Was it necessary to interject that I thought it was a horrible, terrible, bad idea or should it be plain obvious?
It wouldn’t have made a difference, anyway, because she was rambling on before I could get in a word. “I told this one right here she was done for the second she met Royce.”
She swatted in the direction of Emily while she simultaneously swooned, pressing her other hand over her heart. “I mean, you should have seen her the mornin’ after she met him. She was walking around like she’d gotten struck upside the head and had a halo of stars dancing around her. You can’t instantly hate someone that bad without loving them. And let me tell you, she hated him.”
“Hey now,” Royce rumbled with a slight, guilty chuckle.
Melanie kept right on. “She told me I was out of my mind when I started hunting for bridesmaids dresses that very morning. She should have known better than to question me. I mean come on, we know who’s the genius here.” She gestured to herself. “I called it. I think I’m the one who deserves the credit. They wouldn’t be together if it wasn’t for me.”
A giggle slipped free.
I’d almost forgotten how over-the-top Melanie was.
Fun.
A joy that lightened the dark.
Emily rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, it was all you, Mel. I would have forgotten all about him had you not kept up with your pesterin’.”
Royce wrapped his arms around Emily from behind, murmured at her cheek, “Forget about me? No chance I would let you.”
A blush pinked her chest, and you could see them falling into the other.
My spirit danced and shivered, shaking in a way it hadn’t in so long. I pinned a smile on my face and tried to forget the man standing twenty feet in the distance who I could feel washing through the atmosphere. Wave after wave of that deep, stark severity.
A chill taking to the air.
Mabel cleared her throat.
I jerked my attention to her.
Our gazes tangled for a beat.
In that second was a thousand apologies. Endless understanding and boundless sympathies.
“Mabel.” I managed it on a whisper. Throat quivering.
She edged my way. Carefully. Her arms wrapping me tight the second she got to me. “I missed you, Violet.”
I fought the pricking of tears.
And I wondered if she could feel the loss that echoed from the middle of me because she just drew me in tighter. Held me for the longest time before she edged back and brushed back a piece of hair that was whipping around my face. “I never should have been gone so long.”
My head shook. “That was on me.” The words cracked.
I’d lost track of the number of times she’d tried to reach out. After everything went down with Richard. When my sister went missing. With Daisy, offering help. When my mama had fallen ill.
Every time.
Unfailing.
I’d ignored each one because I couldn’t fathom the pain of having to be in her space again. A sharp, gutting reminder of what I’d lost. But I guessed it’d come to the point where it hurt even worse being fully without, the vacancy too much to ignore, and I’d ended up at Emily’s engagement party like a lost soul searching for its home.
Mabel brushed the pad of her thumb along my jaw.
Soft affection.
I wanted to weep.
When Emily cleared her throat as if it might be enough to break up the tension, Mabel reluctantly released me.
Emily held her hand out for the girl hanging in the periphery. “Violet, I want you to meet Maggie. Royce’s sister. Soon to be mine.”
Affection rolled from her tongue as she gestured to the timid girl who couldn’t be more than nineteen or twenty. Dark, long hair, her eyes the same color as Royce’s though they shined with something soft and innocent.
Beautiful.
Sweet.
A calm emanated from her. Her gift an ushering of peace.
“Maggie, this is Violet.”
“Hi, Violet. It’s so nice to meet you.” She stepped forward, her attention darting all over. “You grow flowers?” Awe flooded from her voice.
I smiled. “I do.”
“Wow, that has to be the coolest job in the world.”
My smile widened, and I turned my gaze out to the acres of fields that grew behind us. Rows and rows of the flowers that were raised with love.
Blood, sweat, and tears.
“It is. But it’s not that easy. It’s a ton of work. Sometimes I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into.”
“I bet.”
“I can’t take all the credit, though. I have help.”
“I should hope so,” she said with a small giggle before she was coming forward and hugging me. Not as if we were the oldest of friends. But as if we were gonna be.
God.
How could one moment be so perfect and horrible?
But my mama had always told me that was life.
Filled with grace and beauty and light.
Worn down by evils and tragedies and afflictions.