With Hearts to Hear| ✔

|41|

Rachel stretched, clearing a space on the mattress so that she could sit down. It had been a few days since their announcement at the Pack of their engagement, and since then, everything had been moving full steam ahead. 

Killian had agreed to talk to his mother, their pack members had started planning a celebration for the couple, and they had begun putting things in motion for their wedding to happen. Including the small, bittersweet changes that would change their lives. The reality of things was finally settling on her shoulders. 

Rachel looked around the room of the house that had been home for the last two and a half years. She had shared it with her daughter, with her roommate, with her grief and so much more.  It was strange to see it half empty; things being sorted into piles for charity, to throw away, or to continue on in the next stage of her life.

She and Killian had begun planning their wedding. Rachel's mother had insisted they see a Pandit, who had set the date for the wedding— the first day of spring. Which just happened to fall about a month away. 

She was slightly concerned they wouldn’t be ready by then, and it would definitely be no easy feat to arrange, considering their wedding would be a long week affair.

Rachel had wanted to keep to her mothers hindu traditions, and so they had to plan for not just the ceremony, but also the Haldi, and Mehendi. Killian had also wanted to have a Pack ceremony as was custom for his people, so they agreed they would need the entire week to observe both of their traditions properly. 

Killian had been very nervous about the entire thing; though he was utterly entranced with every explanation he had been given about the culture and ceremony, and was looking forward to being a part of it, he was a little bit nervous about getting something wrong. The last thing he wanted was for her family to think their marriage was a bad omen or worse because he did something wrong. 

Rachel had to assure him that her mother would not suddenly stop their wedding and carry her away to be locked in a tower away from him if he made a mistake. All of the effort and care he had put in already to be a part of her life, was proof enough that their marriage was far from a bad omen— mistakes or not.

Everyone had been working overtime to help make sure things would go smoothly. Ai had agreed to have the Mehendi at their place, much to her mothers insistence otherwise, so the two had spent much of the day cleaning up the apartment.

Rachel had also used it as an opportunity to start packing things up for the big move, knowing that she and Killian had agreed that she could move in all her stuff before all the festivities began. So, for the last three and a half hours, she had been packing away most of hers and Diana’s stuff into moving boxes. 

Ai leaned against the doorframe, a glass of lemonade in her hand that she offered to Rachel, along with a smile that couldn’t quite reach her eyes. She was of course happy for her friend, and had never seen Rachel so filled with life, but there was also a part of her that was saddened by the big changes it would mean for them both. 

‘I can’t believe this is real,’ she signed, looking at all of the packed up boxes around the room. ‘You’re really getting married.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Rachel snorted. Had anyone told her a few years ago that this is where her life was headed, she would have laughed so hard that she might have pulled something and ended up in A&E. 

‘I’ll miss you,’ Ai relented. She was not big on any emotion other than exhaustion or cynical sarcasm, but Rachel was her best friend, she could manage it for her. ‘You won’t be around for me to bitch about Dr Dickbag to you, or do movie nights with, or any of the other awesome stuff we do when I actually have a chance to have a life.’