It Was You All Along

Prologue

Four years ago

Aurora

Today’s the day. It’s finally happening and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Nervous, excited, a little bit petrified. A party to celebrate moving into my own space seemed like such a good idea at the time; a way to bring us all back into each other’s orbits after so much time apart.

But we haven’t been together in the same room for so long that nerves have taken hold of me now, gripping me tightly as I think about the four of us reuniting again today.

I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know how it will go, who will say what, who will keep quiet, who will forgive, who will forget.

Will Liv even speak to Ben? Will she be able to be in the same room with him?

How will I cope when we’re together again?

Will I be able to look any of them in the eye and truly say I don’t regret anything that happened between us all? I’m not sure. I’m not sure about any of this.

Perhaps this was a huge mistake.

I scroll through my phone camera, looking at photos of us that I’ve favourited over the years, reminding myself why I’m doing this, reminding myself what we lost and what we have to regain. Each other. We lost each other.

There was so much love, so much joy, and for a while we grew up together, became adults together. We watched each other fall in love, get our hearts broken, find ourselves; celebrated each other’s successes and mourned each other’s failures. And then we failed each other.

We were a team and it was perfect – beyond perfect – the way we’d made such an impact on each other’s lives, although we found each other by chance. Me and Liv, Ben and Ollie.

The four of us were family. The four of us were unbreakable. The four of us were everything.

And after all that we went through together – the heartaches and joys, the highs and the lows – I still can’t fathom how it ended the way it did.

It was perfect. Almost too perfect. Until it wasn’t.

Until the event that drove us apart, catapulted us in different directions.

That day changed everything. And then we were broken.

But today I’m going to fix it. I’m going to bring us back to one another.

This party is going to do that, come what may.

This party is going to begin the healing process.

Because it has to. After all this time, we need to do this.

We need to reunite. We need to come together again.

We need to analyse what happened between us back then.

Because if we’re going to move on with the future, the four of us are going to have to confront the past.