She should have gone for sleeves, she doesn’t have the shoulders for a strapless dress.

At least, that’s what I told myself as I chewed at the skin around my nail.

My mother swatted a hand wrinkled like parchment at my own to stop my disgusting habit.

The woman in the row before me blew into a handkerchief like a baby elephant.

I flicked my gaze to the bride once more as she walked down the isle, her arm tucked neatly around her fathers as he prepared to give away his only daughter to the love of her life.

The love of my life.

My best friend, who once upon a time, asked if I would be the woman who walked down the isle to be his.

I swallowed, looking down at my gold shoes that peeped out from under my skirt. The dress was olive green, with a corset-style bodice and a slit that cut up to my tanned thigh. I wore my hair loose in curls, my eyelids dusted with shimmering gold.

My mother told me that my dress was too revealing for a wedding.

I told her that it was my last attempt at getting William back.

She laughed, but I wasn’t joking.

Will and I had met at university, when I was studying English literature and wearing jumpers with holes at the wrists where I’d poke my thumbs through. He studied philosophy and politics and smoked enough weed I’d questioned how he even made it to lectures at all, let alone graduated top of his class. We met one night at The Vaults, when he’d tried to skip the queue for the pool table. I told him just because his parents paid for his tuition didn’t mean he got immediate rights before everyone else and he’d laughed, challenging me to a game.

Loser buys the next round.

He lost.

I took his number, and forgot about it.

We had bumped into each other two weeks later in the library. I’d spilt my Americano down the front of my shirt and he told me that I was a very typical English literature student, that we were messy and chaotic and wore our emotions on our faces like we were the only ones in the room to have them. I’d scoffed, and told him anyone studying philosophy and politics was a self-righteous arsehole.

We went for drinks that night, sharing a bottle of wine and a bowl of olives before I went back to his student flat, and my coffee-stained shirt ended up on his bedroom floor.

His friends became mine, and we spent the remainder of our time at university bathing in the summer sun on the river banks drinking box wine, booking weekend breaks to Edinburgh for the Christmas markets, watching the superbowl at midnight in the local sports bar, even though we didn’t like American football. I spent my summers at his families, braiding his little sisters hair and playing hopscotch with chalk on the pavement, and he spent weekends at mine, mowing the lawn and taking out the bins as I cared for my father who grew sicker with each day.

When my father passed and we moved to London together, we got grown-up jobs and split the bills in a house share of six, arguing about using each others shampoo, and who kept leaving toast crumps in the communal butter tub.

I was let go from my first internship, and sacked from my second when I accidentally shared a confidential file with the whole office. My frustrations grew like my waistline as I sunk pints I couldn’t afford, as my behaviour became reckless and I blamed it on the death of my father, the economy, my own loneliness.

But he only grew stronger.

He was offered a promotion, and then another. He made new friends playing squash at the local club, and I knew he was embarrassed when he took me to work socials, his unemployed university girlfriend who dropped food down her shirt and swore like a football hooligan when she drank more than three pints.

It was the beginning of the end, my behaviour becoming more erratic, blaming Will after everything he had done, after all the time he’d spent by my side. Until one evening he sat me down, and told me I should move back to my mothers. He couldn’t afford to support us both anymore, and returning home to a hostile environment every night made him weary, anxious even. He was worried about me, home alone all day surrounded by my own clutter. I obliged of course, the battle was won before it had even started. I had simply been waiting for him to dismiss me, because I didn’t have the heart to admit that I knew I deserved it.

It took me eight months to get back on my feet again.

I lived with my Mum, giving out paper CVs and accepting two jobs in my small hometown. Mornings at a local coffee shop, and evenings stacking shelves in Tesco Express. I stayed away from the pub, and my body returned to its natural healthy state as I fell into the rhythm of life once more.

Will and I spoke every day, a few texts in the morning, or a phone call before bed.

He was my best friend, my soul mate. And although he’d been wracked with guilt for how it ended, I didn’t blame him.

I was responsible for my own happiness, and yet I had let the burden weigh on him, and him alone.

The day that I accepted a new job in London, I got the train straight to Will’s new flat. I picked up a pack of beers for him, his favourite, and a pack of Pepsi Max for myself. I was sober, and I wanted to show him that I’d changed. I still wore the suit from my final interview where they’d offered me the job on the spot, and I smiled bashfully as my heels clicked along the cobbles, the evening sun blushing rouge in London. I rang the buzzer, and the door opened slowly.

A blonde with flushed cheeks and ocean eyes answered, her smile wide.

It hadn’t even occurred to me that Will had met someone else. I had told myself that we were soul mates, and no matter what, we would stay together, always. With every text, every phone call between us, I had assumed he was waiting for me.

But he was not waiting, he had moved on.

I looked at Will through long black lashes, at his little bow tie and grey pocket square. He smiled at her, his brown eyes glossy as her father kissed her tenderly on the cheek, and she took her place beside her husband-to-be.

It had been five years since the day my heart broke on his door step.

Five years of missing him.

Four house shares before I could afford my own flat in Clapton.

Three occasions I had started drinking again, before the days to follow reminded me why I’d quit.

Two promotions, and now I was working on the final edits of my debut novel.

And one second until I announced to the church that I was still hopelessly in love with him.