Love at the Little Wedding Shop by the Sea - Jane Linfoot Page 0,135

a very white envelope.

Milla.

And there’s a hole where my heart should be that’s larger than Wales, because that can only mean one thing.

I’m easing up the flap, pulling the sticker off the small tissue-paper parcel inside to find a tiny silver starfish on a slender chain. It’s simple. Beautiful. Perfect. I close my fist around it because I already know I’m going to look at it every day for the rest of time.

As I open the white paper note, I’m staring at the same gently rounded letters, the blue ink they’re written in barely dry.

Milla – my very favourite space cadet and wedding planner,

I’d meant to wake you before I left but looking down at you now, you’ve not long gone to sleep and you look too peaceful. And if I did wake you, I might not ever leave.

So instead I’m writing this, to say sorry – for running away and all my other blunders. And thank you – for the wedding, everything else, and more. And lastly, goodbye.

Six months is a very long time. I’m not sure I know enough about forgiveness or the state of my tortured soul to guarantee an outcome.

So, for now, all I can do is make you a promise – I’ll love you for as long as stars are above you, Milla Vanilla. I hope sometimes you’ll look up at them from your little attic porthole and think of me.

Yours forever, (in every galaxy),

Nic xx

‘Back at you, Captain Kirk.’ I’m whispering as I swallow back my tears. And just before the flood gates open I see his tux still hanging on the hook on back of the bedroom door.

Then I hear the distant slam of the huge front door, and as it sinks in that I’ve missed him by seconds, I bury my face in his pillow. As the distant sound of a car revs up the drive, I let the sobs come. As the engine note fades to nothing, my body convulses and I let my howls go free.

Chapter 38

St Aidan in July.

Reruns and rewinds.

Poppy was the one who came in and found me the morning Nic left, when she heard my sobs through the door. Then Immie whisked me out by the kitchen door, and back to my own comfy bed under the sloping attic ceiling so I didn’t have to face anyone.

And as I woke again later that day, after a sleep ruptured with tears and desperate re-runs in my head, it felt like I was leaving something very significant behind. It was about much more than crossing Poppy’s proverbial bridge. As Nic left, I waved away my old life too. And whatever happens, I owe it to Mum to smile no matter how sad and broken I feel inside. After the straight talking I gave Nic, it would be hypocritical of me to do anything else.

Then Bill and Ivy came back again bringing Abby with her arm in a sling and a bump on her head. And there were a couple of days of post-wedding excitement when the flat was bursting with flowers sent from Pixie and Ewan, and Pixie’s mum and dad. Both bunches were so big I had to borrow flower buckets from the basement to display them in.

Holly had filmed Pixie’s amazing and emotional walk down the aisle, and with Pixie’s permission, that was loaded to YouTube where it got loads of attention. Then we shared it across the Brides by the Sea and Brides Go Wild platforms too, and it also got picked up by the local press. Thanks to that and the blog we did about Pixie trying on wedding dresses, the hits and followers for Brides Go Wild literally did go crazy.

I have to admit, at least five hundred of those thousands of YouTube views of Pixie taking her first steps are mine. The first time I watched it was with the excuse that I had seen it all from the back not the front. Even so, it was gut-wrenching watching Pixie make her halting, yet amazing way down the aisle, All You Need Is Love in the background, seeing all the guests’ eyes going wide as they realised the enormity of what she was doing. Ewan, looking so very proud and in love, Nic with tears streaming down his face. And then after it was over and she’s back in her chair, there’s me, fumbling to get her shoes on, and Pixie telling me to sit next to Nic. And just before the