Theirs: a short story [harry styles] ✓ - Chapter 9: Chapter 9

16th September 2016 - 3 months and 10 days until the big day.
"It's so nice to see you happy again, Marn." Elenore cooed, briefly tearing her eyes away from the laptop screen. I eyed her across the breakfast bar and smiled.
"It's nice to feel happy again." It had been a strange few weeks with a rollercoaster of emotions, but tearing up the cheque from my mother had been the best decision I'd ever made. Harry and Niall had come haring into the lounge at the sound of shredding paper and had stood shocked in the doorway with coffee dribbling down their arms and onto the rug.
I'd felt like a different person the next day. As if everything that had happened had become a distant memory. I would never not be sad about my mother's passing but it wasn't something that had to impact my life. Not if I didn't want it to.
"For a while there, I wasn't entirely sure you were going to come out the other side of that." She grimaced. "I would have postponed my wedding, you know." She swallowed. "I wouldn't have wanted you to be suffering while everybody else was having fun."
I reached across the marble surface and squeezed her hand. "Don't be silly." I told her. "I wouldn't let anything ruin your big day - myself included."
Elenore squeezed back and although I knew she was being supportive, I wasn't naive to the sigh of relief that visibly rolled off of her body. I knew that my misfortune in the past few weeks had affected not only myself. Harry had been visibly strained; treading on egg shells around me as if frightened I might snap at any moment. And understandably, what with playing a large role in her wedding, Elenore had been concerned.
"I can't believe I'm getting married in three months!" She squealed and rested her chin on her palm like a lovestruck teenager. I retracted my hand.
"Which reminds me – who do you want to invite to your hen party?"
Elenore rolled her eyes as if I'd asked the most pointless question in the world and flashed her teeth in amusement. "Marn, I already have it all planned out."
Sometimes I thought Elenore had misunderstood the point of having a maid of honour. Aside from agreeing to be a part of her special day and participating in the usual dress fittings and invitation writing sessions, my own duties had become non-existent. I was quite sure that it was supposed to be my responsibility to organise the hen party.
"Huh?" My eyebrows mashed together in a frown.
"I just want it to be the two of us." She shrugged nonchalantly. "At the bar in Soho. The one where this all started. If you'd never met Harry that night, I'd never have met Niall. It seems only right, don't you think?"
I balked. Clearly I didn't know my best friend as well as I thought I did. I'd always pinned Elenore as the type of girl who wanted to be decorated with pink fur and 'L plates' and drink through of phallic shaped straws. Not the kind who wanted to go out for a quiet drink.
"O-k." I responded cautiously as if waiting for her to burst out laughing and announce she was joking. She blinked slowly, giving off no indication of the above and pursed her lips.
"You don't approve?" She asked, sounding genuinely confused by my lack of enthusiasm.
"You mean, no strippers?" My face remained scrunched in on itself, still hesitant that she'd said the honest truth. "No stupid outfits? None of Niall's female relatives?"
Elenore shrugged again and tapped her fingernails against the breakfast bar. "Nope."
"Really?" I pressed. "Like, seriously?"
"Yes!" She exclaimed, laughing. "Why is it so hard for you to believe that I just want a night out with my best mate?"
"Because you're Elenore Jones!" I snorted. "You bunked school on your thirteenth birthday, you illegally purchased and drank a whole bottle of Smirnoff on your sixteenth and I got pregnant at your eighteenth! You never opt for quiet or easy. This is incredibly uncharacteristic of you."
"Soon to be Elenore Horan." She couldn't help but remind me with a twitch of her lips. "And seriously, Marnie, this is a major milestone in my life. Why wouldn't I want to spend it with the person who I've celebrated every other milestone with? This is what I want."
She extended a hand across the table and curled it around one of my own. Her eyes glossed over for a brief moment, before returning back to their vibrant blue and a part of me wanted to ask a question that had played on my mind since the day she'd become engaged.
Elenore had never known her biological family and had rebuffed all attempts at being either fostered or adopted. She'd always put up a good front but I knew what it felt like to have big news. Big news that you wanted to share. The moment I'd found out I was pregnant with Nola, despite already having a good idea of my mother's response - I'd been overwhelmed with the need to tell her. I could only imagine what it must have felt like to become engaged and not have a parental figure to share it with.
"If you're sure." I shrugged. "It is your hen party after all."
"And besides," she smirked. "I can't guarantee I'm not going to get absolutely smashed and I'm not sure I want Niall's relatives to see that before I've vowed to be with him forever."
I couldn't help but agree.