Chapter 34

14 Months Later


Sophia and Rachel were decorating the living room of her apartment while Gerard was away filming. While they tackled the wallpaper scraping they listened to the radio and were singing along until Bon Jovi's Bed of Roses came on. Sophia stopped what she was doing and just listened to it for the first time in almost a year. She knew Jon had wrote it for her after they broke up, he even sent her a copy of it before it was released. She had to admit that if the song wasn't related to her she would probably have loved it. Recently she had been thinking of Jon a lot. She always wondered if she had forgiven him for that night if they could have moved on and started again. Sometimes she would catch herself daydreaming about their wedding and even had thoughts about starting a family with him. The future she had wanted and often dreamed about was gone now and it was all due to her own decision on that night.


The girls packed away the decorating tools for the night and tidied up the room. Rachel found an open letter on the floor beside one of the chairs and picked it up to find out what it was. "Now girl, you've got some explaining to do! I know the wedding was soon but two days till the hen night three till you come face to face with him again. You should have mentioned it, I forgot all about it. Now I know where your heads been the past couple of weeks," Rachel rambled on.
"Yeah, I know I just didn't want to cause a fuss or anything. I'm sure it will be fine. We're both adults, it's my sisters wedding. I'm sure we can make it through one dance together as best man and bridesmaid," Sophia insisted, wondering who it was she was trying to convince. She had already arranged her travel and where to stay, all that was left to do was the final dress fit on Friday with her sister on the morning of the hen night. She was looking forward to seeing her sister again and catching up on all the gossip shes missed about the wedding. She couldn't help but admit she was worried about seeing Jon for the first time since they broke up but she wasn't going to give Rachel that satisfaction of being right tonight.


Friday arrived quicker than Sophia had expected and before she could get out of bed her sister was already barging through the door hurrying her up. Despite her pushiness, Sophia knew Victoria was the happiest she had ever been. She just wanted her wedding to go perfectly. Sophia got dressed as quickly as she could and they arrived at the dress shop before the staff had opened it. The dresses were perfect and when she saw her sister come out in hers she felt herself well up - she was so beautiful in it, Richie was going to have a heart attack when he saw her. A flowing ivory gown with a bustier top embedded with tiny crystals. Sophia's own dress was also beautiful and flowing but nothing compared to Victoria's, the dress amazed Sophia. She could tell her sister wanted to mention Jon - to make sure she wouldn't cause a scene at her wedding but she never came out and said it so Sophia did it for her. "You don't need to worry about a thing tomorrow, it's one dance and I promise I will be on my best behaviour," she said as she leaned in to hug her sister. When they arrived back at the hotel, Sophia went to get ready before they had to call round everyone to make sure they would be here in the morning to do hair and make up and anything else that had to be sorted since her sister would be staying the night with her and Jon moved in to stay with Richie. As Sophia went up the stairs she thought she spotted Jon in a hallway and her heart skipped a couple of beats only to have the disappointment or relief that it wasn't him. She quickly went back to their room and called Rachel. She finally burst out all the things she had been feeling over the last couple of weeks and they came to the conclusion that she might still be in love with him. They devised a plan that involved her taking Jon aside tomorrow night after the wedding. Sophia felt Rachel was going along with the plan just to please her as she sensed she wasn't happy about the idea of them getting back together. She closed her mind to the thoughts as she went to help her sister get ready for tonight.


They arrived at the venue after a wild limo drive that involved lots of champagne. The room really busy as they made their way to the tables reserved for them. As she sat down Sophia realised she hardly knew anyone in the room other than her own family members and a few of Victoria's close friends. She began introducing herself and tried to get to know some of them before the wedding. The names kept coming and eventually she felt she knew less names than she did before with all the confusion and trying to learn them so fast she forgot the lot. She eventually sat down in between two women that were here from Richie's side. She thought she heard them say one was a cousin of his and the other a friend who knew the whole band since years ago, it was hard to tell over the music. She began to loosen up around the two women, they were a good laugh, exactly her kind of people. They kept Sophia entertained all night. They somehow ended up escaping to the bar leaving the other guests at the table while they enjoyed some sneaky drinks. It turned out both women had recently got engaged, one had been for the last two months and the other had just been asked the week before but was keeping it quiet so not to overshadow Victoria's big day. As the talk got more love centred, Sophia made her way back to the main party for the remainder of the night. As they were leaving one of the women she had been drinking with at the bar caught her attention, "I didn't realise you were Victoria's sister, it's really nice to have finally met you. I'll see you tomorrow no doubt and tell your sister to relax, Richie sure ain't going anywhere!" Sophia said goodnight back to the woman and went to take her sister back to the hotel.