Love at the Little Wedding Shop by the Sea - Jane Linfoot Page 0,136

clip ends, there’s Nic with so much love in his face, stooping to whisper to me about the chocolate puddings. It’s impossible for anyone who knows Pixie to watch it without sobbing buckets, and it’s been the best excuse for me to be bawling my eyes out. Again and again.

Pixie FaceTimed me from her jet-skiing honeymoon near Newquay. What was meant to be a thank you call quickly moved on to Pixie first apologising, then going ape about Nic. Her saying ‘What a knobhead! I promise I’ll run him over then mash him!’ is great. But realistically, right now he’s well beyond the reach of Pixie and her studded tyres.

With the old life gone, I am here at the start of a whole other new one, with an unfamiliar landscape. One crowded with friends, all gently tiptoeing around me, delicately checking in to see how I am. But it’s one that’s filled with unexpected obstacles that fell me every hour, as reminders of Nic leap out from every crack between the cobblestones and alleyway end. Spring up everywhere from groomswear to the furthest rockpool out along the bay, where Merwyn and I still walk every lunchtime.

But it’s not just life that’s different; I’ve changed too. I’m not the same woman who tottered around in her six-inch heels, squeezing myself into pencil skirts and John Smedley jumpers because Phoebe told me to. This version of me wouldn’t have fallen apart over losing Ben, who should never have been mine to start with. But even though I’m grounded by my certainty that I had to let Nic go, it doesn’t stop my heart breaking. After throwing all my efforts at him and his quest, day and night, for five months, there’s bound to be a huge void in my life now that’s gone. Now he’s gone.

Two weeks after Pixie’s wedding, an envelope arrives with a koala bear on the stamp. Inside there’s a postcard with a picture of fireworks over Sydney Harbour Bridge. And on the back, Nic’s relaxed yet even handwriting, and the words:

Saw this and thought of you, Nic x

I prop it on the tiny table next to my bed. Then I move on with my next wedding fair. And getting together the copy for the glossy magazine to go with the fairs for the autumn, which I’ve decided I’ll go ahead with independently. The idea is, if I make sure I never stop, there’s less time to think. Less possibility of jerking to a halt every time I remember I feel like there’s a gaping hole in my side where someone wrenched my heart out.

As for Nic’s tux, I have to come clean – it’s still here waiting to be returned to his office. Sometime – when I’m far enough down the line that I no longer have to bury my face in it every night before bed, when I can pass the bedroom door where it hangs without stopping every time to breathe in his smell.

With any luck, the smell will fade to nothing around the same time I forget to stop and sniff it. Just like when I was grieving for my mum, so long as I’m patient and wait enough years, there will be a time when my heart will finally stop aching. When every little task I do doesn’t feel like it’s taking the same effort as if I were moving an elephant across the room.

Then, as July wears on and the season builds towards its peak, my own accidental groans that escape past my smile are masked by everyone else’s moans about the streets and the beaches being rammed with holidaymakers, and the lanes around Cornwall being clogged with what feels like one continual traffic jam. Lucky for me, having to set off for wedding fairs at an even earlier crack of dawn than usual fits in well with me waking up at stupid o’clock every day. For some reason, since Nic left there’s so much high-alert adrenalin coursing around my body, when I’ve had two hours sleep that seems to be enough.

And more good news – when Nic’s cash and bonus from Jess finally hits my account there’s enough to pay back my brothers the money I borrowed to finance the first Brides Go West magazine and the van renovations. With that debt cleared, I put it to Phoebe that it makes sense for her and Ben to buy me out of Brides Go West. Before July ends, I’m in Trenowden and Trenowden’s