing you here today and how… great you are. I just wanted to make sure you knew how grateful I was for the way you handled everything so well.”
My brain feels stuck. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Handled what?”
“The breakup! Me fucking up the wedding!” he explains, smiling as though I’ve said something funny. “I never expected you to go off the rails, because you’re you, and I knew I could rely on you to be sensible about things, but still. And you kicking me wasn’t very fun—” He chuckles at the memory. “—but even my parents agreed I deserved that one after what I’d put you through. Aside from that and the phone calls to my mum, you’ve really been amazing. So, I know it’s maybe a strange thing to say, but… thank you.”
