Page 110 of You Belong With Me

She immediately wished she’d not said that.

‘Picturing Iggy naked has never helped anyone’s psychic state.’

He fiddled with his tie, and Edie said: ‘Here,’ and reached up to adjust it, forcing him to face her.

Their eyes met fully as she dropped her hands, and Edie couldn’t resist the liberty of kissing him on the cheek. ‘Good luck.’

Elliot kissed her back hard and quick on the mouth, muttering: ‘You’re not my gran,’ before turning away to deal with the latest applicant for his time.

Edie was left reverberating from it, disconcerted. On the one hand, it was a voluntary kiss; on the other, it might be the last kiss.

Fifteen minutes later, his two-hander speech with Iggy was a riot. No one had lived lives more suited to best man stories than Fraser and Iggy. Even Edie was left helpless by the story of their suffering norovirus in a Las Vegas hot tub, colour provided by Iggy, punchlines supplied by Elliot.

Elliot brought it to a close with sincere words about how he’d never met anyone more open-hearted and goodwilled than his brother and that Molly and he were ideally matched in this regard.

He even admitted he’d worried about their rushing into matrimony and concluded: ‘Looking at you both today, I’m going to have to break and say the words I most hate saying in this world.Fraser, you were right.’

There was thunderous applause as Fraser leaped out of his seat to hug Elliot and Edie cried warm tears that she had to carefully ration, so they didn’t turn into a flood.

If this was their final evening together, it was nothing short of sadistic. She looked at the brothers talking animatedly,thought how Elliot forgave Iggy, protected Fraser, saved that friendship. How he lived his big life, as Hannah called it, yet never lost sight of what mattered. Or who.

It was inconvenient, to say the least, to have complete and total perspective on the size of a human being who’d come into your life, right at the point you were losing them.

Edie was so proudof him, and he no longer had a use for her pride.

57

The table plans dissolved into mingling, the music got louder, and somehow, in the blur of it, she and Elliot had still barely interacted. Every so often, he’d have to beckon her over, Edie having been identified as his plus one, or place his palm on the small of her back as he chatted to someone.

Edie was soothed by these public displays of affection, but only for a second. What else was he going to do?

Oh hi, Aunty Susan, yeah, this is technically my girlfriend, but I called it off before the ceremony and will be officially agreeing it’s curtains when I’m removing my cufflinks later. In short, don’t get too attached, yeah.

Also, Elliot wasn’t vindictive and wouldn’t exclude her. They were on show, on his brother’s big day. Her presence couldn’t be undone, though Edie saw a future where his loved ones tactfully selected portraits without her for display. It was difficult amid the joie de vivre to accept what had happened. It was tempting to huff down another Moët, clutch at him, and pretend it hadn’t. But, as she said, Elliot wasn’t someone who said things he didn’t mean.

Edie was in a secret follow spot of sadness, her face carefullycomposed into a beatific expression at all times, blankly checking her phone. Gothic Winona Energy veil set aside, lipstick reapplied.

She kept internally replaying:I don’t want you to.Those were five words you didn’t utter without serious intent and the fifth was probably surplus.

In the time she was unexpectedly gifted in her own head, Edie thought hard about why she’d not seen Declan’s declaration coming and how her blithe dismissal of their attachment must’ve felt to Elliot.

Jack had got closer to her than he should have done because he was a sly charlatan. Declan had got too close because he wasn’t one, but it didn’t mean he was harmless to her.

She imagined it reversed: visiting Elliot, some gal pal Girl Friday appearing, a fast friend and co-conspirator. Their cackling away together. Edie sussing that woman was hankering after him and would be scheming. Edie would’ve worried, she could see now, that if Elliot politely rubbished her concerns and refused to address it face on, she’d be fearful of what he’d find when he did.

She saw that her mindset that she was Just Another Girl and He Was Him hadn’t helped. She’d thought it was humility, but it had been used as a pass. It was other people’s right to treat Elliot as a superhero with the ability to turn himself into a spatial vortex, not hers.

He’d made it plain that Declan made him anxious, and if she was really, truly truthful: she’d never taken it entirely seriously.

There was in fact a frighteningly simple question she needed to ask him.

Had the Declan incident alarmed Elliot enough to bail on them entirely – in which case, she might be able to rescue it – or was it a catalyst for doubts he was having anyway? In which case, they were done.

Don’t let it, whatever it is, trigger the ongoing fear that, somehow, someone you love that much will leave.

Was this it? Had Elliot been, as his mother put it, appearing to cope when he wasn’t coping?

Trouble is, Deborah,Edie thought,how do I tell the difference between abandonment tremors and his genuinely wanting to abandon this?

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