“I want my happy ending, Ellie. I want a big white wedding with a handsome man who will sweep me off my feet.” I take a side-glance at her quickly, before changing my tone. “I know, I know. You don’t have to tell me.”
“Tell you what?” she says, sounding genuinely confused.
“I know you think that weddings are pointless and expensive and that you don’t understand why I’d ever want to bother with one.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“When have I ever said that to you in your whole life?” she says.
To be fair, she’s never actually said it out loud, but I know she thinks it. About weddings generally that is, not specifically about mine. As if to finish my thought she shakes her head at me: “Just because I don’t want a big dress and a cute church doesn’t mean I don’t understand why you do. I’ll always want for you whatever makes you happy,” she says, which is the most Ellie thing I’ve ever heard. She’s literally part angel.
“I know,” I say, smiling, “and I know I don’t need a man to make me happy but I still want one. It’s just, apparently, none of them want me!”
“There will be one. One who doesn’t treat you like crap and kick you out on the street at four a.m.”
“They’re the only kind that meet me in the first place these days!”
“That’s crap. There are still good ones out there. You just have to kiss a few frogs first.”
“I’ve already kissed all the frogs.”
“All of them?”
“All London-based frogs, yes.”
“What about that new app you downloaded? The mirror one?”
“It’s … it’s like fine. But the problem with London dating apps is that it’s all the same people. A new one comes out and we all think it’s great, only then everyone migrates over and you find yourself talking to the same men who’ve rejected you on four other platforms before.”
“Right. This pity party needs to end,” Ellie says, finishing off the last of her tea decisively. I love it when Ellie gets all action-star Barbie on me. Her usual worried expression is pulled into something much more fierce and fiery. “You deserve someone who treats you with respect, and given that there are nearly nine million people in London I would say it’s almost entirely impossible that you’ve personally kissed all the single men out there. You need patience.”
“What I need is you in boy form,” I say, trying not to cry all over again.
“Marty?” she jokes.
My face naturally turns to her shelf where her family photo still sits proudly. Trust Ellie to leave that till the end to pack. It’s probably going to be the first thing she unpacks too on the other side. Not that I want to think about that now.
Her mum, Niamh, is in the center, being squeezed on either side by both of her children: Ellie on one side and Marty, her elder brother by about sixteen minutes and forty-five seconds, on the other. They’re both around sixteen in the photo and I should know; I’m pretty sure I’m the one who took it given the background is my parents’ garden.
“Ew,” I reply, turning away from Marty’s mop of brown curls. “Let me rephrase, what I need is you in Ryan Reynolds’s body.”
“Technology’s getting better every day. In a few years’ time that might even be possible, my friend.”
Keeping my teacup finely balanced I launch into a hug that I don’t want to end. She’s been my other half for so long I don’t know how to function without her.
She’s always been beside me, through grade school, through high school—I mean, despite never wanting to act the part of the bride, she’s been my maid of honor all 392 times I held wedding receptions in my parents’ sitting room. She was there every single time that my imaginary groom and I cut the cake and when my love and I would ride off into the sunset she was there too, either as the chorus of angelic voices guiding us or—on more than one occasion—as the horse we sat on.
Her hair smells like my Aussie shampoo and certainly not like her own Boots brand but I don’t even care enough to mention it right now. Today is not the day. She strokes my tangled mane from out of my face and smiles down at me and I just know things will be alright.
“Now, young lady,” she says. Honestly, it’s like Ms. Mathews all over again. “I need to pack and you need to write.”
“Write! I can’t write like this!”
“You promised me that you’d write every day for at least two hours and given I know you’ve missed the last two weeks, you have a lot of making up to do.”
“But I’m hungover!”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“But I’m sad.” I pull my very best Muppet face but she only laughs at my misery.
“Let that inspire you then.”
“Urgh!”
I swirl the dregs of my tea and I look at her, wondering how long I can make this last.
“You can always help me pack if you’d prefer?” Ellie replies knowingly. I look at the bags around her. I might like constructing furniture but I hate dismantling things, and packing up eight years of our friendship into cardboard boxes feels as comforting as magpies pecking out my organs.
“Fine. I’m going,” I say begrudgingly, pulling myself up and tiptoeing around the destruction of years of flatmate-ship around me.
“Dinner’s at eight,” she reminds me as I go, “you’re on dessert.”
I kick one of Mark’s boxes aside as I reach closer to the door and that makes me feel a bit better somehow.
“Oi!”
Shit, she caught me. I turn at the door, feigning my best innocent “what me” face that she’s not even looking at.
“Yeah?” I say sweetly.
“You keeping that hoodie then?” she asks.
Oh good.
I pull the red hood right over my head and zip the whole thing right up. I smile as I do it, finally taking back control.
“Absolutely,” I reply.
11
When I open the door to my cold, crappy room I walk straight over to my writing desk.
I can see that my bed’s not made. This comes as no real surprise as I’m the only one who would make it and I clearly didn’t. There are a silly amount of empty glasses on every surface and the floor is a bit of a death trap with more discarded clothes and sharp heels jutting out at odd angles than actual floor to walk on. I swear I tidy it all the time, but it takes me about ten hours to clean it and ten seconds to mess it up again so I never know why I bother. I ignore it for now, turning back to the desk before me.
It was a gift from my parents from years ago, back when I first told them I wanted to be a writer. I was like fourteen at the time, and still vaguely hanging on to the idea that the Easter Bunny was somehow real, so I don’t know why they took me seriously. But they did. They listened to me, they heard me, and they got me a writing desk because “the first tool a writer needs is a good place to write.”
It just proves how supportive they’ve always been. It’s amazing, it is, and I know that, but it’s also a bit annoying in the least annoying way possible. I only mean you hear of all these amazing writers who faced conflict all their lives when I’ve not had one argument with them about my career at all.