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SEVENTY-FOUR
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2026-09-24 12:30:57Tradition, according to Starr's mother, dictated that the bride and groom not see each other the night before the wedding, and though Starr had scoffed initially, insisting she didn't put much stock in tradition for tradition's sake, she found herself surprisingly moved by the small ritual of it, gathered in her mother's living room with Sorcha, Heather, and her mother, Iris asleep in a portable crib in the corner while Christopher spent the night at Magnus and Valentine's apartment across to
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DIAMOND HART SEVENTY-FIVE
The morning moved in a blur of soft chaos, Sorcha and Heather fussing over Starr's hair while her mother fretted over the flowers, Amber arriving early with a garment bag containing something she refused to explain until the exact right moment, Iris passed between eager arms all morning, dressed in a tiny cream outfit that made everyone who held her make some variation of the same helpless, delighted sound."Hold still," Sorcha instructed, carefully pinning a final curl into place. "You're worse than Iris.""I am not fidgeting.""You have fidgeted through this entire process." Sorcha stepped back, studying her work with satisfaction. "There. Perfect."Starr turned to the mirror, and for a long moment simply stood there, taking in the dress Heather had finished exactly as promised, the soft off-white fabric moving like water, the traditional print worked delicately into the sash at her waist, subtle enough that only someone looking closely would recognise
DIAMOND HART SEVENTY-FOUR
Tradition, according to Starr's mother, dictated that the bride and groom not see each other the night before the wedding, and though Starr had scoffed initially, insisting she didn't put much stock in tradition for tradition's sake, she found herself surprisingly moved by the small ritual of it, gathered in her mother's living room with Sorcha, Heather, and her mother, Iris asleep in a portable crib in the corner while Christopher spent the night at Magnus and Valentine's apartment across town."Nervous?" her mother asked, settling a warm cup of tea into Starr's hands, the same way she had every difficult evening throughout Starr's childhood, as though tea alone had the power to steady whatever storm was passing through."Not the way I expected to be," Starr admitted, wrapping her hands around the cup. "I thought I'd be anxious about the ceremony itself, the speeches, all of it. But mostly I just feel this enormous, quiet certainty. Like I've been walking toward this
DIAMOND HART SEVENTY-THREE
Magnus had declared, with the full theatrical authority of a man who considered himself an expert in celebration, that there would be no boring bridal shower under his watch, and so the evening had evolved, somewhere between the invitations going out and the actual event, into something closer to a full takeover of Starr's apartment, string lights and balloons crowding every surface, a table groaning under more food than six people could reasonably finish."I said small," Starr said, surveying the chaos with her hands on her hips, Iris balanced on one arm."This is small," Magnus said, offended. "For me, this is practically a quiet night in.""There is a chocolate fountain, Magnus.""There is one chocolate fountain," he corrected, "which is a completely reasonable amount of chocolate fountain for an engagement this significant."Sorcha appeared from the kitchen with a tray of something involving considerably more glitter than food usually required,
DIAMOND HART SEVENTY-TWO
Starr found the old notebook by accident, tucked into a box of things she'd finally worked up the courage to unpack from storage now that her apartment had slowly, steadily become a home built for three instead of one. The cover was worn soft at the edges, her handwriting from years ago cramped and urgent across every page, half finished stories she'd abandoned somewhere around the same time she'd decided the safest thing to be in life was unshakeable.She sat on the floor of her closet for nearly an hour, reading pages she barely remembered writing, watching an entirely different version of herself unfold across the paper, someone hopeful and unguarded in a way she hadn't let herself be again until Christopher walked into her life and slowly, patiently, coaxed that person back out of hiding."What's that?" Christopher asked later that evening, finding her at the kitchen table with the notebook open in front of her and a fresh page of her laptop glowing blank and waiti
DIAMOND HART SEVENTY-ONE
Solace had never been much of a talker, not even as a boy, and Starr had forgotten, in her years away, how comfortable his silences could be, how they never once felt like distance the way Christopher's occasional quiet sometimes still did. He simply existed beside her, steady and present, the way he had at the cemetery gates that Saturday morning, waiting without a single word of complaint while she gathered the courage to walk through them."You don't have to come in with me," Starr said, glancing at him. "I know it's been a while for you too.""I come every month," Solace said simply, already moving toward the gate. "I didn't stop, even when you did."Something in Starr's chest tightened at that, guilt and gratitude tangled together in a way she was learning, slowly, to simply feel without immediately trying to fix or explain away. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "For leaving you to carry all of it alone.""You weren't carrying nothing yourself," Solace
DIAMOND HART SEVENTY
The wedding planning began, appropriately enough, with an argument over the guest list, Starr sitting cross legged on her living room floor with a legal pad while Christopher paced behind the couch, Iris asleep in her bouncer between them."We are not inviting three hundred people," Starr said, for the third time. "I don't even like three hundred people combined across my entire life.""It's not about liking them, love, it's about the fact that my publisher will be devastated if he's not invited, and then my editor will be devastated that the publisher got invited and she didn't, and then-""Then we invite fewer publishing people," Starr said flatly. "I want a wedding, Christopher, not a networking event with vows attached."Christopher sighed, dropping onto the couch beside her, defeated in the particular way he always was whenever she used that exact tone. "Fine. Small wedding. Family, close friends, and I suppose I'll manage the fallout from my publish
DIAMOND HART FOUR
Chris Chariton.Chris Chariton was the last person Starr was willing to see at that point in time, but it was the public, 'the will to see' law didn't apply there.He has a wide grin on, a grin wide enough to contain the lounge. "The club is the last place I'd have ever
DIAMOND HART THREE
"You my dear friend, need to step out of this house," Magnus said to Starr. Magnus was the only person who Starr sometimes spent time with or talked about personal or mundane things with. Magnus had been there with her through thick and thin, through unexpected hits and decisions. He was the only o
DIAMOND HART TWO
DIAMOND HART ONE
At the click of her black Jimmy Choo's Lance heels on the office white tiles, heads began to turn and people began to trace their way to their offices and cubicles in fear. Starr Hart cat-walked in her wine button up bodycon gown, swaying her hips in the most perfect manner as her thick brown cur
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