Emily and River meet in Miami, where they have the time of their lives, but it isn't meant to be: the next morning, Emily leaves for San Francisco, leaving both their hearts broken. They don't think they'll ever see each other again.
Emily goes back...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
He looked at his watch. Only fifteen minutes had passed since the last time he'd checked, but the time schedule on the TV told him it was only an hour before the ceremony would start. The same screen showed a picture of Emily and Jason together, but it was obviously staged and a picture made for a professional photo shoot—a shoot very different from the ones he and Talia sometimes held for her Instagram.
Meanwhile, Emily was nowhere to be seen; Jason had disappeared too, getting ready for the big moment. Guests had stopped arriving and were instead making themselves comfortable in the lounge area or had gone to a room of their own located somewhere else in the castle.
The staff was busy preparing for the toast that would happen after the ceremony, but River couldn't bring himself to think of that moment just yet. He was thinking of Emily and of Jason; of the girl from the press and the things she'd told him.
It's the wedding of Jason King and Emily Abbington.
The girl hadn't said 'duh' after that, but she might as well have.
He took his phone out of his pocket and typed in his password to open up Google. If this was supposed to be common knowledge, Google must have the answers the girl had refused to give him. River didn't worry about his job anymore—partly because he'd forgotten about it and partly because he needed to have the answers his phone could give.
After loading—something that took too long for River's liking—the page showed a couple results, starting with the most recent headlines. What we dreamed of is finally happening—the wedding of King and Abbington.
It disgusted him that Emily had become a headline with just her last name, but he scrolled through the other articles. They all had pictures that were either from the same photo shoot celebrating the engagement or an unexpected shot by paparazzi. One article was titled, Everything you need to know about the King and Abbington wedding, and there was a photo attached of the castle he was currently standing in.
This was surreal.
It felt fake, as if he was imagining it. Could it be he was still dreaming and he'd never woken up at all? He'd already felt this way when he saw Emily after losing contact for months, which only seemed to confirm he was dreaming and was making it all up, fantasizing about the possibilities that could never become true.
When would he realize it was over? He was a waiter at her ritzy wedding; he should know by now there was no possibility of them ever getting together or having what they had in February, and if reason didn't get through to him, this proof should. He and Emily didn't have a chance anymore; this wedding confirmed that and the professional-looking pictures of Emily and Jason said the same thing, if the big sign at the entrance of the castle hadn't already convinced him.
But his optimistic nature refused to believe such a thing.
He was intrigued by the last title and even more the photo attached to it since it was so familiar to him, so he clicked on it. A page opened up from the The Guardian's department in San Francisco with the tag Liveblog and the subtitle This article will be updated throughout the entire day to share the most recent news in the wedding of Jason King and Emily Abbington.
