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“Maybe you’ll meet someone at Larisa’s wedding,” I tell her.
The thought alone makes me sadder than I’ve ever been in my entire life. Emmy has had plenty of other boyfriends come and go over the years. But now, after everything that’s happened between us, I can’t look at it the same way. Now, it just hurts.
“Is that what you want for me?” she asks me. “To meet another guy?”
The silence between our hearts is louder than ever. She can read my pain like an open book, I know that.
“Emmy … do you want to know the truth?”
“Yes, please.” She leans again across the table and looks into my eyes, but I can’t read the expression fixed there.
“I guess that all my life, since I’ve known you, and since we made the marriage pact, I hoped that somehow, somewhere down the line we would … end up together. It was like a safety net. I knew that we were supposed to live our lives together, no matter what. Sure, there would be speed bumps along the way—the occasional boyfriend and girlfriend. And we had a lot of growing up to do. We had to find ourselves. But I always thought that we’d end up as … husband and wife. Emmy and Evan,” I tell her.
She lowers her head and the dark silky strands of hair fall across her face.
I reach out and tuck them behind her ear.
She smiles and rests her face, only for a moment, against my open palm.
I wish this moment could last forever and that this dinner would have a different meaning. A better one. A happier one.
“I never thought this is how our story was going to end. Me with someone else and you with someone else. And now that it’s done, I feel so … empty. But I understand that this is how it must be, and that it will take a while to get used to. Still, it’s almost as if I refuse to believe it,” I tell her.
“I think I know how you feel. Maybe I felt the same way,” she tells me. “Time is a tricky thing. Especially with a friendship like ours. How do you walk away? How do you tell your heart to start feeling something else?”
We look at each other across the table, the vast night and nothingness surrounding us.
“Then it’s decided. We’ve reached the end of our little saga,” I tell her.
“I suppose we have.”
Chapter Eighteen
Emmy
The bright lights that have been set up by the photographers to capture every moment of Larisa getting ready to walk down the aisle are giving me a slight headache.
I get up from the rose-colored couch and start to pace around the room.
“Is everything alright, hon?” Jo asks me. “You look a little pale.”
“Do I? Maybe it’s this corset,” I reply, running my hands down the sides of the corset, feeling its luxurious fabric.
“Do you want me to loosen it up a bit for you?” she asks me.
“No, no. It’s fine. Thanks.”
“You look amazing, though, Em.”
“Thanks … I’m glad Larisa listened to us and picked these bridesmaids’ dresses,” I reply. “They really are stunning.”
I move a few steps closer to the gigantic mirror that has been placed in the middle of the room and admire myself. Immediately, the photographer starts to take pictures of me, eager to capture every second of this wedding.
The rose toned corset feels like butter against my skin. It has a formidable gold pattern that captures the light in a mesmerizing way. From the waist to the floor, a silk and tulle dress in the same shade of rose envelops me like a cloud. The scalloped hem of the dress is gold, truly making this the dress of dreams.
“I feel like a princess in this dress,” I tell Jo while the photographer keeps acting as if I’m some sort of movie star.
“You should. It’s wonderful,” she replies and smooths down the hem of her own dress. Even though the colors are the same, the design is not. Larisa wanted us to match as bridesmaids, but not wear the exact same thing. Jo’s dress is more demure with a mermaid design and no corset. She looks amazing and elegant as ever.
