Page 14 of Sister of the Bride

I don’t even have to say anything. I sit up, and the glare on my face apparently speaks volumes, because Toby raises his hands in surrender. “Okay, we hate this. Got it,” he says.

“It’s not that I hate it, exactly, it’s just…I don’t understand it.”

“What’s to understand?”

I sit up, pulling my legs up onto the bench and turning to face him. “Why is she gettingmarried? Is there some kind of Victorian-era marriage contract she’s fulfilling? Is Mackenzie a scammer? Is Polly under the thrall of a witch’s curse?”

“Maybe they’re just in love,” Toby says.

“That’s fine! Be in love all day and all night. I just don’t get why she’s getting married. That seems…extreme. I mean, you were with Jen forfour years, and you guys didn’t get married.”

Toby shifts beside me but doesn’t say anything, so I guess we’re still not talking aboutthat.

“What can I do for you, Pip? How can I help?”

God, I’ve missed my best friend.

“Honestly, just you being here is good. I’ve really missed being able to put out the Bat-Signal. I don’t think I have any other friends who I could drag out of bed in the middle of the night to listen to me whine on the shores of an artificial pond.”

“It was an actual bullet point on my pros and cons list when I was deciding whether to come back,” he says. He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, his gaze on the grass below. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you couldn’t call when I was in California. Even when I was all the way across the country, you were still one of the most important people in the world to me. I would have dropped everything.”

He didn’tmakeme feel that way, but I definitely did. I mean, not only could I never manage to remember the time difference, but Toby was living this whole other life. He was doing big, important things. And he had Jen. It was pretty clear their relationship was serious, and I didn’t want to be the weird friend who seemed like she was peeing in a circle around him to claim him. So I didn’t call every time I felt like I was having a come apart, or every time I needed to talk something out, or every time I decided to finally press the release valve on my feelings and let the tears flow.

But that wasmychoice. It was never him.

I reach out and lay my hand on his thigh, giving it a squeeze. Damn, his quads are stacked—when did that happen?

“You’ve always been there for me, Toby. Even when you were on the other side of the country. No apologies necessary.”

A cheer rises up out of the dark, and a gaggle of kids dressed as pirates comes marauding through the garden, swords raised. I spot a stuffed parrot flopping on the shoulder of one, and another has a girl in pantaloons thrown over his shoulder. She’s pounding theatrically on his back and yelling something about treasure.

“Emerson kids,” I mutter as the theater students from the liberal arts college that borders the Common and Garden parade by.

“I never realized how weird this neighborhood was until I left it,” Toby says with a low chuckle. Then he yawns again.

I’m just about to release him from his best friend duties and send him back to bed when he sits up, his gaze searching for the moon in the sky.

“Do you think you’ll ever get married?” he asks.

I recoil, blinking at him. “What?”

Toby looks down and meets my eyes, his head cocked slightly. “Not soon, I just meanever. Do you see that for yourself, when you look into your future?”

“I don’t really look into my future very much,” I say. I turn my focus to the spot on the bench where the green paint is chipping. I flick at it with my fingernail. “There’s too much going on in the present.”

Toby shakes his head. “You’re very pragmatic, Pippin. I think that’s why you’re having a hard time with Polly’s engagement. She’s always been the whimsical one, and you’ve always been the practical one. But love isn’t practical.”

I wonder if he’s talking about Jen now, and the end of their relationship. Something happened that resulted in their breakup and him on the other side of the country, in him scrapping his entire life plan and winding up by my side. But if he doesn’t want to talk about it, I won’t force him. He’ll tell me when he’s ready.

“Maybe it should be,” I say instead. I huff and cross my arms over my chest, hunching down on the bench. Toby may be grown up, but I have gone full-on sullen teen.

“Everyone gets to have their own outlook, I guess,” Toby says. “Just promise me you won’t unload this on Polly. Your only job right now is to be supportive. When you need to let it out, you come to me, okay?”

“I know, jeez. I’m not a monster.”

“I’m not saying you’re a monster, Pip. Iamsaying that you can be a little…vocalabout your opinions.”

I shoot him a look. “Are you saying I can’t keep my mouth shut?”

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