Page 143 of Never Not Friends

“Do you think I made the right decision?”

“What’s done is done, Vinny. You don’t need me to tell you whether it was right or wrong.”

“But I want you to tell me that I made the right choice.”

“You made the decision you believed you needed to make. Now you have to trust yourself enough to live with it.”

“I don’t know what happens now.”

“No one does.” She puts her arm around my shoulder. “But we can start by getting your sisters and going home.”

I glance toward the bridal room. It feels like I need to say something to Emma.

Or maybe I just want to.

There’s a big difference.

I force myself to look away.

“Okay, let’s get the girls and go home.”

She squeezes my shoulder. “Good idea.”

The bridal room door opens; everyone turns as Emma steps outside.

One look at her face and I know whatever happened in there was bad.

Really bad.

Camila reaches her first. Emma says something to her, and the four of them close around her, escorting her out to the parking lot.

I stare after her, fighting every urge to just go see if she’s okay.

It’s dumb.

She’s not okay.

None of us are.

But I can’t fix that today.

The first thing I see when I walk into my house that night is Juliet’s sandals. Brown slip-ons, pushed against the wall like she’s keeping them there in case she needs to run outside quickly for something. I’ve bumped into them probably ten times this week, usually while telling myself I need to remind Juliet to put them away. I never did.

I close the door.

Silence.

Not normal silence.

The kind that seems to expand until it fills every corner.

I drop the keys on the kitchen table, noticing Juliet’s spiral notebook on the counter flipped to her wedding-to-do list. The last thing left that wasn’t crossed off was: Go on honeymoon!!

That one hurts.

I walk to the fridge and open it. I don’t know why. I’m not even hungry. I just spent the last hour eating greasy food at Pete’s Fish and Chips with my mom and sisters.

Comfort food.