Page 34 of The Ghost of Exes Past

My dad turns to introduce himself to Timothy’s uncle, Mum following his lead.

I reach to nudge Jules as I clock her tutting at Maude’s lilac rinse.

Jules leans in, lowering her voice. ‘I had another look into that name on the seating plan, by the way. Asked the co-ordinator, the staff, nobody can explain—’

‘It’s fine, Grandma, I’ve forgotten about it already.’ I laugh, eyes wide.

She holds my gaze for a beat, then lets it go. She turns back to her phone, scrolling through the speech on her Notes app as if checking for damage.

‘Shame your girls aren’t up here, hen,’ she says, a quick nod towards the corner, placing her phone face down on the table. ‘I still think you should have let them fuss over you.’

‘We talked about this, Grandma. No maid of honour, no bridesmaids.’

‘Yes, I remember.’ Jules sniffs as she takes a knife to a bread roll. ‘Shame about that. I was looking forward to my first hen do.’

I look to the corner of the room where my girls are sitting. Daniela and Molly are posing, flutes in hand, while Rachael takes their picture. They fall about laughing when inspecting the result; I can see them zooming in on the frame, teasing each other’s pouts. They look like they’re having more fun than us on the top table, where my dad is trying to make small talk with the new in-laws.

My girls should be up here with me tomorrow. That was the original plan when I thought of my dream wedding. Molly as maid of honour, Rachael and Daniela as bridesmaids. Matching dresses, embarrassing speeches, crying during the toast … the whole thing.

But Timothy doesn’t have many close friends.

I let that sentence echo around my head for a moment. My fiancé doesn’t have many close friends. He has two older brothers who are way closer to each other than they are to him. And his best friend, genuinely, hand on heart, the person he’d call in a crisis … is his dad. Which is lovely, in theory. Healthy, even. His closeness with his parents was one of the first things I fell for, apart from the fact he also cooks the best brunch. But it also meant that asking his dad to be his best man felt … a little tragic. So instead, we’d agreed to keep it simple. Balanced.

And I get it. I do. I’m the one who suggested it. It seemed fairer that way. But also, I wish he’d said no. I wish he’d told me not to be silly, not to let that stop me from having my girls up here, as my bridesmaids, by my side, because he knows how much they mean to me. That he’d said, ‘Fuck balanced, this is your day too.’ Instead, he just accepted it. And I smiled and told myself it didn’t matter. It does, though, a little, I realise now.

I shake it off. Who cares about traditions these days anyway? It’s way better to break traditions than stick to old-fashioned ones, right? But I can’t help the twinge of sadness as I watch the girls from across the room. Molly is laughing so hard, her shoulders are shaking, and Rachael is covering her mouth with the back of her hand.

I think of Jake’s funeral: his friends, like a pack, arms around each other, loyal to the end.

There he is again, like a parasite in my brain. Can I not have one moment without him invading my thoughts?

Breathe out. Turn back to your fiancé.

Timothy passes me a blini with cream cheese and caviar. Just as I’m about to pop it in my mouth, he stops me, waiting for a Fork Yeah photographer to jog over and snap me with it. The flash blinds me. A pearl of caviar slides off the cream cheese and down my fingers. I force a smile for the camera, then pop the whole thing in my mouth in one go. As I chew, the tiny pearls of salt popping on my tongue, the camera still flashing, my attention drifts back to the corner of the room. I watch as the girls scoop caviar onto the back of their hands, before licking it off with their tongues. One of them mimes snorting it, as if it were a bump of coke, and everyone laughs. I’m desperate to join them.

There’s a lull in the conversation at our table and I look around the room. Is everyone having a good time? Is it just my girls having fun? I try to remember the last time I laughed like that. Properly laughed, tears streaming, stomach cramping, gasping for air. When was the last time I even had fun?

I catch my mum’s eye next to me and give her a quick smile. Then feel a tap on my shoulder. Timothy’s dad, Sam, has appeared behind me.

‘Sam! I wanted to say thank you for the speech you gave. It was so lovely.’

‘My pleasure, Belle. I wanted to say a little thank you tonight, as I’m sure tomorrow will be too busy – but thank you for making our Timothy so happy. You’ve been so good for him.’

‘He’s been good for me, too,’ I say automatically.

‘He has! That’s great.’ It’s a statement, but why does it feel more like a question? It hangs in the air, just a moment too long.

‘We’re great together,’ I say.

He nods, satisfied, happy. ‘That’s all a father can ask for.’

But I’m still thinking about the way he said that. He has? Like he was surprised? Like he knows something I don’t?

‘Hey, did I ever tell you about the summer Timothy realised he wanted to be a chef?’ he continues.

I smile, shaking my head. ‘He said he always knew. That it was never a question.’ I shrug.

He chuckles. ‘That’s the polished version. The truth is, he really was as awful … as I hinted in my speech. When he was thirteen, he tried, but he was useless. Burned everything. Made such a mess. His nanna …’ He nods to Maude. ‘She banned him from her kitchen after the spaghetti incident.’