Grace slams her car door shut and locks it with a click. She walks up her driveway and opens the door to her family home.

"Hey, honey! How was shopping?" Grace's mother tells from the living room.

"Good. Got you some treats." Grace smiles, passing her the shopping bag.

"I knew there was a reason I had kids." She breathes, reaching into the bag and giving her daughter a bright smile.

Grace looks just like her mother; milk chocolate coloured skin, pronounced cheekbones, hidden slightly by soft cheeks. It's where she inherited her intense brown eyes from, but not her nose. Her nose is a mix between both of her parents, the width from her dad, and the roundness from her mum, giving it a buttoned look.

Her mum is so gorgeous, Grace used to feel so bad about the differences between them. Her lips were too big, her nose was too wide. Eventually, her mum knocked some sense into her, made her realise that her face was beautiful, and that the individual parts were what made it so. Now Grace puts gloss on her too big lips and highlighter on her wide nose. She enhances the things she used to hate.

"What are you thinking about?" Fiona asks, rubbing her hand along her daughter's arm comfortingly.

"Nothing." Grace smiles, "Just thinking that I have the most beautiful mummy in the world."

"And I have the most beautiful baby." Fiona grins back happily.

Grace squeezes her mother's hand and leaves the room, carrying the rest of her shopping up the stairs into her bedroom.

It'd been a week since she had left Cardiff. The last time she saw Elina was the day they watched Arthur and Rebecca on TV. They had a big heartfelt goodbye and went their separate ways, back home to opposite sides of the River Thames.

Grace picks up her phone, planning to open up the video call app and call her best friend, when she notices a notification from the news widget on her lock screen.

Grace's body grows cold. So, she was right. Arthur had fallen for Rebecca. Well, that took him absolutely no time at all.

She really, really tries not to open the article. She knows it's going to bring nothing but heartache. But Grace is a sadist, apparently, so she opens it anyway.

"I can't wait to get married. Look down the aisle... see my beautiful bride waiting there." Arthur looks absolutely hammered. His deep brown eyes clouded and a wobbly smile on his cute face. Cute, not handsome, because the only way to describe a completely wasted Arthur is utterly adorable.

Grace had stopped paying attention but zoned back in just in time to see then end of the video, where Arthur is right in front of the camera looking all dopey and lovestruck.

"I really really lurrrv her."

Well... that told Grace.

She's happy for him, on a mature, objective level. But really, she's seething.

How did he fall in love so soon? And with Rebecca? Shes their friend. If he loves her now, was he falling for her before? When they were all at uni, spending time together? Had he been biding his time, waiting till he had his chance? Or was he unaware of his developing feelings for her?

Grace feels sick.

Her spiralling is interrupted by a soft tap on her bedroom door.

"Come in." She says quietly.

"Hi, sweetheart." Grace's mother pops her head through the gap in the door with a tender smile. Her eyes roam around the room before landing on her daughter sprawled out on top of the bedsheets.

"Hi, Mummy." Grace smiles back, switching off her phone and sitting up straight, "What's up?"

Fiona enters the room properly, making her way over to her daughter with a bright white envelope in hand.

"This just came through the letterbox for you."

She hands her the envelope, and Grace runs her fingers over it. It's textured, clearly made from an expensive material. On the front, her name is handwritten in beautiful cursive, by someone who had clearly dedicated a lot of time perfecting their hand.

Grace gets a sinking feeling in her stomach, already having some idea what this is.

She turns the envelope back around and carefully opens it, revealing an equally beautiful card tucked inside. With a silent sigh, she takes it out and reads its contents in her head.

"Dear Miss Grace Roberts,

You are cordially invited to the wedding of Prince Arthur James Edward Louis of Gloucester to Miss Rebecca Sarah Simpson at 1pm on the 12th of August 2020 at Westminster Abbey, London."

There is more to read, dress-code, privacy details, et cetera. But Grace can't look at it anymore. She throws the card onto her side table and sighs heavily, unconsciously crumpling the envelope in her other hand.

Then she notices the bit of white lined paper peeking out from inside and pulls it out to observe.

"Sunshine," it begins, and Grace momentarily loses her ability to breathe. She looks up at her mum, who has been stood dutifully by her bedside, providing silent support.

Grace starts to read again.

"Sunshine,

I don't know if this is a good idea, but it seems like the right thing to do while I'm writing this.

Before everything that happened, we were friends, and you were the person who kept me in line, and calm.

I understand if you don't want to be anywhere near me again, but if you can stand it, I'd like for you to be at my wedding.

Perhaps I'm making a mistake saying this, but I can't do this without you there. Maybe not in the same way I had imagined, but your presence will put me at ease regardless.

I hope to see you there.

From,

The boy without a nickname"

Grace lets out a shaky breath, feeling her eyes stinging a little with unshed tears.

"Oh.. dear." Fiona says quietly. Grace looks up at her mother to see that she had picked the invitation card up from her nightstand. She's reading it diligently, the frown on her face growing more and more the further she gets.

When she's done, she gives her daughter a sympathetic look, not sure what she can do to help.

"It's official. He's over me."

"Oh, Sweetheart." Fiona pouts, sitting down on the bed in a space near Grace's feet, "Are you going to go?"

Grace scoffs, huffing air out of her nose, "How can I? How am I meant to sit there and watch him marry someoene else? I don't have the strength."

Her mother sighs, giving her a disapproving look, "Grace Evelyn Roberts, do you know who I named you after?"

Grace frowns with a shrug, "Grace Kelly?" She half jokes, not sure of the other options.

Fiona kisses her teeth, "Wrong. The legendary Grace Jones." She scoots slightly up the bed and so that she can take her daughter's hand.

"I named you after someone strong, someone unapologetic, because that's what I want you to be..But in those times when you feel weak, or vulnerable... you're allowed to be. Do you think Miss Jones never had a bad day? Never felt sad? Of course she did! But she'll always be Grace Jones. It isn't always how you feel that makes you strong. Sometimes you just have to know who you are, and that's where the strength is."

Fiona let's her daughter stew in her words for a while. She watches the emotions swim in Grace's eyes for a second.

She smiles, patting her daughter's hand and lifting herself up off of the bed slowly.

On her way out of the door, she turns, giving her daughter a proud look, "You, my dear, are Grace Roberts. And no matter how bad you feel, promise me that you'll remember that."