The final instalment! Thank you for reading, if you've made it this far. And for the favourites and votes and *cough* comments. Thank you especially to Charles, for critiquing this chapter before I submitted it.
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*****
"Orla!"
Orla spun round. Rachel was walking awkwardly across the cobbled church yard in kitten heels, waving.
It was a gloriously sunny, spring morning and the quant little twelfth century village church was perfect. Frothy, pink blossom covered the trees, there was an abundance of white roses adorning the doors and windows and everyone was dressed up to the nines.
Ever since they were little, Vanessa had dreamt of a fairy-tale wedding, and Orla couldn't help but feel happy for her.
"You look lovely in that dress. How's it going?"
Orla smoothed the dress down again, in the hope it might gain an inch or two in length. It was a shift dress, similar to the one she had been wearing the night she met Greg, but a different colour. It had seemed fine during her fitting, but out in the bright sunshine she was well out of her comfort zone. Rachel, also one of Vanessa's bridesmaids, was wearing a dress which was exactly the same shade of dusty purple, but a different style -longer and nipped in at the waist. They held matching bouquets and wore matching fascinators in their hair.
"Yours is lovely too, this colour really suits you."
"Thanks, but I want to hear about London!"
The involuntary smile, that always crept onto Orla's face when she thought of Greg, made its appearance. Rachel laughed.
"I don't want to jinx it, but it feels like everything is perfect. We've found a lovely little flat in Neasden, with a little garden. You can see Wembley stadium from our bedroom window. Greg's new job seems to be going well. It was a shock for him to be back in training at first, but he's used to it now."
"How's your new job going?"
"It's great, the people are nice and it's a bigger organisation, with so much more happening. I'm mostly based in Kings Cross, but I get to spend time on the other sites quite a bit too. I'm so lucky to have got it. It's such an amazing opportunity"
"Luck has nothing to do with it Orla, you're perfect for that job, they'd have been mad not to hire you."
*
Orla cast her mind back to that October evening. She and Greg had been seeing each other for nearly four months when Greg had been invited to apply for a post at the National Crime Agency as an intelligence officer. He'd taken her out to eat. That nice place near the station. And gently explained that if he went for it, if he got it, it would mean moving back to London; and if that happened, he wanted her to go with him.
It freaked Orla right out. It was a commitment she wasn't sure she was ready to make. And it reminded her again, of something she'd been pretending wasn't real. Greg was part of the police force.
The rest of the meal had been, awkward, Orla hadn't voiced her inner turmoil, she'd just said she needed to think about it for a bit. But Greg was clearly disappointed. He was familiar enough with this reaction by now. They'd planned to go back to his afterwards. Instead they'd spent the night apart.
The following morning, first thing, Orla's phone buzzed.
I'm outside. Can we talk?
