Page 90 of Hate You to Love You

I stop before I can cross the road. Traffic roars past as commuters weave around me. I turn to find Jones standing outside the bakery.

‘Well?’ Jones adds when I don’t say anything. I freeze as Sal and Laney follow closely behind him.

‘Look, Jones, I’m sorry I haven’t been here for any of you. None of you deserve that and you matter to me so much. Part of me feels like you’d be better off without me, but… I want to work harder to keep you in my life. You’re all worth it.’ I fight through the tears.

‘So everything you wrote about what we mean to you in this article? Is it true?’

Jones waves his phone in my face with my article on the screen, as if he’s Matthew McConaughey asking Kate Hudson if she only wrote about her feelings for him to sell magazines.

‘It’s true,’ I breathe out deeply. ‘All of it.’

‘Why didn’t you just tell us how you felt?’ Sal asks, slightly frustrated.

‘Because…’ I pause for a moment to take a deep breath in. ‘You had all moved into this new chapter of your lives, and you seemed happy. You didn’t need me holding you back from such a bright future. I was scared that if I admitted how much I missed what our friendship was, you’d just confirm that you were all just fine without me.’

Jones shakes his head. ‘Mate, if you keep running from all the good that’s right in front of you, you’re never going to be happy.’

‘I’ve just lost so much. You, Sal and Laney made my life feel complete. Like I’d be okay because I had friends by my side. It always struck me as this wonderful thing, that the universe sent the three of you my way. I didn’t want anything about that to change.’

‘Things were always going to change,’ Jones says. ‘That doesn’t mean we cared about you any less. Last year, I saw Sal only a handful of times, and one of those times was to help him move a broken fridge. But when we did catch up, it was like nothing had changed. Don’t you think that’s what makes a friendship so special?’

I wipe a tear away from my cheek.

Laney finally takes a step forward and grabs my hands and holds them tightly in hers.

‘I know me getting married seems like a big step,’ she says. ‘I know that Sal has a new group of friends, and Jones moving to Brisbane is going to be a big change for all of us. But no matter what, we’ll still be there for you, like we have been for each other ever since we met.’

‘Absolutely,’ Jones adds. ‘I’ll always love you, mate. We all do.’

Jones advances towards me, opening his arms up to pull me in for a hug. ‘I love you too,’ I say into his shoulder, between sobs.

After a solid three-minute hug, I step back, wipe my tears and nod towards the bakery. ‘Should we go in for a coffee?’

The three of them turn to each other with a knowing look before glancing back at me.

‘What is it?’ I ask.

‘A coffee isn’t exactly why we asked you here,’ Jones reveals.

‘This place was meant to do my wedding cake, but there’s been an issue with the staff and they aren’t able to fulfil my order,’ Laney says. ‘The wedding is tomorrow, I don’t know what we’re going to do.’

‘And Pat hasn’t sorted out the venue.’

‘What happened to the venue?’ I ask.

Laney sighs. ‘We booked this waterfront restaurant at Balmoral Beach but it’s flooded because of the rain from Monday. When we came in to pick up the cake and they told me about the mistake with the dates, I didn’t know what to do. We don’t have a venue. I was so overwhelmed that I had to call Jones and Sal, and do you know what I realised?’

I shake my head.

‘I realised that before anything else, we need to make up with each other. I want you by my side, Carlos.’

I walk up to Laney and pull her in for a hug. ‘I want that too. So much,’ I say. ‘We’ll figure it out.’

‘We can’t just cancel,’ she says between shallow breaths. ‘I have family and friends flying in. And most importantly, I’m doing it for Mum.’

‘Were there other locations you and Pat were thinking of?’ I ask.

‘I just need a place that’s special for Pat and I,’ she replies. ‘Balmoral was where he first took me on a date, and he grew up in the area.’ Laney’s body deflates, as if she has given up. My mind whirls, searching for some kind of solution, and miraculously, I land on something that might actually work.