This doesn’t seem like a battle I’m likely to win, so I cross the room and help Sybil into her dress. Once I’m done, we both take a moment to look at her in the door’s full-length mirror.
“I always thought it would be pouffier,” she says sadly.
“Pouffier?” I ask. She sniffles and nods. “But this dress is so beautiful.You’rebeautiful.”
Her fair skin and silvery blond hair look stunning against the eggshell white of the gown.
She sighs tearily and runs her hands over her hips.
“There aren’t any sparkles.” There aren’t. It’s a classically understated dress.
“We can add more sparkles.” I rack my brain for ways to add sparkle to Sybil’s dress without starting from scratch. “We can get a belt, a bolero, a brooch… maybe a tiara?”
Sybil perks up a bit. “A tiara?”
My worry ebbs a bit, and I crack a smile. Drunk Sybil has always been the sweetest version of Sybil. Other drunk women come out of bathrooms having made one friend; Sybil comes out of the bathroom trailing half a sorority house and invitations to Thanksgiving dinner. She also always cries. Always. Happy tears. Sad tears. Angry tears. Hungry tears. And somehow, instead of looking like a sad raccoon with frizzled hair, she always ends up looking like a woebegone fairy princess from an eighties fantasy film.
“A giant tiara.” I promise. “We can talk to the hairstylist tomorrow. Nothing is set in stone.”
She wipes at her tears, and she exhales softly. “Nothing is set in stone.” Sybil echoes back my words. Then she grabs the skirt of her dress and spins to face me. She clutches both my hands, and I’m surprised by the strength of her grip. “Emma. I’m… I’m not sure I can do this. I need you to keep me grounded this weekend. You’re my rock.”
“Of course, Sybs,” I say softly. “You know I’d do anythingfor you.” I give her hands a squeeze. “I love you to the moon and back.”
My words set off another round of tears from Sybil, and she pulls me into a hug. “I love you to the ends of the ever-expanding universe, Em,” she sniffles. Releasing me and turning back to the mirror, she takes a deep breath. “I know Jamie’s right for me. I know it.” Her voices wobbles a bit as she adds, “I just don’t know if I’m right for him.”
“You and Jamie are perfect for each other.” I rest my head on her shoulder and meet her eyes in the mirror. The gown drapes softly at her lower back with dozens of white buttons all the way to the end of the short train. It’s perfectly tailored and fits just like it’s supposed to—like it’s made for her. Just like Jamie is. Jamie does for Sybil what she does for everyone else. The parts of Sybil that may seem like flaws, Jamie sees as her shiniest facets. Her flakiness isspontaneity. Her inability to commit to a career path isinsatiable curiosity. Her tendency to focus exclusively on one person at a time at the expense of anyone—or anything—else isdeep empathy. “I am so happy for you, Sybs. You have it figured out. You’ve found your person. The one person who knows you better than anyone else on earth. Who will always be there for you, no matter what. And you’ll always be there for them. Do you know how rare that is?”
Sybil’s wide hazel eyes meet mine in the mirror. She’s looking at me like I’ve just imparted some life-changing wisdom, but I know she’s already halfway to forgetting this entire dress-trying-on frenzy even happened. She’ll wake up tomorrow with a craving for hash browns and a head full of hazy memories of the night before.
Maybe that’s why I feel safe enough continue in a whisper, “I don’t know if I’ll ever find what you have.” It shouldn’t be so hard to admit, this aching fear deep in the pit of my stomach. After all, it’s a simple fact of life. Not everyone finds their person. And even if you do, finding them is no guarantee that the person will actually stick around. The women in my family know that better than most. I look back into Sybil’s beautiful fairy-princess face. A face that’s indisputably bound for happily ever after. I give her shoulders a squeeze. “When you walk down that aisle three days from now, just know that I’m going to be living vicariously through you, as your eternal spinster of a best friend, okay? I love you, Sybs.” I tell her again for good measure.
“I love you too, Em.”
“Good. Now let’s get you out of this dress.”
3
THURSDAY MORNING
(Two days before the wedding)
AS USUAL,IWAKEup before Sybil. Even on vacation I can’t stop my body clock from snapping to life at a quarter to six. While I brush my teeth, I rattle through my makeup bag looking for a bottle of Advil. After her crying jag last night, there’s no way Sybs isn’t waking up with a stuffed-up face and headache. I finish my morning routine, then fill up a glass with water and pad across the living room of our suite, double-checking that Sybil’s dress is safe and sound in the closet.
Sure enough, the garment bag is right where it should be. No evidence of last night’s episode to be found. I close the closet door and head to Sybil’s room.Urgh.I’ve no sooner stepped inside when Sybil’s slimy stick-on bra attaches itselfto my foot. Sybil’s tolerance for mess is unmatched. Don’t get me wrong, I know chaos. Growing up, our house was always a topsy-turvy, cluttered mess. But while I’ve spent two decades learning how to rein in the madness enough to give the appearance of someone with their shit together, Sybil seems to just lean into the whirlwind. I’ve never understood how someone could live in such squalor and walk out into the world looking so gorgeous.
Though, to be fair, Sybil does not look gorgeous right now. One of her fake eyelashes partially detached overnight, and it looks like she’s crying fuzzy black caterpillar tears out of her left eye. My heart clenches with familiar fondness. Seeing Sybil like this always endears her to me even more. It’s like a peek behind the curtain. A reminder that even this effervescent goddess is human and not immune to the effects of forgetting to take your eye makeup off before bed.
I put the cup of water and the bottle of Advil right beside Sybil’s phone on the bedside table so she can’t miss it. Then I drape her bra, sticky side up, on the back of the desk chair by the closet and close her bedroom door behind me, breathing a sigh of relief as I return to the tidy and orderly world that is our suite’s living room. I glance at my phone. There’s a bunch of work emails that I’ll have to deal with eventually, but for now I throw on my sneakers and slip from the room, careful not to let the door slam behind me.
THE EARLY MORNING SUNgives the trails behind the resort a gentle glow. I’m used to running on a treadmill, but the mountainslooked so beautiful, and I never can resist a challenge—even one that threatens to leave me with shin splints and a stitch in my side. A few minutes into my run, I hear footsteps behind me. I guess I shouldn’t have expected the trails all to myself. It’s the perfect morning to be outside. The sun hasn’t been out long enough to burn off the morning fog, and the air is cool against my skin even as I start to sweat. I try to focus on my breathing and the music pulsing through my earbuds, but the footsteps are gaining on me, and their ever-encroaching presence is causing a major distraction.
I’m weighing how likely it is that I’ll end up the subject of a future true crime podcast if I turn around and tell this jerk to get off my ass, when suddenly a deep voice rises up from behind me.
“Good morning.”
Finn frickin’ Hughes. Of course.
I hold in my groan, largely because I can’t spare the oxygen, and give him a brief wave assuming that he’ll continue past me at his nearly inhuman pace and leave me in peace. The wordruggededges into my mind, and I stomp it down. Finn Hughes isnotrugged. But here on the trail, looking all sweaty with one night’s growth of stubble, he doesn’t lookunrugged. Instead of passing me, he slows down to match my speed.
