Page 1 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

Chapter 1

Now

If you were to press pause on the dancefloor of my life, this is where you’d find me: in sweet desperation, flinging myself across a room to rugby-tackle strangers, in an attempt to catch the bouquet (of a bride I haven’t seen in years) to Gwen Stefani’s ‘Hollaback Girl’. Screaming.

Fucking weddings.

I know the superstitious tradition. I know what it means. But you know, I’ve surprised myself by accidently having a gorgeous time, and everyone else is trying to catch the bouquet, so why not me? I should know better than to follow a crowd. I can hear my mum now: If everyone else jumped off a cliff, Ella Cole, would you? Maybe I’m doing it for all the times I’ve said things like this don’t happen to people like me and sat on the sidelines of my life eating Flame Grilled Steak McCoy’s instead of taking a chance? Probably, most likely, I’m doing this because – well – I’ve drunk about 17,000 units of various cheap alcohol and I don’t know who many of these other people are. So, it’s fantastic really. I’ve got a free pass.

Right now, I’m that champ. Why, it’s as if since doing those three yoga classes on YouTube, I’ve become some next-level athlete and my best friends are cheerleaders. Aoife, Ronks, Bianca – all lovely losers like me – proudly clapping in an enthusiastic semi-circle, egging me on. And I’m the clumsy, unassuming underdog that they’re all rooting for to bring Mia’s bouquet home. A bolt of spontaneous lightning, a local superhero in a that-bit-too-tight hot-pink Eighties jumpsuit with ginormous shoulder pads and gold buttons.

This is the trillionth wedding (third) we’ve had to go to this year. People we know seem to be busting into their thirties with a bang! Like eggs hatching – once one goes, they all seem to go. They’re cracking all over any building they can transform into a function room: warehouses in London, ex-barns in Sussex, ruins in Edinburgh. Our diaries are now punctured with them. Weekends snatched, bank accounts raided. I don’t want to not be invited because yes, of course my feelings would be hurt but at the same time PLEASE DO NOT INVITE ME TO YOUR WEDDING! Where I have to dress up and be fun and pretend I’m not hungover from another thirtieth birthday party the night before that I also felt like I couldn’t say no to or not drink at because then everyone would ask if I was pregnant or on anti-biotics or having a breakdown. How is anybody affording this lifestyle anyway? Financially. Physically. Emotionally? So, please don’t invite me outside. At all. Ever.

And yet, here’s me, in the thick of it, sweating, begging to catch Mia’s bouquet like my life depends on it. What can I say? I’m a romantic at heart and weddings make everyone go a bit weird anyway, don’t they? Unsurprisingly really, when you’ve been asked to Save a Date longer than it takes for a tin of corned beef to expire.

Summer is over and we’ve been freezing our tits off in a derelict dilapidated ex-biscuit factory where everyone’s running around saying ‘Can you believe this was an old biscuit factory?’. Mia’s parents have dug into the cobwebby cellars of their pensions to hire a half bulldozed building site that, let’s be honest, we probably should be wearing hard helmets inside. But once love arrives, draped in lights and hydrangeas, the fairy tale bursts into life: stardust.

My friends and I have been trying really hard to be adults all day. Bless us, we acted terrifically sober even though we’d already knocked back two gin-in-tins each on an empty stomach on the way here. Despite Bianca already harbouring that why does that girl keep looking at me? energy (nobody was looking at her), we stay calm. Tame. We’ve been on our very best behaviour, taking it all seriously for our old school friend Mia and her big day. Acting like we are the kind of people that carry a pop-up chemist on their person: tissues, blister plasters, gum, paracetamol, Vaseline, toothpicks.

Aoife, my best friend of over twenty-five years, got her lashes done for this one; Bianca squished her tattoo-covered body into a bodycon dress, today’s blue hair slicked into some fraudulent bun; and Ronke, seven months pregnant, still showed up in a heel and goddam fascinator for fuck’s sake! Clutch bags replaced our usual reliable rucksacks and bumbags, our everyday trainers and sliders now peep-toe wedges. Except for Bianca, who is making a point of being as stompy as possible in her Doc Martens.

During the ceremony, we whisper politely, shuffling and shushing each other nervously along the charming mismatched wonky wooden chairs – you know those old church ones with the slot at the back for the Bible? We flip our phones to airplane mode and speak to Mia’s parents in our best grown-up podcast voices. ‘So good to see you,’ we lie, even though we’re convinced her dad hates us. My face is already aching from its permanent smile because you never know when you’ll be caught off-guard in a wedding photo, so to be safe, you have to be beautiful, dutiful, happy all the time at all the bits. You don’t want to be the only frown. Caught out, doubting the love. Everyone zooming in on your cynical face in the background, thinking it will never last. Glaring into the abyss of existential dread.

So, I am smiling my head off, and, before I know it, the formalities and rituals are giving me the giggles. The ridiculous pomp and ceremony makes me feel like we’re kids in a school nativity with inappropriate tea towels on our heads. Or trying to do the Ouija board at a sleepover. Aoife feels me laughing and pinches my arm – ‘Ella, shhhh’ – only to burst out laughing herself. When I hear her laugh, I know I shouldn’t, it’s bad – terrible – but I begin to laugh harder. Ronks lets out a snort – and she’s not even tipsy – and Bianca starts to cry; she can’t help it. Our bodies are vibrating side by side, trip-wiring ourselves into more giggles. Trying to hold in the laughter only makes it funnier.

‘I can’t breathe,’ I wheeze, clinging onto my chest. ‘It’s not even funny – I don’t know why I’m laughing so hard.’ We already know we’re going to be left with a six-pack after today.

When the room is full, Mia’s fiancé looks down the aisle for her in the exact same way I look for food coming from the charcoaled grill of Nando’s: longingly. Something shifts.

The players of a string quartet glance at each other silently, then start to play ‘Time After Time’.

And it’s got me.

Don’t cry. Oh, I’m crying. What is this emotional rollercoaster?

Aoife asks, ‘Shit, are we unhinged?’

‘I have been flagging this for a while now.’

Tears involuntarily come, carving through our foundation in zebra stripes.

And we turn to see our school friend Mia, the elegant bride, grace the aisle: a visiting angel, a J’adore advert, a Disney princess, Aphrodite. Mia, who I always thought was just as perfectly strange as me but isn’t because someone she loves actually loves her back in the same way.

Wait, am I terrified that it will never be me? That I’ll end up a shadowy ghoul with a hungry soul, wailing, haunting the earth’s crust, picking at the thorny shrubs of the dirt at the end of the world, unloved? Or worse, that it will be me, but I’ll be marrying the wrong person. Not the love of my life. That the fairy tale will be wrong? Am I crying because I know this is something I’ll never have? Unless I settle. Or lie. Or marry myself.

‘Mia Bennett,’ Aoife whispers into my ear; her breath smells of Wrigley’s Extra – the blue ones. ‘Who’d have thought? She’s a friggin’ goddess.’

‘That’s exactly what she is,’ says Ronke.

‘She’s made it alright,’ Bianca agrees.

We take our seats and watch two people in love make their promises. I take photos on my phone because that’s what everyone else is doing. Even though we all know the photos will go nowhere, just sit on my phone until I am free of guilt enough to delete them. At the you may now kiss the bride bit, Aoife elbows us in the ribs to offer a crumbled cereal bar that she’d split into quarters. ‘Weddings need safe spaces’ – she nods as if it’s a gap in the market – ‘just a darkly lit room with some beanbags and soft cushions, you know, somewhere at the back, to run to and cry?’

At the reception, I pick up yet another glass of the cava they keep calling champagne from the little round trays, overly thanking the waiter like they’ve just resuscitated me.

‘I’m saying Yes to everything tonight!’ I announce, and this decision cheers me up enormously.

‘Everything?’ one of those annoying drunk and sloppy NOBODY-ASKED-YOU-ACTUAL-DAD dads pipes up.

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