Despite her own ruined nuptials, Emma considered the night a success. Liv had married Daniel and Emma was a little surprised to find that she held no resentment toward the happy newlyweds. Her selfless heart was full with pride and genuine happiness for her friends.
Watching the way her best friend looked into her new husband's eyes as they danced together, Emma couldn't help but realize that the way that Daniel looked at Liv was not the way Fletcher had looked at her. Although she knew Liv had only been trying to plant a poisonous seed of doubt in her head at the time, Emma also realized that Liv had been right, and that she really had been settling with her ex-fiancé.
"I want that," Nate said suddenly, voicing Emma's own thoughts, as they danced together and watched the bride and groom from across the room.
Emma looked at Nate affectionately and smiled. She vowed at that moment to never tell Liv about Nate's moment of jealousy toward his baby sister. Most things she told Liv without a second thought, but she could keep this one a secret. For Nathan.
"They do make it look pretty good, don't they," Emma agreed with a little half-smile.
"Oh, jeesh," Nate scoffed, looking at Emma guiltily. "I'm sorry, Em. In the midst of all the . . . uh, insanity . . . I completely forgot . . ." Emma looked at him curiously and he sighed, "That should have been you today too. I'm sorry. I can't believe we've all been so–"
"No, no," Emma said sternly, stopping Nate's sputtering apology. "You know what? Giving Liv away at the altar and standing beside her for all of this?" She looked over to her best friend, who was looking back at her with a bright smile and a slight wave. "There's honestly no place I'd rather be than right here with her today." She looked at Nathan to find him smiling at her with an odd expression. "What?" she asked self-consciously.
"You're really amazing, you know that?" he asked, sounding well and truly in awe of her.
"What? Why do say that?" she asked.
Nathan tilted his head to the side in a reluctant manner. "Well, not to rub salt in open wounds or anything, but you call off your fairytale wedding to the guy you've been in love with for ten years, and then immediately after that, you walk your best friend –who you've been at war with for the last three months – down the aisle so that she can get married, and yet you feel no resentment, you're completely put together, and I can see it in your eyes that you're genuinely happy for her," Nate explained, the amazement never wavering in his tone. "You have got to be the most selfless person I've ever known, Emma. You always have been." After a moment he added, "Although that's probably a good thing since I don't think you could have been friends with my sister for twenty years if you weren't."
Emma gasped indignantly on Liv's behalf and slapped Nate's chest. "Be nice!" she scolded. "Liv is who she is and we love her for it. Don't forget that."
Nate laughed. "As if she'd ever let me," he joked with a shrug.
Emma gave a shrug of her own. "No, the truth is, I'm too proud of her to be resentful. She found a great guy who understands her and accepts her for who she is, and who loves her almost as much as we do."
"And there you go again, being amazing!" Nate said, taking a step back and holding his hands out to gesture towards her. He took her hands again and, after twirling her around, pulled her back to him. "Just remember that I've known you as long as Liv has, and almost as well as she does. Just don't forget that it's okay to be sad too, okay?"
"Tell you what," Emma replied coyly, stepping closer to Nate to wrap her arm around his neck while he held her other hand in his, "tonight, I'll celebrate Liv and Daniel. Tomorrow, I'll be sad and confused and try to sort out the mess I've made of my life. Deal?" She held out her hand to him like they were in a board room at a conference rather than in a ball room at a wedding reception.
He took her hand. "Deal. Just remember, you're not alone, okay? You need anything, you give me a call. I'll be there," Nate promised her.
Emma smiled, but there was a light in her eyes that seemed to change all of a sudden and, as if realizing it for the first time, she said, "You always have been."
Emma felt a sudden arm around her shoulders and she turned her head to see Liv looking at her contently. "Hey," she greeted. "Is my brother giving you grief?"
"No," Emma answered, as if the idea were preposterous. She set her head on Liv's shoulder and felt Liv rest her cheek against her hair. "We were just talking about all the trouble we're going to get into while you guys are on your honeymoon!"
"Actually," Daniel began slowly, "Liv and I were talking about that and . . . you know, maybe we should postpone the honeymoon until things settle down."
Emma lifted her head from Liv's shoulder to look at her. "What things?"
Liv tilted her head from side to side with a pained expression. "Well . . . you know, things with . . you–"
"–And Fletcher," Daniel added helpfully. Emma gave him an incredulous look. "Come on, do you really think we'd leave you here by yourself after you just called off your wedding and broke up with Fletcher?"
"Daniel, Liv," Emma began sternly, "listen to me very carefully." Emma folded her hands together and pointed at them. "The two of you? Yeah, you're going on your honeymoon, tonight. And I will be fine." As Liv was about to interrupt, Emma held up an uncharacteristically assertive hand to silence her. "No. I will be. You'll be gone two weeks, and when you get back, I'll still be here and I'll be fine. Go to Barbados and have fun."
"You're sure?" Liv asked, looking imploringly into her best friend's eyes.
"Yes," Emma answered, leaving no room for argument.
Daniel sighed. "Well, in that case, do you still have your key to our apartment?" he asked.
Momentarily thrown for a loop, Emma's brow crinkled in confusion. "Yeah. Why?"
"Because, we need a house-sitter and you might need a place to stay until you and Fletcher figure out what you're going to do with the apartment," he pointed out. "Who better to watch the apartment than someone who's already lived there?"
Emma felt tears spring to her eyes and she wrapped an arm around Liv and Daniel's necks. "Thank you," she whispered with tears falling from her eyes.
Eventually, Emma pulled away and laughed at her emotional self. She wiped tears from her eyes embarrassedly and let out a breath she hadn't known she had been holding. "Ha. Well, thank you. I guess you'll be leaving soon, huh?"
Liv touched Emma's bicep supportively. "You'll call if you need anything, right? Day or night? Even if you know I'm halfway around the world, if I hear your ringtone, you know I'll answer," she said.
Feeling those pesky tears welling again, Emma nodded. "I know," she said. Liv wrapped her up in another hug and she squeezed back just as tightly. "Ooh. I love you."
"I love you," Liv returned, rubbing her thumb across Emma's cheek. She scrunched her nose and leaned her forehead momentarily against Emma's before turning her attention to her big brother. "And I love you too, big brother," she added, pulling Nate into a hug. Into his ear she whispered, "Please take care of her. Care, not advantage. Hagen Das chocolate fudge ice cream. The Breakfast Club, Can't Buy Me Love, and The Wedding Date. Kurt Cobain. I'll text you further instructions."
"Okay. I love you. Please leave," Nate replied with a laugh. To Daniel, he mouthed, "Take her."
Meanwhile, Emma had given Daniel a hug, telling him to, "Take care of our girl," as well.
"I will, I promise," Daniel replied, understanding that if anything happened to Liv on his watch, he would not only have his own guilt to deal with but also Emma's wrath which he had seen plenty of in recent weeks. He preferred his hair brown instead of blue.
"Okay, go. Go and have a good time, and thanks again for letting me stay at your apartment. I swear, I'll be out before you get back," Emma promised.
Liv gave Emma one last one-armed hug. "Sweetie, don't worry about it. You can stay as long as you need to," Liv told her. "But if you are out before we get back then I won't hold it against you."
Emma laughed as she and Nate walked the newlyweds out to the limo waiting outside to take them to the airport. Nate opened the door for his sister and new brother-in-law and waited until they were both safely in. "We'll see you when you get back. Remember to have fun, but not too much!" Nate told them sternly. He flashed a smile before he closed the door.
Liv rolled the window down and called out, "I love you! I'll see you in two weeks!"
Nate and Emma stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the limousine drive away until the painted letters that spelled 'just married' on the back windshield were too small to read and the then the car disappeared around the corner.
"No tin cans," Nate commented disappointedly.
Emma looked at him oddly. "What?" she asked.
Nate pointed to where the back bumper of the limo had been only minutes ago. "There's supposed to be cans tied to the back of the limousine, right? Liv probably thought it was tacky," he clarified. He leaned back and smiled while shoving his hands into his pockets. "She's going to have a fit when there are cans tied to the limousine at my wedding."
With a quirked eyebrow, Emma asked disbelievingly, "You have plans for your wedding?"
Nate gave a short nod. "Sure I do," he replied. "You think I grew up with Liv as my sister and didn't learn anything about weddings?"
Emma was quiet as she looked at Nate for several more seconds. "You wanna get a coffee and you can tell me all about what your wedding is going to be like? Or are you hoping to have slutty wedding sex with a drunk bridesmaid?"
"Uh, well, the drunk bridesmaids are all daughters of my editor, so I think I'm gonna pass on that one," he answered, scratching the back of his neck. "Coffee sounds great."
Later that same night, after being regaled with Nate's ideal wedding over a cup of coffee, Nate had walked Emma back to Daniel and Liv's apartment. Emma knew that under different circumstances, she might have felt weird coming home to an apartment that wasn't hers, but since it once had been, she had lost that sense of strangeness. She put her key into the lock and opened the door, before she turned back to see Nate hesitating in the doorway.
"You wanna come inside?" Emma asked, thinking it was odd that Nate hadn't been right behind her in the first place.
"You sure you don't want some time to yourself?" Nate asked respectfully.
The reality of her situation came back to hit Emma like a ton of bricks. "Yeah, I'm sure. Come on in," she told him, leaving the door open behind him.
She flipped on the lights and stepped into the kitchen, glancing at the clock on the stove. It's digital green glow glared one a.m. back at her. She thought about what she would be doing right now if she had gone through with her wedding to Fletcher, but she almost immediately shook the thought from her mind. It was sad, but it didn't even strike her as strange that she didn't feel heartbroken or upset, just confused and lost and oddly free.
"Em? You okay?" Nate asked from behind her, and for a moment, Emma could almost pretend it was Liv asking her that question. That they were back in high school and Emma's first boyfriend had just dumped her at the Sadie Hawkins Dance.
Emma turned to look at Nate. "I'm . . . " fine.
That was what she was about to say anyway, but she looked at Nate and his concerned face and his honest eyes and she realized how much of a lie that was. In all honesty, she wasn't fine. This was supposed to be the best day of her life and instead she was husband-less, homeless, and, as of the coming Friday, she would be jobless too as school would soon be letting out for the summer. As Emma thought more about it though, she realized she hadn't been 'fine' in a long time. She hadn't been happy.
"Nate, I don't think I'm fine," Emma said suddenly, her voice breaking on the final word.
Nathan Lerner, the man who had known Emma practically her whole life, nodded in understanding. "Their plane hasn't taken off yet, I don't think. Do you want me to call Liv?" he asked.
Emma tried to catch her breath against the onslaught of tears as she lowered herself shakily to sit on the sofa. She shook her head 'no', even as the tears rolled down her cheeks. This was Liv and Daniel's time; it wasn't their fault it had taken Emma until the day of her wedding to realize that Fletcher wasn't right for her.
"Do you want to be alone?" Nate asked.
Emma shook her head 'no' again, despite knowing that Nate probably wanted to bolt from her sobbing, messy, would-have-been bride self right now. Then Nate said something that surprised her.
"Do you need me to be your backup-Liv?" he asked, and she suddenly looked up at him. She expected him to be smiling at his joke, but he wasn't. His face was serious and he had since been hedging toward the sofa.
Finally, once the shock wore off and the reality set in, Emma nodded and let a sob break forth from her chest. Nate sat down next to her and wrapped his arms around her. For a long time, he just held her while she cried and cried and cried. Emma cried for the ten years of her life she had lost that she would never get back. She cried for all the damage she had done to Liv's wedding all because of a wedding that she now realized had been doomed from the beginning. She cried because she was lost and she had no idea how to even begin finding her way. She only stopped crying when she had no tears left in her to cry.
All the while Nate held her and rubbed her shoulder and told her all the things that he knew his sister would have said had she been there. He guessed he should have felt guilty for comforting the should-have-been bride of a guy he had called his friend, but he had known and cared for and felt loyalty toward Emma for much longer than Fletcher had ever been in the picture. Comforting Emma felt like the most natural thing in the world.
Nate had two people in his life that he loved more than anything else: Liv and Emma. It had been that way for as long as he could remember. If sides had to be taken, then Nate would be in Emma's corner, no debate about it.
"I'm in your corner," he said out loud, just so Emma would know.
"What?" she asked, picking her head up off his shoulder to look at him.
"No matter what happens, I'm in your corner, Em," he told her again. "The next two weeks, it's gonna be you and me. We're gonna dust you off, put you back on your feet, set you going in the right direction. You and me, Em."
"Nate, you don't have to do that," Emma told him, shaking her head while tears of gratitude welled in her eyes.
"It's what Liv would do and, since I'm your Stand-in Liv for the next two weeks, that's what we're going to do," he said firmly, leaving no room for argument. He heaved himself off the couch. "Starting with breakfast." He offered his hand out to her to help her off the couch as well. "Come on, I make some crazy good french toast."
"I have to admit," Emma said, wiping the corner of her mouth with her napkin, "I've never had french toast and coffee with brandy for breakfast."
Nate looked at her with wide-eyes, like he had had no idea. "Seriously? It's what all us single folk have for breakfast when we're wallowing in self-pity," he said.
"Uh-huh. And what do 'single folk' eat when they're feeling particularly motivated to get their lives back on track?" Emma asked.
Nate pretended to think about it for a moment. "Huh. I don't know. I don't think that's ever happened before," he joked.
Emma smiled. "Okay, so what's phase two of this master plan of yours?" she asked.
"What makes you think there's a master plan?" Nate asked, standing and gathering his and Emma's dishes to rinse them before putting them in the dishwasher.
"You're Stand-in Liv," Emma replied simply. "Liv always has a master plan. Don't you know that?"
"Well I do, yes," Nate agreed. He leaned on his forearms across the table toward Emma. "Which is why phase two involves embracing your newly acquired freedom. What have you always wanted to do that Fletcher never went along with?"
"Can there be a list?" Emma asked wryly, setting her head in her hand on the table.
Nate smiled and opened a drawer at the breakfast island and pulled out a pad of paper, which he threw down on the table in in front of Emma. He gave her a roguish smile and offered her a pen. "There can be a whole book," he answered.
Emma wrote down everything she had ever wanted to do that Fletcher had said no to, which ended up amounting to a three-page list of prohibited activities. When she couldn't think of any others, she turned the paper pad around and pushed it back across the table to Nathan, who had been reading the newspaper with unusual patience. He looked at it and smiled.
"Paint the kitchen cupboards black," he read, then he looked up at her. "We might have to find you your own apartment before we do that one. My sister would have a head fit if she came home and her cupboards were black." His eyes returned to the list. "Sing show tunes in the park, that one we can do. Ride a motorcycle?"
"He always starts telling me about how many accidents happen per year due to motorcycles," Emma explained.
Nate smiled. "I've got a buddy with a bike," he said. "He lives outside the city but we could take a train out." His eyes went back to the list. "Toss a coin into a wishing well?"
"Fletcher thought it was a waste of money."
"Pick flowers from the public botanical gardens?"
"Illegal, I know, but sometimes they're just really pretty and I want to take them home."
"Shout from a rooftop," Nate said. He looked at her. "Seriously? You've never shouted from a rooftop in New York?"
Emma shrugged. "Fletcher always said it was obnoxious," she answered.
Nate rolled his eyes. "Okay, we have got to get started on this list before you die an unhappy and unfulfilled life," he told her. "Get dressed. We're going to start living."
That day, Emma did all the things she had been wanting to do for years; stupid, silly little things that she never would have done with Fletcher, but were somehow so easy to do with Nathan. By the end of the day, Emma realized that while yesterday was supposed to be the best day of her life, today was exactly that. It was both a surprise and not a surprise at all, that throughout all of it, Nathan was right there beside her, egging her on to have fun and live life.
"Okay, so," Nathan said as they sat on Liv's couch with Nate on one end and Emma sitting sideways with her legs stretched out and her feet stopping just short of Nate's outer thigh, "out of the one-hundred-and-three items on your list, today we managed to complete . . . drum roll please . . ." – Emma patted her hands against her thighs as he crossed off the final one – "thirty-eight."
"Aww," Emma groaned. "We suck."
"Hey, now! Rome wasn't built in a day, you know," Nate argued. "I think we did pretty good for a Sunday afternoon. I mean, if you break it down, we managed to fit three and a third years' worth of missed opportunities into a twelve hour span. That's pretty good."
"Well, when you put it like that . . ." Emma conceded, picking up a carton of Hagen Das chocolate fudge ice cream and a spoon from the coffee table. She pretended to turn her attention to The Wedding Date that was playing on the television. "Tomorrow's my last Monday of the school year," she mentioned. "But I took the week off for my honeymoon. I wonder if it's too late to cancel the sub and go in."
"I'm sure Deb wouldn't mind taking the week off if you wanted to cover her class," Nate joked, having heard all about Deb Delgado shirking all her responsibilities onto Emma.
Emma looked at him. "That's actually not a bad idea," she said.
"I was kidding. Look, take the day off tomorrow, I'll take it off with you, and you can call the school and cancel the sub for the rest of the week," Nathan suggested. "I'll go with you to get your stuff from the apartment and we'll look for a new one."
"You'd go apartment hunting with me?" Emma asked skeptically.
Nate pointed to himself. "Stand-in Liv, remember? Would she do it? Yes. So that's what I'm going to do," he said plainly. He leaned forward and grabbed the newspaper off the coffee table, and continued, "I even took the liberty of circling some potential prospects within walking distance of both the school and here. Look, this one is even right around the corner from your favorite coffee place. You could grab coffee on your way to work."
Emma looked at Nathan, who was still looking at the newspaper. "It is. How did you know Sylvia's Cup was my favorite coffee place?" she asked.
"Huh? Oh, I've just seen you holding a coffee cup from Sylvia's a lot when I meet up with you and Liv," he answered distractedly.
Emma smiled, resting her elbow on the back of the couch and putting her head in her hand as she looked at Nate in awe. He knew her favorite coffee place from the coffee cup she was holding. He'd taken note of something so small. Why? Emma questioned. She had been with Fletcher ten years and even he hadn't known that. Emma wondered vaguely if even Liv knew that little factoid. It left Emma wondering, what else did Nate know about her that no one else did?