Page 86 of The Layover
There’s only the sound of my pulse roaring in my ears like the ocean.
Can we talk? Can I just borrow you for a moment? Can I have a quick word, please?
And I’ll take his arm and we’ll step to one side, and …
He presses his empty beer glass into my hand. ‘Couldn’t get me another one, could you, babe? Peroni – you know me, can’t resist.’ He winks, and where my heart would normally be in freefall, I’m only numb.
There’s another girl in the group, an old housemate. She’s saying something to Marcus and the others, picking up a thread of conversation I missed.
Marcus throws his head back when he laughs. He winks at this other girl, says to her, ‘Don’t tempt me, babe. I’m not married yet, hey?’
It’s not like being doused in a bucket of cold water. It’s not like being woken roughly out of a deep sleep, either.
It’s a cold, sickening trickle down my spine, a medley of guilt and shame and stupidity and self-pity and fury bleeding through me in a great, tangled mess, and none of them quite win out because the dominant feeling is justnumbness.
All that time I wasted loving him …
All those daydreams, the effort and energy and emotion, all the times I fretted over what I did wrong and should’ve done differently, the smiles and texts I read too much into …
I stand a little straighter, a little taller. I feel more sure of myself now than ever before.
How did it take an overnight layover with total strangers for me to finally see?
I interrupt to say, ‘I hope you have a really great day, Marcus. Congratulations.’
And when I walk away, I set his beer glass down on a passing tray, and go wait quietly out of the way until it’s time to take our seats for the ceremony.
Time until ‘I Do’
22 minutes
Chapter Forty
Gemma
It’s not hard to find which suite is Kayleigh’s – there’s laughter and chatter spilling out of the room and a flurry of activity. Someone passes me with an empty bottle of champagne upturned in an ice bucket, and a man who looks like a photographer’s assistant is running in with some wires.
I catch the door before it swings shut behind him, chest puffed with pride that I’ve made it in the nick of time. And I don’t even look too shabby, all things considered. No maid of honour has ever done more than me.
‘I’m here!’ I sing out, striding into the room. It smells like hairspray. The girls are piled onto a lilac-upholstered chaise beneath the window while Kayleigh has some final touch-ups done on her hair, the photographers capturing every moment.
There’s a beat of silence in the wake of my arrival, and my heart seizes. There’s a kernel of panic suddenly in the pit of my stomach, and every split second the silence stretches out makes another one burst until I feel like I’m going to explode in a ball of flame.
I remember the WhatsApp chat I was never meant to see. How little they all think of me. How unashamedly they ripped me to pieces, and how Kayleigh encouraged it. How they wouldalllike it far better if I hadn’t shown up at all.
What will they say about me now? That I’m an attention-seeker trying to steal the limelight, showing up at the last minute, trying to undermine Kayleigh on her big day out of jealousy? That I’m late and clearly couldn’t be bothered to make the effort, so should just leave?
But then the room is full of shrieks and all four of them hurtle out of their seats to run over and squash me into a group hug.
Kayleigh grabs me tightest of all, squealing, ‘OMG, you made it! I can’t believe it! I know the girls said you’d landed and you were on the way but … Ohmigod, Gem! You’re here! Stop, I’m going to ruin my makeup, you’ll make me cry.’ She pushes me away to waft a hand at her bone-dry eyes, laughing.
‘You look gorge,’ I tell her. Now Fran’s pointed it out, I canhearthe way my voice changes, the affect it takes on, more of a drawl. I literally change my whole voice to fit the lifestyle Kayleigh wants. How have I never noticed I do that before? ‘Totally stunning.’
‘Don’t I?’ She spins, just enough to swish the many layers of skirt. The dress is all beaded ivory and boned bodice and expensive silk. The skirt will detach later so that instead of the fuller, princess-style, she’ll be left with a simpler shift look for the evening. Her hair – honey blonde with recently touched-up highlights, rather than the sandy, brownish colour of Leon’s and Myleene’s – is in soft, shiny waves that cascade over one shoulder, pinned with a glittering hair comb. She really does look beautiful.
‘Let’s get you in the chair, quick!’ Kayleigh grabs my shoulders to propel me across the room, then touches my hair. ‘Savannah will sort you out; she can fix this bird’s nest right up …’
Oh, it doesn’t lookthat bad.
