Chapter 45
Forty-Five
By the time Maddy was shepherded into the banquet hall, it already felt less like a wedding than the aftermath of one. Empty bottles and half-finished glasses littered the tables, clothes had come untucked and rumpled, and everyone’s eyes looked heavy with drink and exhaustion.
The long tables hadn’t been moved—couldn’t be moved, apparently, because of some issue involving weight and liability—so the next attempt at a wedding had been arranged around them instead.
Guests sat wherever they pleased, ignoring the seating chart, their chairs turned toward the end of the room.
There sat a narrow, raised platform that looked as though it had been dragged from storage and hastily dusted off.
‘This is it?’ Maddy asked.
Ralph nodded. ‘Yes. It’s a small space, but the height of the platformette should lend you some dignity.’
‘Platformette?’ Maddy repeated.
‘Yes. Lovely old piece. Served as the karaoke stage here in the seventies. Before that, I believe, a hypnotist used it to make businessmen cluck like chickens at Christmas parties.’
Maddy sighed. But what did it really matter?
‘We have to start serving,’ Ralph explained as servers passed them with plates. ‘The caterers were keeping it warm, but it was all going to start going a bit dry if they waited much longer.’
My wedding is now dinner theatre, Maddy thought.
People hadn’t totally lost sight of the day’s point.
Some people clapped when Maddy walked towards the platformette.
Others raised their glasses. One man (Adam’s uncle?), already visibly unsteady, attempted to stand.
‘Three cheers to the happy—’ He broke off as the chair he was using as ballast slid from his grasp, breaking his flow.
‘Here she is!’ Aria called.
‘Third time lucky!’ Hannah added.
‘Third time lucky,’ Kelly repeated.
Maddy smiled, or at least arranged her face into something that passed for one. She became very aware of the dress again. The weight of it. The way it marked her out, unmistakable and unavoidable. She was, after all, still somehow the bride.
Adam was already on the stage. He looked a bit… Was he shit-faced?
Maddy pulled down the sodding veil again. It was torn. She didn’t care.
She was guided forward by Ralph’s light touch at her elbow, gentle but firm, like she might drift off if not properly directed. Someone adjusted the train of her dress as she stepped up onto the platform. Someone else pressed her bouquet back into her hands. It was ready for the bin.
And then she was standing next to him. Adam.
He turned to her, offering a small, reassuring smile. ‘Hey,’ he said quietly. He was only tipsy, a small mercy.
‘Hi,’ Maddy replied.
Her voice sounded distant. Like it had travelled further than the few inches between them.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
No.
‘Yeah,’ she said. But she wondered why he hadn’t come looking for her. She hadn’t been hard to find. Eva had managed it.
Christ, Eva. Where was she? Had she left?
Maddy wouldn’t have blamed her. After Maddy vomited all that stuff about need.
She had known all her life she was a mess.
But this was her first time putting it on display.
Eva might be gunning it out of the car park this very moment.
Life-alteringly passionate snogs aside, it was a lot to put on someone.
The officiant, holding what looked like a hastily printed set of notes, cleared her throat. ‘Right,’ she began. ‘Let’s continue.’
A ripple of laughter moved through the room. Glasses clinked again as people settled into watching.
Maddy’s gaze drifted, and then she saw her. Eva. She was still here.
She was standing off to the side, a few feet away. She wasn’t looking at the guests. She was looking at Maddy. There wasn’t panic in her face, nor urgency. She was simply watching.
Maddy looked away.
The officiant was speaking again. Something about commitment and partnership and choosing each other.
Maddy heard the words, but they didn’t quite hit until the word, ‘Choosing.’ That was the word that stuck. Because she realised, with a slow and terrible certainty, that she had never really thought any of this as a choice.
Adam had simply arrived and said, ‘I’m here. And now you are not you. You are we.’ And what could Maddy do but accept it?
Adam was the kind of person you built a life with because it made sense. Because it worked. Because there was no obvious reason not to.
She had loved him. Hadn’t she?
Christ, why hadn’t she asked herself that question at any minute before this one?
Well, she had. The quiet little voice in her head had been asking it for a long time.
But only now was she ready to answer it honestly.
Right when she was due to marry him. She searched for the feeling now, standing beside him, about to promise something permanent.
She found how she felt with him. Easy, quiet, comfortable.
And then her mind flicked back to Eva. And that was not quiet. That was not comfortable. It was a raging and passionate click into place.
She didn’t love Adam and never had.
Shit.
Maddy really did wish this could have happened when she wasn’t on a stage in front of a room full of increasingly drunk witnesses about to make a legally binding mistake.
But it wasn’t a surprise, really. She’d been circling this for years. It was all so obvious looking back.
It could never be Adam. Not even slightly.
‘Do you, Maddy…’
The officiant’s voice cut through her thoughts. Maddy blinked as the room came back into focus.
Adam was looking at her. Everyone was looking at her. Her grip tightened on the bouquet. She could feel her pulse in her throat, her wrists, everywhere at once. This was it. This was the moment. Again.
Her gaze flickered, just for a second, back to Eva. Still watching, unable to fix this for her. She was letting her choose. Only then did Maddy understand that that was what Eva was doing upstairs, why she wouldn’t answer Maddy’s questions about what she wanted.
She was giving her what no one had. Space to decide.
Maddy’s mind raced. Think. There had to be a way out of this that didn’t involve detonating her entire life in front of everyone she knew.
A delay. Another interruption. Anything!
But the wind wasn’t coming. The ceiling was intact. The universe, it seemed, had done its part. This one was on her.
Maddy inhaled. The words sat there, right behind her teeth. I do. She could just say it. Didn’t she have to? When you got here, you had to say it. This wasn’t Love Is Blind. The altar wasn’t the time for decisions. The choices had been made. She must say it. Say the legally binding words.
Or…
She hesitated. And kept hesitating. And kept hesitating. And the room, slowly, began to notice.