Chapter 1: My First Best Day Ever

It was the best day ever. Or so I thought at the time. Just like our first date, George took me sailing. He had a picnic of delicacies set up for us. Wine and cheese with fresh fruit, oh, and those amazing crackers I could never get enough of. It was the perfect weather for it, just enough wind without overdoing it. The breeze kissed my skin, leaving goosebumps. I couldn't help but feel as though it were the best day ever. And he said all the right things, looked at me with those eyes, green my favorite color, that seemed to sparkle just so in the sunlight. I was a girl in romance heaven as he fed me grapes.

Yes, literally, just like in those scenes where the queen is fanned by her subjects and fed grapes. I was his queen, and I chuckled a little at the thought of it. Just when I thought it couldn't possibly get any better, I dreamily opened my lips to another grape and felt something cold, hard, and much thinner than a grape. George laughed softly as my lips closed over the item, and I realized what I was feeling. It was round, metal, thin with a hole in the middle and a large rock on one end. My eyes went wide.

"Oh my god!" I blurted out around the ring George had pressed into my mouth. I thought I would choke on it as I gasped and fumbled to take it out of my mouth. It was absolutely amazing. There were two red stones on either side of what had to be the biggest diamond I had ever seen in my life. Well, in person, at least. I looked up at him, and he sat there still laughing softly at me with that gorgeous smile of his. His hair was a dusty blonde with sun-kissed streaks floating along the breeze. It was soft and fluffy and just long enough to not be too long. He had a strong, hard jawline that made him always look like he could be thinking something serious at any moment,

"They're our birthstones garnet and ruby next to them forever stone; the diamond because our bond is forever," those strawberry lips told me.

I flew at him and devoured his lips, then pulled back for a moment to whisper "yes," just once before attacking him again. He laughed against my onslaught, and when I finally let him up for air, he grinned at me and pulled out a second bottle of wine from the picnic basket. No, it wasn't wine. It was champagne. He reached back in and brought out a box which he opened for me to see the largest, juiciest, most decadent chocolate-covered strawberries a girl could imagine.

Thinking back on that day, it really ought to have been the best day ever. But there were so many more days to come—word of advice: never sell yourself short on your best day ever. Keep looking for that next best day and living for the future rather than reliving the past as your only good day. I still had a wedding to plan for and a whole life with this adorable, loving, romantic man.

I know it's a bit sudden to start my story with the best day ever, but like I said, keep looking for the next one. This was the first best day ever, so that is where my story of best days begins. I can still remember the smell of salt on the sea as it lapped against the side of the boat and the sound of the waves gently rocking us as tears welled up in my eyes. I felt I was the happiest girl in the world. I can't believe I was that girl, really. It feels like centuries have passed since then, although

Okay, let me not get too far ahead. George and I were absolutely perfect from the moment we met. He was an Ivy league, trust fund, only child with a heart of gold on a bad day and a grin that made you want to run off and save baby sea lions or volunteer at a soup kitchen for a year just to be near him.

Me, well, I am this brunette, always thin as a board, dull grey eyes, freckles, and though I was a cheerleader, I had a slight bit of nerd stuck in me somewhere from my dad's side of the family.

For some reason, we saw each other in junior year of high school and were inseparable from day one. I had won a scholarship to his fancy upstate private high school. I remember the day like it just happened moments ago. I was looking for my classroom and turned suddenly to head back the way I had come, only to smack right into him. He caught me and laughed that soft addictive laugh of his, asked if I was okay, and I whispered, "yes."

I still don't know what got him, but suddenly his laugh faltered a bit as if something caught him off guard, and he asked my name. He offered to escort me to class and skipped every single one of his classes that day to escort me to every one of mine. That weekend he took me sailing with a

Fast forward six years, and we were sailing again, and I was whispering "yes" again. I enjoyed every moment of that day with him, but I couldn't wait to tell the world. As soon as I got home...George and I made love four times before passing out in euphoria on cloud nine.

When I woke up the next morning, I called my mom, my best friend, my cousin, my grandma, my hairdresser, my next-door neighbor, the lady I walked dogs for when I was fourteen; I called every number in my phone and told them all that I was engaged to the most wonderful man on the planet.

My best friend Trinity, my cousin, and George's cousin were my bridesmaids. My best friend and I had already planned everything for years since the first time I scribbled my name Joanna Hart with George Starking to create Joanna Starking. Planning was a breeze even though his mother kept adding more and more details to everything, making it bigger and bigger than I had dreamed.

I had the most perfect dress. It had a princess cut with a peacock-designed lace skirt, a light pink silk ribbon tied into a bow around the back, and a strapless bodice. The wedding was outside, and my colors were pale pink, a bright, almost fuchsia pink, and peacock blue. We had ordered peacocks, of course, to roam about the forest-like garden my soon-to-be-mother-in-law was creating with all her add ons, and there was going to be a pink rose petal carpet for me to walk down. The whole thing was next-level fantasy with a fountain centerpiece and an ice cream cake sculpture.

George and I had our whole lives planned out. We had talked about it since high school. He was getting a business degree from one of the top schools, and as soon as he graduated he would be swept into his father's corporation and taught all the ropes so he could eventually take over. The training syllabus was aggressive, but his father wanted George at the top and by his side by the time he was 30. I had a promising internship at a prominent fashion company and would be working with the new line that had just been branched off.

We had gotten an apartment downtown as soon as we graduated and planned on a rushed wedding so we could set in our prospective jobs by fall. The wedding was set for late August, and with all the planning I had done for the past six years, it was no problem. George and I spent every moment we could together knowing that once we were married and started our jobs, we wouldn't have much time together for several years. But it was still the perfect dream life. I must have jumped that man's bone a few dozen times in the first weekend of our engagement alone. We were inseparable as ever. Such was the outcome of my first best day ever.