Hey everyone! You've chosen option 1- The cake melted. You've been nice to Audrey this story, lol (or, at least as nice as the terrible options I've given you can get!). This is the last chapter of Along The Way, and I've had so much fun writing this, and I hope you've enjoyed it too! Enjoy!

***

"You hate to say what, Owen?" I ask, closing the space between us. "Why did you run all the way back here?"

He hesitates. "Well, if I drove back, then you'd see it and immediately freak out, and I thought it would be best to prep you first so you had time to process."

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. This isn't good. What else could possibly have gone wrong?

I strain to keep calm. "And why, Owen, would I freak out?"

He takes a breath, bites his lip, then after what feels like an eternity of him pondering how to break the news to me, he says, "The cake melted. All of it. It's just a pile of mush now..."

All I can do is blink at him. Sofia's beautiful three-tiered cake is ruined. The one she was so excited about. The one that went with her 'vibe'. The one she wanted from that specific bakery. The one that was 'perfect' for pictures. The one I was in charge of— and now it's a pile of mush in a box in the back of Owen's shitty convertible.

"Audrey?" Owen prompts. "Did you hear me? I said the cake was melt—"

I don't bother snapping at him that of course I heard him. How could I not? He's standing right in front of me and delivering terrible news. Instead, I ignore the scorching heat and the sweat already dripping down my back and sprint past him.

He has to be mistaken. The cake can't be melted. Even though it's like 35 degrees outside and was sitting in a hot car for two hours and is made of food that's capable of melting, it can't melt.

It's not melted it's not melted it's not melted—

It's melted.

I take the box out of the car and place it on the gravel ground. The icing is a lumpy puddle, and the beautiful white roses and green leaves are just clumps in various stages of melting. The top tiers slid off and are leaning against the sides of the box in all different directions, and the cake sponge is torn down the middle, probably pulled down by the heavy icing.

The cake isn't salvageable.

And Sofia's going to be so upset.

"Hey," Owen says, panting as he catches up to me. He points to the ruined cake. "See what I mean?"

I round on him. "Yes, Owen! I see the pile of mush that was supposed to be my sister's dream wedding cake! I see that we could've avoided everything if you'd just taken this trip seriously! I see that we're going to be late to my sisters wedding, that I have a booger green dress, my hair is ruined, and now we have no cake!"

Owen doesn't say anything, he just frowns, and for some reason that only makes me more agitated.

"You know, everything has progressively gotten worse this entire trip! I had one job, Owen, not to screw up! What good is being the Maid of Honor if I can't even pick up a cake and show up on time? I would've been better off taking a taxi!"

Owen rubs the back of his neck. "We can fix this. It's no biggie."

"It is a 'biggie,' Owen. It's a huge biggie! Why can't you ever take anything seriously? We're going to ruin Sofia's wedding!"

I'm a failure as a sister and Maid-of-Honour. It will be a miracle if we even get there at this point.

"We'll figure it out, it's just a cake, Audrey. It'll be alright."

I rub my temples and try to remain calm. Freaking out at Owen isn't getting me anywhere and only makes my throat hurt. I can freak out at him later, when we've fixed the cake and have gotten to the wedding in one piece and have celebrated Sofia's marriage. Right now, I need all my energy focused on problem solving.

"Okay, okay, okay," I say. "If we leave now we'll get to Paradise Hills with some time to spare. I won't be able to help with anything there, but at least I'll have time to put on my dress and maybe fix my hair. I'll figure out the cake problem on the way there."

"Great!" Owen exclaims. "I knew you'd figure it out, you're so smart!"

I glare at him.

He holds his hands up. "What? It's the truth. Everything's alright. And I mean hey, look at the bright side, it could've been worse. At least the car is still here, and I just realized I parked under a no parking sign. It could've been towed!"

I swivel to find that he did indeed, park in a no parking zone. Of course he did, because it's Owen, and nothing goes right when he's involved.

As he picks up the gas canister and fills the tank of the car, I thank the Universe for sparing us from that terrible fate. With the car towed, we really would've been in trouble.

Once he's filled up the car, we hop in and he drives back to the gas station to fill the tank up the rest of the way. It's so annoying that the three-minute drive took us forty-five minutes to walk in the tortuous heat, and I know Owen's thinking the same thing as I drill holes in the side of his head with my stare. Once there, I throw out the unsalvageable pile of goo that was cake, the bird poo napkins, and the empty Tims cups.

I wish I could throw out this whole trip, but unfortunately life doesn't work like that.

"All done," Owen says as he gets in the car. I don't answer him— I'm too busy trying to figure out how to break it to Sofia that we have no cake for her wedding.

We're back on the road in no time, and an hour passes without any bright idea magically popping into my mind on how to fix the cake.

"What are you doing? This isn't the right way," I tell Owen when he turns off the main road, veering off the GPS's course.

"There's a town here," Owen says, pointing to the buildings visible from the road.

"And?"

"And towns mean people. People mean businesses. Businesses mean bakeries."

Now he has my attention. "Owen you genius!"

"Everything's going to be fine!" he says, and though I doubt it, at least we have an actual plan.

We end up finding a bakery very easily in this small town, and we make it thirty minutes before closing. Our luck may be turning around!

I explain our predicament to the bakery's owner, and while she sympathises, she explains she can't make a cake within the time we need. She does, however, have some premade round cakes she can stack and put a few icing flowers on it.

I almost cry, then hug her. Instead, I keep my cool and offer her the money to get it done.

The new cake is only two small, white round cakes, stacked on top of each other, with a few white roses on top as the cake topper. It's not as large, beautiful, or extravagant as the original cake Sofia picked out, and I don't even know what flavour it is or if it tastes good, but at least we have cake.

Owen and I both sigh in relief once the cake is loaded into the backseat and seat belted in, just like the last one. Unlike the last one though, we now have a full tank of gas and only thirty more minutes to go until we get to Paradise Hills, so the likelihood of it surviving is definitely higher.

Unless Owen somehow ruins it.

"The wedding starts in an hour," I tell Owen when he pulls onto the main road. "So we cannot afford any more screw ups, okay?"

"There will be no screw ups," Owen promises, and I shudder, as if my subconscious knows that he probably jinxed it.

However, thirty uneventful and problem free minutes pass, and we pull into the Paradise Hills parking lot. I feel like jumping out and kissing the ground. We're here! Mostly in one piece!

It was a terrible, horrible ride, but Sofia's wedding dress is okay and we have a cake!

We bring everything into the venue in two trips, and with every step that takes me closer and closer to Sofia's dressing room, my heart beats harder and harder.

I have to tell her that my Maid of Honor dress isn't here, that I don't have the tennis bracelet she wanted to borrow, and that her cake has been ruined. At least Owen's giving his brother, the best man, the wedding rings he was supposed to get, and at least Sofia's dress is okay. Thank goodness we have those things going for us.

I knock on Sofia's door and I hold my breath as it swings open.

"Mom where's the—" Sofia stops mid-sentence as she takes me in in all of my frizzy hair, sweaty, tank-top-with-a-hole-in-it glory.

She puts a hand over her mouth to bite back her laugh, and I push past her into the room.

"What happened to you?" She asks through stifled laughs, closing the door behind her.

"What do you think happened? Owen happened!" I plop down on the couch, letting my bags fall to the floor and lay her dress beside me.

She takes her dress and hangs it up behind the door, then sits beside me.

She looks beautiful. Her makeup is soft but still glamorous, and her hair is perfectly curled to fit her relaxed, outdoorsy theme.

"What do you mean?" she asks, then picks up a tangled strand of my hair and lets it drop. "I thought you paid to get this done?"

"I did. A bird pooped in it."

Now she doesn't even bother to hide the fact that she's laughing.

"It's not funny! I'm going to ruin all your pictures! And I don't have my Maid of Honor dress, so I bought a booger green one! And I don't have your tennis bracelet, and I ruined your cake!"

She doesn't interrupt as I tell her the whole, terrible story of the road trip from hell with Owen. When I'm done, she reaches over to a side table and hands me a cup. It's a Tim Hortons Cold Brew.

"Here," she says. "Have some. Relax. You're so stressed out."

I take a sip of the Cold Brew— which is my favourite, Salted Caramel— and eye her.

"Are you not? I just told you all the things that are going wrong for your wedding, and you're way too chill about it."

She laughs and untangles the rest of my hair that hasn't slipped out of the braid yet. "Audrey, this is a wedding. It's supposed to be fun. Justin and I could've got married at city hall for all we cared, but we're having a wedding so we can celebrate with all of you. We don't need it to be perfect."

"But don't you want it to be perfect?"

She takes back the Cold Brew and takes a sip. "I don't need it to be perfect. I want it to create memories. And I know you'll never forget my wedding day."

She's got that right.

"I have my hair straightener and curling iron," she says. "Take a quick shower, then let's get your hair somewhat decent and get this show on the road."

***

The wedding is beautiful. For all of Sofia's insistence that the wedding doesn't need to be perfect, it is. She and Justin are perfect together and all smiles. The venue is beautiful and the flowers everywhere are the perfect compliment to her theme.

The ceremony goes off without a hitch, the complete opposite to my journey here, and I was so proud and excited to be standing beside my big sister that I didn't even care that I was wearing a booger green dress and that my hair was only mostly decent.

I don't see Owen for a few hours until it's cake cutting time.

"Hey," he says, standing beside me as Sofia and Justin shove a chunk of cake into each other's mouths. I hope it tastes good.

"They're having so much fun," I tell Owen, gesturing to the bride and groom.

He looks good all cleaned up in his suit. You'd never know that just a few hours ago, we were stranded in the middle of the Canadian backroads with no cell service and trekking through the heat.

He nods. "Everyone is. Are you?"

"Yes," I say. "Everyone who asks about my dress and hair thinks the story is absolutely hilarious."

"Looking back, it is," Owen says, and though I didn't agree with him in the moment, I guess now I can see the funny side of everything that happened since the wedding is amazing. "But I'm sorry I didn't take things more seriously. I just wanted us to have fun. I thought with the car ride I could somehow make us be friends again, but everything I did just made things worse."

Owen really did try his best. Most of the problems were his fault—okay, all of the problems were his fault— but he didn't mean anything maliciously, and he tried his best to fix everything that went wrong.

"I'm sorry I was so... mean... during the trip," I say. "I just wanted it to be perfect."

"It is perfect, Audrey. You look great and the wedding looks great, and everyone is having an amazing time."

I watch as the other bridesmaids join Sofia and Justin for pictures while their faces are covered in cake.

"You're right," I say as Sofia waves me over. "It is kinda perfect."

"Do you think we can ever be friends again?" Owen asks. "Like old times?"

The trip was a disaster. Everything went wrong along the way, and I was nervous practically the entire time. But at least some good has come out of it. I did have fun when things weren't going wrong, and I do have closure from my breakup with Owen. He was my friend before we started dating, and while it's clear that we would never work as an actual couple, we could be friends again.

"Friends," I reply. "But we can never, ever, do a road trip together."

He smiles, big and broad. "So you won't be driving back with me?"

I roll my eyes and laugh, walking away to join the other bridesmaids for pictures.

"Is that a no?" He calls out to me, as if he doesn't already know the answer.

All I can do is shake my head and laugh. It is most definitely a no.

That's the end of Audrey's and Owen's Story, sponsored by Tim Hortons Cold Brew. I hope you all liked it, I had so much fun writing it because of the choices you all made. Thank you all for participating! Let me know what you thought of this Choose Your Own Ending adventure!