Guess Who Didn't Show Up to My Wedding novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Actual Hartnells
Willa reads her family's real chat, leaves the ring on Thurston's iPad and calls the vineyard that was never booked.
Three days before my wedding, my fiancé's iPad showed me a group chat I had never been invited to.
I was on our couch, ordering takeout from it because my phone was charging.
The chat sat at the top of his messages.
It was called "The Actual Hartnells."
My phone had a family chat too, called "Hartnells."
It had six people in it: Mom, Dad, my two brothers, my adopted sister and me.
This one had six people as well.
Mom, Dad, both brothers, my sister and my fiancé.
I wasn't in it.
I opened it.
The last message was a thumbs-up from my fiancé.
My middle brother had written: "Sunset Cove is confirmed. Willa still thinks it's Thackray Ridge. 😂"
Dad had written: "She'll drive up to the vineyard in her veil and find a locked gate."
Mom had written: "Be sweet, you two. It's her big day. Every girl deserves a surprise."
My sister had written: "I ordered lilies for every table."
My oldest brother had written: "Isn't Willa allergic to lilies?"
My middle brother had written: "For one afternoon. She'll survive. She always does."
Then the thumbs-up, from the man who was going to marry me on Saturday.
My hands didn't shake.
I had thought they would.
My phone buzzed on the arm of the couch.
It was Mom, in the real chat: "Cake tasting tomorrow at ten, sweetheart. No surprises, I promise."
I looked at that for a long time.
In my family, nothing was ever said out loud.
Everything was a game, and the game was called Guess.
It began the year my adopted sister Mara came to live with us.
She was twelve and I was fourteen, and her mother had just died.
Mom told us to be gentle with her.
"She needs fun," Mom said. "She needs surprises."
So Mara made up a game.
Where are we going for Christmas? Guess.
What's for my birthday dinner? Guess.
Who is picking me up from school? Guess.
Dad never drove anywhere that year or after it, so the answer could be anyone.
Everyone else always knew the answer, because Mara told them.
Once I sat on the curb outside a closed library until dark, because the plan had changed and nobody told me.
"You're so slow, Willa," Darrell said when they finally came. "It's just a game."
Garrison, my oldest brother, drove the car and said nothing.
Then Thurston came along, and then he proposed, and my wedding became their best game yet.
The venue was a surprise, babe.
The flowers were Mara's department. "She has such an eye."
The date of the rehearsal dinner was a guess.
I had changed my shoes four times.
I had moved my hair appointment three times.
I had called the vineyard twice to confirm details I now understood had never existed.
That same morning Mara had brought me coffee.
She had fixed the broken hook on my dress with a needle and thread from her purse.
She told me I looked like a bride.
The front door opened.
Thurston dropped his keys in the bowl and loosened his tie.
"Hey, babe."
He kissed my cheek and glanced at the iPad.
I had already closed it.
He took a beer out of the fridge and talked into the open door.
He sounded casual, a little too casual.
"My cousin says the coast is unbeatable on a Saturday afternoon. Sunsets, ocean air."
That was the hint.
That was the breadcrumb they dropped so I could run after it.
The old Willa would have gasped and said, "Is it the coast? Is it Sunset Cove?"
He would have grinned and typed to the real chat: She finally got it.
They would all have laughed at how hard I tried.
I looked at him.
"I hope you all have a wonderful time," I said.
He stopped with the bottle halfway up.
"All of us? Babe. It's your wedding."
"I know it is," I said.
I went into the bedroom and shut the door.
I took only what was truly mine.
My passport, my laptop, my grandmother's quilt and the savings book with my name on it.
Nine years of my life fit in one suitcase.
I left the dress on its hanger.
I came back out wheeling the suitcase.
Thurston stood in the middle of the living room, no longer casual.
"Willa. What are you doing?"
I took off the ring and set it on top of the iPad.
"Guess," I said.
I was in the elevator before he reached the hall.
In the car, I looked up Thackray Ridge on my phone.
I didn't use the number on the confirmation card Mara had given me.
I used the one on the vineyard's own website.
It rang four times.
"Thackray Ridge, this is Cillian."
I knew that voice.
I had picked grapes beside it for one summer, a long time ago.
"It's Willa Hartnell. Do you have a wedding there on Saturday?"
He was quiet.
"Not anymore," Cillian said. "Willa, where are you?"
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