I STILL LOVE YOU, BUT...

CHAPTER 33

AMANDA

August.

Six months later.

I'm wearing a wedding dress and a long, white, lacy veil.

I'm a bride.

I'm about to walk up the aisle. Four hundred people watching my every move.

My fingers tighten around my bouquet.

Then the "Bridal March" starts and my father gives my arm a squeeze, and we start to walk up the aisle.

Myra and the other three bridesmaids are waiting. Debra, Sally and Lynn. They are smiling at me.

"Ready?" says Myra.

The double doors swing open, and I hear the rustle of four hundred people turning in their seats. I can see the gathered faces of my mother and my relations, my friends ------ Steven, still single, looking sad, but smiling bravely at me ------ sitting beside Jimmy, Myra's boyfriend, and across the aisle, on the other side, Tristan's family, friends and relations. Sitting side by side, smiling and expectant.

The bridesmaids begin to walk up the aisle.

Inside the church is a riot of fragrant, tumbling white flowers, all stunningly, gorgeously beautiful.

There seem to be white flowers of every kind, threaded along the walls, hanging from the lamps, in every nook and corner. And on the carpeted floor, pale pink rose petals, strewn and scattered, weaving a magical path all the way to the altar.

And suddenly I'm walking forward.

I'm floating, carried on the swell of the music, the smiling faces, my mother, a tissue in her pale hand, dabbing surreptitiously at her eyes, and I think, distractedly, Mum is crying, and then that fragment of thought is lost, and everything blurs into an enchanted world of dreams.

Fairy lights are twinkling overhead.

And there's Tristan up ahead, my tall, dark and handsome groom, waiting for me. My knight. Who told me once, his eyes steady on me: I would die for you. I would walk through fire for you, Amanda.

Tristan stands, back to me, an imposing figure in his black suit; lean, lithe, straight as a ramrod. Tall, slim-hipped, broad-shouldered, devastatingly gorgeous.

A murmur swells from the seated guests, a low thrum at first, growing louder with each step I take, the swish of my train whispering behind me. The altar is straight ahead, all I have to do is keep walking, keep smiling, one silver heel ahead of the other, and pray that I don't trip and plunge headlong onto the floor, and stay calm, don't stumble, and I'm almost there and ----

---- Tristan turns.

His eyes meet mine and there's a three-second pause while we both stare at each other.

We have locked gazes with each other so many times in our lives ---- across a desk in an office, on an empty terrace, across a hallway, in a burst of sun in a park, above the babble and the chatter in a crowded cafeteria, on a moonlit, starlit night in the shadow of trees, in the dusky, half-light of our bedroom ----- it is one of the hundred, thousand things we share in our lives. Covert glances, heated stares, tender gazes, jealous scowls, flirty looks ----- all the meaningless, meaningful gestures that have weaved themselves in and out of the complicated, chequered tapestry of our lives.

Tristan inhales sharply. As if the sight of me has knocked the breath out of his lungs. He blinks rapidly, and I realize, with a squeeze to my heart, that he is holding back tears.

I walk toward Tristan. My heart swells with each step I take.

He stands motionless. Waiting.

Waiting for me.