A dozen chandeliers sparkled down on the rows of tables, the light glinting off expensive china plates and illuminating the massive bouquets on the center of each table. Laughter, clinking of silverware, and yet another Taylor Swift song filled the air. Makayla wrinkled her nose, her heart-shaped face turned upward as she studied the gabled roof of the barn-turned-wedding-venue. She shook her head, feeling the bobby pins holding her thick golden curls in place poke the back of her neck. Who would spend tens of thousands of dollars to say “I do” where horses used to take a massive dump?
The tables in front of Makayla were squished together like roses in an overstuffed bouquet. Makayla turned sideways and squeezed between two of the tables, sucking her stomach in as much as she could. How did Summer even know this many people? A man scooted his chair back, right over the hem of her chiffon bridesmaid’s dress.
Makayla cleared her throat. “Excuse me, sir?”
The man laughed loudly with the woman sitting next to him and scooted the chair back even further.
“Could you move your chair off my dress?” Makayla asked, raising her voice.
The man took another sip of wine and turned his head back to the woman.
Makayla sighed, grabbed a handful of her dress, and yanked. The dress flew out from under the man’s chair, ripped at the hem. Makayla stared at the once pristine blush-colored dress, then shrugged.
It wasn’t like this was her only bridesmaid’s dress.
Makayla gripped a fistful of her skirt in each hand and pushed her way through the rest of the tables toward the kitchen area at the back of the venue.
The counter with the drink dispensers was only a few feet away. The lemonade was almost full, but the sweet tea half empty. And, of course, the ring bearer was having a complete meltdown on the floor right where Makayla needed to step. Makayla skirted around him like he was the wedding coordinator who would not shut up about setting Makayla up with her very single son. Her skirt swished as she stepped behind the counter and jerked a jug of sweet tea from the fridge.
Makayla took the jug in both hands and held it upside down above the glass tea dispenser. Tea sloshed from the jug into the dispenser, spraying a wave onto Makayla’s dress like the time that weird guy at the bar knocked her martini all over her new outfit while trying to flirt with her.
She set the empty jug down with a shrug and adjusted the thin shoulder strap on her dress. If it were a wedding dress, she would care. But a bridesmaid’s dress? Nah.
“Do you need help with anything?”
Makayla jerked her head up. Stella stood on the other side of the drink counter, strands of her copper hair slipping out of her braided updo. Without her glasses, her gray eyes shimmered in the light of the chandeliers. She held her chubby baby against her unripped, not-stained-with-tea bridesmaid’s dress, like he was a trophy of motherhood.
Makayla grabbed a napkin and dabbed at the tea stain. “Could you check if the charcuterie boards need—”
The baby thrust his head backward and let out a wail. Stella dropped her gaze to the baby, her eyebrows pinched together in a frown. “He’s hungry,” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as I finish feeding him.”
“See you then,” Makayla said to Stella’s retreating figure, as the baby cried loud enough to drown out “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” the way single girls in their thirties drowned their dreams in sarcastic comments.
Makayla had just stepped from behind the counter when Alice walked up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder, her wedding ring cold against Makayla’s bare skin.
Makayla jumped. “You scared me, Alice.”
“Sorry. Do you need help with anything?” Alice rubbed her hand over her pregnant stomach, as if to calm the twins she was carrying.
Makayla nodded her head toward the long, narrow tables near the entrance to the wedding venue. “Could you refill the charcuterie trays with turkey slices and—”
Alice clasped a hand over her mouth and gagged.
“I forgot. Turkey makes you nauseous.” Makayla patted Alice’s shoulder.
Alice nodded. “The twins are determined to keep me from even smelling it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Makayla said with a wave of her hand. “Go rest your feet for a bit.”
Alice tucked a strand of her wispy hair behind her ear and shuffled back to her table, pressing a hand to her stomach. Her bridesmaid’s dress swished against the floor like a princess’s gown. Makayla sighed. Whoever said you never had more freedom than when you were single clearly was never the only single friend of a bridezilla.
Makayla glanced at the head table, where Summer giggled and played with her veil as her fiancé—no, husband—whispered something into her ear.
Makayla swallowed and dropped her gaze to the floor. Summer had been right those few weeks ago.
“I’m depending on you, Makayla. You’re the only bridesmaid who can help me with everything at the wedding,” she’d said.
Meaning she was the only bridesmaid who wasn’t married and therefore only lived to serve those who were. Makayla’s lip curled up. Of all the weddings to be the only bridesmaid able to help, it had to be Summer and Nolan’s…
“And now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” the DJ’s deep voice cut through Makayla’s thoughts. “Mr. and Mrs. Price’s first dance!”
Makayla trotted to the edge of the dance floor, hiking up her dress to avoid being trampled on by the crowd. Summer’s face glowed as her husband led her to the center of the dance floor. Even in high heels she was a head shorter than him and stood on her tiptoes before putting her hand on his shoulder for the dance.
Makayla rolled her eyes. Why did the shortest girls always take the tall guys? The back of Makayla’s neck burned at the thought. Summer and Nolan were perfect for each other. At least that’s what everybody else said.
Makayla watched as Summer spun around, her poofy wedding dress swishing across the floor like Cinderella’s gown during her first dance with Prince Charming. With her dark hair twisted into an elegant updo and her face radiant under a thick layer of makeup, it seemed impossible that Summer had once been a frizzy-haired, pimply-faced teenager at Makayla’s fifteenth birthday party.
But they had all been frizzy-haired and pimply-faced at that party. Makayla remembered how secretive Summer had been, how she’d said something vague about a study session at her house.
She really shouldn’t have been surprised when she entered Summer’s room and was greeted by a burst of confetti in her face.
“Surprise!” Stella, Alice, and Summer chorused together. Stella and Alice each sat cross-legged on a sleeping bag on the floor next to Summer’s desk, which overflowed with papers and school supplies. Makeup containers were littered across the top of the dresser. A beanbag that smelled like a hand-me-down from Summer’s older brother was squished in the corner of the room.
Alice had a party hat smooshed over her frizzy brown hair, which was thrown back in a sloppy low bun. Stella blew on a party horn, puffing out her pudgy cheeks even more as she blew it a second time. With her thick round glasses and disheveled copper hair, she looked like an absent-minded doctorate student after a long day slaving over a dissertation. Not a great look if you wanted to get a date for homecoming.
Makayla brushed confetti out of her hair, which she had straightened for the first time, though her stubborn locks were already starting to re-curl. She wiped another piece of confetti from her brow, feeling the acne on her forehead, praying the extra foundation she’d found in her mom’s bathroom still hid the blemishes that had risen overnight to the size of the volcano that destroyed Pompeii. “Awww, thank you guys,” Makayla said, blushing and clasping her hands together.
“It was all Summer’s idea.” Alice picked up one of the dozen pink balloons scattered across the floor and tossed it at Summer.
Summer beamed until her dimples popped out, her fair cheeks turning pink like the bubble-gum-colored walls of her room. Her dark hair was in two braids, like the doll she still kept on her bed, but she had on a touch of mascara and her lips glittered with lip gloss. She put a hand on her frilly bedspread, on which sat a row of gift bags like lost ducklings awaiting their mother.
“Let’s open your gifts!” Summer pulled four thin, palm-sized boxes from behind the gift bags. “I actually have something for all of us, even myself.” She handed a box to each of the girls, like she was one of those cute Christmas elves at the mall.
Makayla plopped cross-legged on the floor and opened the box. Inside lay a delicate bracelet woven out of four strands of embroidery floss. One strand was sunshiny yellow, another the color of evergreens, the next a frosty blue, and the last blush pink. The colors clashed like peanut butter and pickles, but Makayla kept her mouth shut. In the middle of the bracelet were four white, chunky heart-shaped beads, held squished against each other by a knot on either side of the row of beads.
“They’re friendship bracelets.” Summer twirled the end of her own bracelet around her thumb. “I used each of our favorite colors, so when we wear them we’ll remember no matter where we go we always have each other.”
Alice and Stella said “awwwww” in unison, as if admiring a newborn for the first time.
Makayla held her bracelet up, rubbing a thumb over the four heart beads. The colors might clash, but at least they represented four friends who couldn’t be torn apart. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Could you help me put it on?”
Summer reached for the bracelet and tied the two ends together loosely around Makayla’s wrist. After all, part of what makes it a friendship bracelet is having a friend tie it on.
“Now for my gift.” Stella reached past Summer and grabbed a sparkly gift bag overflowing with so much tissue paper Makayla wasn’t sure if there was actually a gift inside it. Stella held it out to Makayla. “Happy birthday!”
Makayla grabbed the gift bag and threw the tissue paper off. Her friends oohed and awwed as she pulled out a hot pink journal with a jeweled letter M on the cover. The hot pinkiness was a little extra—this was definitely a keep-at-home journal, not a take-with-me-to-school-or-anywhere-else journal.
“So you can write down all your hopes and dreams,” Stella said, her gray eyes sparkling beneath her glasses.
“And crushes.” Alice waggled her thick eyebrows and leaned toward Makayla with a goofy smile that revealed her full set of braces.
The four friends giggled like a flock of excited songbirds. “What name will you write in there first?” Summer gestured to the journal, her blue eyes wide and eyebrows raised as she plopped onto the bean bag beside Makayla.
“Maybe Dylan,” Stella giggled, lifting her eyes to the dusty ceiling fan as though she could see him in her mind.
Makayla shook her head and smoothed her hair, which she could feel beginning to frizz, defying the laws of the enormous amounts of hairspray she’d used. “Are you kidding me? Dylan is way too awkward.”
“What about Blake?” Alice sighed and rested her chin on her hands. “He’s a cutie.”
Makayla grimaced, picturing Blake shoving his thick glasses farther up his beak-like nose. “Blake is a huge nerd.”
“You always blush when you go anywhere near Nolan,” Stella said, her voice a teasing singsong tone.
“That is so not true.” The back of Makayla’s neck tingled as she thought about the tall, dark, and handsome basketball player who had winked at her at the last game after he had made a three-pointer. Of course, then he tripped over his own shoes and completely wiped out on the court, but maybe that meant he was lovestruck. Makayla twirled the end of her friendship bracelet around her finger. “So not true.”
“Oh, you’re blushing right now!” Alice giggled. “You do like him!”
Makayla snatched the tissue paper from the floor, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it at Alice. “Not true!”
The tissue paper missed Alice and instead bounced off Summer’s shoulder. Summer’s face was flushed as red as the maple leaf on the Canadian flag. Makayla wrinkled her brow. What was wrong with Summer…
“You’re still blushing!” Stella sang, grabbing another sheet of tissue paper and crumpling it into a ball before chucking it at Makayla.
“Okay, fine, I guess I like him a little.” Makayla could feel her face burning even hotter. “But just a little!” Gosh, these girls were worse than her matchmaking aunt who clasped her hands and made obscure Pride and Prejudice references anytime she even mentioned a boy.
“Sure, you turn the color of a tomato because you only like him a little,” Alice teased, her hazel eyes twinkling.
Makayla swiped at the beads of sweat forming on her brow and shook her head at Alice.
Summer leaned forward in the bean bag, toward Makayla. She inched her hand toward her friend, her friendship bracelet slipping down her arm, and snatched the journal from Makayla’s grasp.
“Hey!” Makayla cried as Summer grabbed a pen and started scribbling on the first page of the journal.
“My first crush is Nolan Price,” Summer read aloud as she wrote, her voice sounding like an announcement over the loudspeaker at school.
Makayla ripped the journal out of Summer’s hands. “That’s not funny.” She tried to force her lips into a frown, but a giggle broke through anyway.
“You two would be such a cute couple,” Stella said dreamily. “You’re both so tall and funny and you both have the cutest dimples…”
Makayla smiled wide enough for her dimples to appear front and center.
“I bet Makayla will be the first to get married,” Alice said. “She’s so popular, and all the boys want to take her to homecoming.”
“Are you kidding me?” Makayla laughed, flipping her hair over her shoulder like a model practicing for tryouts. “I don’t even know how to dance.”
“I’ll teach you.” Summer jumped to her feet and held out a hand to Makayla.
Makayla gripped her hand, and Summer strained her petite arms to pull Makayla to her feet.
“You be the guy since I’m too short and I’ll show you how the girl dances,” Summer said. “We each hold one of the other’s hands like this,” she grabbed Makayla’s right hand with her left, “and then you put your other hand on my waist and I’ll put mine on your shoulder.”
“Can you even reach her shoulder?” Alice asked, tilting her head like a puppy begging for a treat.
Summer lifted her chin and looked up into Makayla’s sapphire eyes, then popped onto her tiptoes. “Now I can.”
The girls laughed as Summer reached her hand to Makayla’s shoulder.
“Now what?” Makayla asked.
“We just kind of step back and forth for a while together, saying sweet little things to each other.” Summer shrugged. “It’s easy.”
“This seems more like a wedding dance than a homecoming dance,” Makayla said. She stepped to the left as far as she could without stepping on Stella’s sleeping bag, leading Summer with her.
“Well, now you’re ready,” Summer said, stumbling as Makayla stepped the other direction, and then popping back on her tiptoes. “Since you’ll be the first to get married.”
Makayla rolled her eyes as her three friends giggled. This was what happened when you kept the same friend group from elementary school. “Let’s all get married one right after the other,” she said. “And be each other’s bridesmaids.”
“Perfect!” Stella clapped her hands together. “That way no one feels left out.”
Summer scrunched her lips into a frown. “But we’ll be happy for each other no matter what, right?” she said, her hand on Makayla’s shoulder tightening slightly, the threads of her friendship bracelet tickling Makayla’s shoulder. “We’ll celebrate each other, even if someone does get left out somehow?”
Makayla looked down into Summer’s icy blue eyes, noticed the way her brows pinched together. She squeezed her hand. “Of course we will. How could I not celebrate my best friend since first grade?”
And now Summer was all grown up, twirling into her husband’s arms while Makayla stood on the edge of the dance floor, surrounded by other guests but still alone.
If she’d actually thought she’d be the last one of her friends to still be single, would she have made that promise to Summer all those years ago? Makayla chewed her lip, smudging lipstick onto her teeth.
She looked over the throng clustered around Summer and her husband as the couple continued to dance. Summer’s great-grandparents stood at the edge of the crowd, their arms wrapped around each other as though holding one another up. Stella and her husband stood next to them and shared a quick kiss while Stella cradled their sleeping baby. Beside them, Summer’s younger sister held the hand of a floppy-haired boy with a sprinkling of acne across his forehead. Wasn’t Summer’s sister only in eighth grade? Did everyone besides Makayla have a date tonight?
Makayla clenched her jaw, her hands curling into fists. Even among her friends, there was nothing she could relate to, no way she could discuss which organic baby food was the best, no way she could add meaningfully to any conversation about marriage or motherhood. So much for friendship bracelets.
Makayla’s shoulders sagged, as if the weight of her bridesmaid’s dress was too much for her. It was time to move on. She would find new friends, single girls in their upper twenties and early thirties. They had to be out there somewhere.
Summer twirled one more time and her tall husband bent almost in half to dip his bride as the music faded.
“Ladies and gentlemen, that was the first dance of Mr. and Mrs. Nolan Price!” boomed the DJ. The crowd clapped and whistled. Makayla’s spine stiffened as she watched the Prices walk hand in hand off the dance floor.
Makayla turned and walked to the large barn doors at the end of the wedding venue, where a basket of sparklers sat on a stool. She reached for a lighter, jerked it out of the basket. Did she really have to go around spreading light for someone who just married her high school crush?
You’re being ridiculous, Makayla chided herself. Going on a date with your friend’s crush does not equal betrayal.
Makayla wiped a hand over her mouth and then pulled it away, revealing a smile as genuine as if she had drawn it on with her finger. She grabbed two fistfuls of sparklers, armed to face the jubilant crowds. She could do this.
Alice waddled up to her, breathing hard and massaging her back. “You look like you could use a little help,” she said. “You don’t have to do this all alone, you know.”
Makayla’s heart squeezed at the sight of her old friend. She swallowed and nodded, held out the sparklers to her.
Alice smiled and took both handfuls of sparklers. “Let’s go spread some joy,” she said with a wink.
Makayla turned to grab some more sparklers. She almost ran into Stella, who stood with her hands dangling free at her sides. Without the baby, she looked as awkward as Makayla’s last date with that nerd she met online.
“He finally fell asleep,” Stella said. “Can I help too?”
Makayla cleared her throat, swallowed the sudden thickness there, put on a smile to cover it up. “Of course,” she said. She and Stella each grabbed a couple dozen sparklers and handed them out to guests.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please form a line at the door as we send off Mr. and Mrs. Price!” called the DJ.
Makayla snatched three lighters and thrust one to Stella and another to Alice. “We need to get everyone’s sparkler lit before they come!” she said.
Stella and Alice each took one side of the aisle the guests had formed. The air filled with the hiss and crackle of sparklers. Someone dimmed the chandeliers, and the exploding light of the tiny fireworks popped out of the shadows. Makayla hurried to the end of the line of guests, struggling to get her lighter to actually light.
“They’re coming!” the flower girl cried, swinging her sparkler above her head. The crowd formed a gap around her as she waved her sparkler like a flag at a Fourth of July parade.
Makayla glanced up and saw Summer and Nolan practically floating arm in arm toward the line. She jammed her thumb on the button of the lighter, and a flame finally gushed from it. She turned to the last few guests, lighting their sparklers.
“Makayla, where’s your sparkler?” Alice called from the other side of the line.
Makayla looked down at her hands, empty except for the lighter. “I don’t have one,” she said.
“Catch!” Alice flung an unlit sparkler into the air. It spun around twice before landing in Makayla’s free hand.
Summer and Nolan had reached the beginning of the line. The guests cheered and lifted their sparklers over their heads, Summer and Nolan ducking as they walked underneath.
Makayla stared at her unlit sparkler. The gray powder coating the wire stick looked depressed. Makayla shrugged and wiggled it.
Summer was only a few steps away now. She and Nolan wore huge matching grins and squeezed each other’s hands as they bounced through the crowd. Summer tore her gaze from Nolan and locked her sky blue eyes with Makayla. She held her free hand out toward Makayla.
Makayla caught her breath. A thin bracelet was tied around Summer’s wrist, the embroidery floss at the ends tattered and fraying. The colors of the threads were faded, but Makayla could still make out the sunshiny yellow, dark green, frosty blue, and blush pink strands. The four heart beads were still side by side, as if hugging each other, refusing to be separated after all these years.
Tears pricked Makayla’s eyes as she looked at her own wrist, bare of any jewelry. Her fingers shook as she scrambled to find the button on the lighter. She jerked it down and a flame shot from the lighter to the sparkler. The sparkler erupted with bouncy, happy bursts of light.
She held it above her head, swinging it even more wildly than the flower girl, as her best friend walked underneath.
This story was written by Emily Gwaltney, an apprentice at The Company!
Click here to learn more about The Company’s writing programs.
Cover art by Levi Matthews
Connect on Instagram @levimatthews.artist or on his website, LeviMatthewsArtist.com.
Moving story, Emily. Gave me all the feels.
Thank you Melissa, I’m glad you liked it!
This was so touching! I love it!
Thank you Alli!
Aw, this is such a sweet story, Emily! The way you do the flashback and then tie it in at the end was excellently done. Lovely work!
Thank you so much Ruth, I’m glad you liked it!