1.1 | Cherry Knots ✓

+

And oddly, frighteningly enough, his isn't the first face she thinks of as her lifeline, but –

His.

Her fingers are trembling as she locks herself in the bathroom. She turns on the tap to let the sounds of water drown out everything else. She doesn't know what she is doing, doesn't quite rationalise anything as she taps the screen of the phone and scrolls through the contacts. And then she's pressing the phone to her ear. It's ringing, ringing, ringing; a strange sort of lullaby – the kind you never fall asleep too, the kind you instead fall deep into, like an abyss, with eyes wide open. And –

"Hello?"

The voice is familiar – warm and husky and deep, like red velvet and sugar, and she feels a flood of memories invade her mind in that very moment. He sounds sleepy, like he has just woken up and answered the call without even checking the caller ID.

"Hello?"

She opens her mouth to reply but finds that she is speechless. It often happens with him. There is Declan, whom she can always talk to, about anything and everything under the sky. Then there is him, and she is always speechless when she thinks about him, when she is face to face with him. The silence between them is always filled with static of the most beautiful, painful kind. It's addictive. It's terrifying. It's unforgettable.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

His voice breaks the static once more and she suddenly realises what she's doing. She ends the call quickly, dropping her phone onto the counter. She braces her arms on the edge of the sink and stares blankly at her own reflection.

"What are you doing, Ellie?" She whispers to herself. "What are you – " then she trails off as her eyes widen in horror.

Ellie.

She just said Ellie. Not Eloise, not El.

Ellie.

And she is suddenly sixteen and wonderfully frightened again, wonderfully naïve. Her face crumples and she sinks to the ground, her eyes tearlessly dry but her shoulders heaving with soft, silent sobs, shaken by the magnitude of what she had just said.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

She sits at the table silently the afternoon the last of the wedding invitations are to be sent out. It's a lovely afternoon and outside, it's drizzling, just the kind of soft, slow rain she loves. The raindrops patter against the window and this, this is the kind of lullaby she can live with, the kind she can slowly fall in love with.

There are two last invitations sitting in front of her on the table. One is for Joey. He's supposed to be the best-man – only he doesn't know it yet and she and Declan are planning to surprise him. He wouldn't be surprised, she thinks. He already knows it's coming. Joey never lets them forget that they're forever indebted to him and sends them a box of cherries on their anniversary every year.

She smiles at the thought of that and slots his invitation into a fresh, pristine envelope. Then she seals it up, her fingers smoothing the wrinkles on the flap of the envelope gently. She sets it aside and knows that this is another thing she can check off on her imaginary to-do list.

There is just one more invitation. And it's blank.

The rain outside seems to fade into a low hum and suddenly she doesn't hear it anymore. And all she hears is static. She can almost picture herself picking up the pen and scrawling words on the paper: