Louise Bentley is a feisty, wild, 'let's-go-to-Capri-for-the-weekend-yeah?' kind of girl. She spends her days working at a party-planning company. Oh, and she never wants kids. Ever.
Ben Langford is a studious, quiet, 'I'm-busy-reading' sort of man...
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"I can't believe I agreed to this," Sophia muttered.
"You love it," Louise said.
Sophia gripped the table. "Do I?"
Louise grinned. The four of them — Sophia, Ella, Ophelia and her — were sitting at a glass dinner table, suspended 100 feet in the air like a diamond earring. Behind them, London was a collection of black turrets and towers, ringed in fog and buttery evening light. The river curved around the city, a glittering bass clef.
Ella glanced down. "Do you think they'd let us down early?"
"Why?"
Ella winced. "I'm just asking."
"Probably not," Louise said, taking a sip of champagne. "Anyway, it's my hen party." She smiled smugly. "My rules."
Sophia balled up a napkin, as if she was about to throw it at her, and then seemed to think better of it. Louise picked up her fork. A sea of food was spread out between them: salmon with a blackened crust, popcorn grits, charred leek and garlic potatoes. She was just digging into her salmon when Ella spoke.
"You know, Lou," she said, "I distinctly remember you saying that you wouldn't marry Ben Langford if he was the last man on earth."
She almost choked. "I did not."
"You totally did," Ella said.
Louise frowned. "When did I say that?"
"At Millie's wedding."
Louise paused. She waited for the pang of sadness that accompanied her sister's name, the familiar twist of her gut. And it was there, but it was smaller. More manageable. She set down her fork, picking up her champagne.
"To Millie," Louise said. "Who would have loved to be here." She smiled, glancing down at the steep drop. "Even if she was secretly hating it the whole time."
Ella squeezed her hand. The girls raised their glasses of champagne.
"To Millie," they echoed.
Louise drank, letting the fizz bubble in her stomach for a moment and then vanish, carrying with it any lingering feelings of sadness. She'd been worried, going into this wedding, that it might set her off again. That the nightmares of the car accident would return. But Louise felt only a small stab of sorrow and the rest was undiluted excitement.
After all, she was marrying Ben Langford.
Ben.
There was nothing scary about that.
She hadn't known that Ben was going to propose. They'd been walking around Leicester Square after a play, and London had been a rainy wash of neon yellow lights, haggling vendors, and people rushing for the tube. Ben had paused by a street caricaturist, and then — uncharacteristically — suggested they get their portrait done.
Louise had stared. "But it's raining."
"So?"
"We'll get soaked!"
"I thought you liked impulsive things," Ben had argued.
So Louise had agreed. It wasn't until the caricaturist flipped around the picture that she saw the word bubbles spelling out "Will You Marry Me?" And when she turned around, Ben was kneeling on the damp pavement, a small black box in his hands.
Louise had said yes, obviously — but not before pretending to think about it first.
She had to keep the man on his toes, after all.
And now here they were, a night before the wedding, suspended above London as the sky turned candyfloss pink. Sophia was snapping group pictures, bravely pulling out her phone a hundred feet in the air. Ophelia was telling them a story involving her three-year-old daughter Austen facing off with a hungry goat. And Ella was laughing, the tinkling sound raining down in brilliant golden showers.
Everything was exactly as it should be.
"Gosh." Ophelia leaned back in her seat. "You know, I think this is the first night I've had in ages that I haven't been thinking about diapers."
Louise pulled a face. "Same."
"Or paying bills," Sophia added. "Or finally going to the dentist."
"We've finally grown up, haven't we?" Ella shook her head. "All of us. I hadn't even noticed until just now."
Louise considered this. She thought about where they had all been at the age of seventeen, when they were still students at Lovewood Academy in Toronto. Ella Walker, a self-proclaimed wallflower, unable to step out of her brother's shadow. Sophia Huntington, stubborn as they come, relying on the praise of strangers. Ophelia Prescott, an incurable dreamer, living more in books than reality.
And her.
She'd been a charming mess, at best; a disastrous liability, at worst.
But now, here they were.
Louise had played a part in all these girls' stories, just as they had played a part in her own. They had drifted in and out of each other's lives for more than a decade, growing in and around each other, like green plants in the same pot. They shared the same soil. They breathed the same air.
Over the years of tears and broken hearts, of laughter and love, they had championed and supported each other. Her grief was their grief. Their success was her success. They hadn't always been in the same city, but they were only a phone call away.
She wouldn't have traded them for anything.
"I love you all," Louise told them. "You're the world to me."
Sophia raised her glass. "Sisters from another mister."
"Toronto girls," Ophelia added.
Ella smiled. "Forever."
They clinked their glasses, the bubbles shimmering in the evening light. Birds squabbled and cawed overhead, drifting in lazy circles on an early summer breeze. Silverware clinked. Violin music swelled. And then the burning sun slipped over the edge of the world, plunging the scene into night.