by Lucy Dickens
‘What are you most excited about after the wedding?’ Brienne is asking, topping up her wine. ‘Honeymoon or moving to London?’
‘All of it,’ I enthuse. ‘But if I had to pick it would be London. I just can’t wait to start the whole rest-of-our-lives bit. It’s going to feel like we’re real grown-ups.’ We all laugh because being grown-up still seems a million years away.
‘Did I tell you the gym in the building is nearly open?’ Daisy says.
‘That’s so cool,’ I look at Matt. ‘How lucky are we to be able to live in a building with its own gym?’ He nods through a gobful of cheese.
The reality is, we truly are lucky. Neither of us could afford to live in that flat solo, especially since I’m going to be on a barely there internship wage for the first few months. It might seem crazy to pack in a stable job copy-editing at the small local paper to move to the pricy capital for an internship straight after forking out for a wedding and honeymoon, but the internship is with Adventure Awaits magazine in their digital content department, and my dream is to combine travel and writing. I nearly turned it down out of financial fear but Matt and my family convinced me we could make it work. And so I’ve worked two jobs for the past nine months, at the paper and picking up bar work, and will be supplementing the internship by working evenings in a trendy all-day breakfast cafe a walk from where we’re going to live. And hopefully, if all the stars align, I’ll be able to bag a paid job at the magazine after I’ve proved myself.
‘That said,’ I continue, ‘I can’t wait to spend some time in Japan away from the main cities, exploring the zen gardens and getting a bit of peace and quiet before we come back here and everything goes mad-busy again.’
Matt nods. ‘Agreed. Some time alone to think sounds perfect right about now.’ I think he’s agreeing with me but it sounds a little morose.
And that’s when I say, ‘This time in three weeks we’ll be married …’ and everything crumbles, like a cookie dipped too long in tea that falls apart and is lost, never to be whole again.
‘… a week off from our relationship, to sow some wild oats, to make sure.’
When Matt has said these words there’s a stunned silence in the room, and then Dylan lets out a nervous giggle, thinking this must be one of Matt’s inappropriate jokes he’s heard so much about.
‘Matt, you’re bonkers to joke about that in front of your bride-to-be,’ Brienne says with both a chuckle and a tiny sliver of warning in her voice.
‘It’s not a joke, I’m serious,’ Matt protests, and everyone looks at me, holding their breath.
‘You’re not serious,’ I shake my head, and a giddy giggle escapes from my lips so I guzzle some more wine. But as I look at him over the rim of my glass and see the pain in his eyes that don’t match the confident smile on his face, I can see that he means it.
‘Hear me out, everybody,’ he says.
Everybody. Of course. Growing up with four siblings, a boyfriend since school and a group of close friends means every life decision of mine feels like it has to be made by committee, but even this? Really, Matt? ‘I think it would be a good test of our relationship, like a final safety test before a car is sent out, to make sure everything is … up to spec.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I bristle.
‘I mean, we’ve been together since year nine, all we’ve known is each other. I don’t want you to have any resentment further down the line or for us to end up doing something unforgivable once we’re married.’
‘So this is for me, to avoid me having resentment?’
‘You, and me …’ He’s getting a little uncomfortable now.
‘So, let me get this straight,’ the volume of my voice is gradually creeping up. ‘If I don’t want you to cheat on me once we’re married, I have to let you cheat on me now?’
There is a silence and I’m aware of the other people in the room, each holding their breath.
Matt clears his throat. ‘It wouldn’t be cheating, though; it would be like a hall pass. Like a get-out-of-jail-free card.’
There is a collective gasp and I smash the wine bottle on the table and hold the jagged weapon to his neck.
No, I don’t, of course I don’t, but I do think about it for a second.
‘No, no, I don’t mean like that, I don’t want to get out, more like a, um, day release. That you would be fully on board with. Paperwork signed. I’ll behave, officer, but not too much.’ He salutes and Brienne murmurs, ‘Oooh, he’s making it worse.’
I close my eyes. This is a bad dream, it’s got to be, because comprehending what is really happening will break me. So I decide to play along, firmly gripping my wine, which, in the time it has taken to open my eyes, someone had poured into a pint glass and topped up. ‘So after your day release,’ I seethe, ‘when you come back to the prison that is our loving relationship, what then?’
‘Then we get married and nothing changes. If we still feel that’s the best thing to do.’
‘Okay, okay,’ I whisper, and I see the others lean forward so as not to miss a syllable. ‘So you’ve had your break, you didn’t find a better option, and then you just stroll back in and we forget all about it? Lucky me.’
‘But you’d be allowed to take a break too; it would be a mutual thing.’
‘Oh, thank you so much.’
He shuffles closer to me and gives me that smile again, which now seems false and patronising. ‘It’s not about finding a better option, I promise. It’s about not being so hard on ourselves to fit into this strict social norm of “once you’re with the one, you can never be with someone else ever again”. Because you and I have been a couple for nearly all our lives, we never gave ourselves a chance to experience anything else.’
I stare at him, at my Matt, and my anger slips a little. Not because I’m not mad any more – because I am, I’m fuming – but because mostly I feel sad: I never realised what different pages – different books – we were on. And everything I thought I knew about my life and my future is floating away and I can’t catch it.
Matt turns to our friends. ‘What do you guys think?’
‘I think this is kind of a private matter,’ says Dylan, but Dev shushes him, keen to join the debate.
Daisy offers her opinion first, clearing her throat and addressing me, or at least the shell of me that is swaying under the weight of what’s happening. ‘Well, to be honest, Charlotte, I don’t think I could marry Will if I knew he’d been with someone else, even if I gave my permission. I just wouldn’t be able to stop wondering who she was and what she was like.’
‘Well—’ Matt starts but Daisy cuts him off, and I vaguely wonder what he was going to say.
‘But I do see your point, Matt. Do you think this could just be bog-standard cold feet?’
‘It doesn’t sound like that to me,’ says Alex. ‘He seems to want to get married, just wants her permission to experience being a single adult for a moment. I mean, I think it’s good that you’re discussing it and it didn’t happen behind anyone’s back.’
Matt looks horrified. ‘Absolutely – I’d never cheat on her, I wanted this to all be really open and I was hoping we could keep it, um …’ he trails off.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Well, not a big deal. Like it wouldn’t mean anything, it would just be an experience.’
Daisy turns back to me. What an interesting debate this was. ‘Charlotte, has the thought ever crossed your mind that you’re missing out by never having kissed-or-whatever anyone else?’
‘No!’ I splutter.
Well, that isn’t strictly true …
26 October, last year
Saturday, midday
It was just a quiet freak-out, an internal one, you couldn’t even hear it above the low-volume love songs playing inside the bridal boutique. I stood in a changing room the size of a Kardashian’s walk-in closet, looking at myself in this beautiful dress. Its white organza flowers scattered the gown like cherry blossom in full bloom
and I held a prop champagne flute, wondering if I was making a huge mistake.
My mum’s voice called through the curtain. ‘Do you need any help in there, honey?’
‘No!’ I called in my chirpiest voice, but my mum could hear the crack and slipped straight in.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked softly, removing the glass from my hands and sitting us both down on the floor to stop my legs shaking. I looked like Maya Rudolph in that infamous Bridesmaids scene, which I found funny for a moment before I remembered what a huge, massive mistake was about to happen.
‘Nothing, everything is just perfect,’ I said, the very vision of someone having the most perfect moment.
‘I think something is on your mind. Is it because I brought up shapewear? I’m sorry, darling, I didn’t mean a thing by it, it was just a question about what kind of underwear we needed to factor in under this dress.’
‘It’s not the shapewear, or any underwear. Underwear isn’t the problem.’ The black and pink bra straps jutting out the top of this gown would disagree with that, but that’s my bad – my strapless was in the wash. ‘I’m fine.’
Mum stroked my arm. ‘Then why are we sitting on the floor like a couple of dropped marshmallows?’
‘What if this is all wrong?’ I whispered.
‘That’s okay, we’ll just go a little further afield on the next trip, there are plenty more dress shops around that we haven’t tried yet. Just … outside a thirty-mile radius.’
‘Not the dress, this, how do I know Matt is the one? He’s the only boyfriend I’ve ever had. What am I thinking?’
‘I think you’re thinking that you love him and you know him, and he makes you happy.’
I couldn’t breathe, the dress was squeezing my organs and my skin felt hot. This is a mistake; marriage is a mistake. ‘But Dad made you happy and look what happened.’
Mum took a pause, and I felt awful for bringing up bad memories. I quickly added, ‘I’m sorry. I’m just tired from all the hours I’ve been doing at work, and it’s raining outside, again, and it’s probably just wedding dress shopping blues.’
‘What happened between me and your dad was just something that sometimes happens. But I hope you know I certainly wouldn’t have had it any other way. Because everything that happened before he left was so wonderful. It was you, and Mara, and Graham, and Marissa, and Benny. Enjoy your life, honey, don’t waste it worrying about what ifs.’
I tried to remember what my GP had told me about dealing with anxious thoughts. This isn’t a real worry, it’s a hypothetical one. I mustn’t let it overwhelm me. Acknowledge and move on. I sniffed and took out my phone, finding a recent photo of Matt and I being silly in mouse ears at Disneyland Paris. I did enjoy my life with Matt, I did. I just needed reminding that marriage is still worthwhile.
So no, I’m not perfect. Matt’s not perfect. We both had pre-wedding jitters, but I got over them and I certainly didn’t react even close to how Matt is reacting now. How did he think I would react? How did he want me to react? How sad that we’re in such different places after seeming to be so in sync for so long.
‘I can’t do this.’ I stand up, for once not wanting everybody’s input in my life.
Matt stands with me. ‘Would it help if you met her?’
I freeze.
Dev and Dylan clutch each other and Dylan whispers, ‘He did not just say that.’
‘There’s a her already?’ Brienne asks tentatively and with a side-eye on me. No, please no.
‘Nothing’s happened, there’s just a woman at the leisure centre where we use the gym who seems to smile at me a lot and I think she’d be up for going on a date or two. She’s called Katie.’
‘The blond girl who wears a lot of Jack Wills?’ I ask.
‘Yes, that’s her!’ He catches himself beaming at the thought of her, and yes, I know her, with her friendly banter and her pert bum on the spin bikes and her fuckingggggggg pretty hair.
Brienne leaps up and pushes Matt back towards the sofa. ‘Shall we take a breather outside, Charlie?’ she asks, steering me towards the door.
We’re out the front of my building, and I pace on the steps, unable to process, unable to talk.
‘I think we should go,’ says Brienne. ‘You and Matt need to be alone, he’s an arsehole for doing this in front of other people.’
I nod, numb, just wanting time to go backwards.
‘I’m going to get the others and I’ll call you tomorrow, but Charlie?’ I meet her eye. ‘Don’t agree to anything you don’t want just because you don’t want to upset any plans. Screw the plans.’
The others leave, pitying shoulder taps on their way past, awkward glances, and I sit on the steps for a long time in the cold, staring into the darkness. I’m not debating what to do, I know what to do, I’m just processing.
Eventually, I return indoors to where Matt is quietly packing dishes into the dishwasher, the living room cleared up neatly and the music and candles extinguished. We silently turn the lights off and walk to our bedroom, undressing without looking at each other, and climb into bed, letting the darkness lie over us like a blanket.
‘If you don’t want to do this, or you don’t want me to, I won’t,’ he says, and I feel him turn onto his side to face me while I remain on my back, eyes wide open, looking towards the ceiling above that I can’t see.
‘What I want is for you not to want to be with anyone else.’ It comes out as a croak; I’ve been breathing in cold night air for so long. ‘But you want out. So I’ve had the decision made for me.’
‘I don’t want to break up,’ he says quietly. ‘Charlotte, we’ve always been together, it’s always been the two of us, and I love you so much.’
Tears are falling from my face onto the pillow, quiet streams. ‘This isn’t just cold feet, is it?’
He pauses and then whispers, ‘No.’
‘I’ve got to call off the wedding.’
‘Don’t do that.’ He sounds shocked, panicked, talking quickly. ‘Let’s talk about it. Do you want to call your mum or your bridesmaids or someone?’
‘No, I’m making this decision. It’s not a debate.’
Matt’s crying now, which makes my own tears flow, because I can hear that these aren’t tears of regret at what he’s said but tears of acknowledgement that it really might be over. ‘I can’t imagine being without you.’
‘I can’t imagine being without you either.’ My breathing is deep, drawing in and letting go of the air we’ve so long shared in our bedroom. I know what I need to say but how cruel life is to make me say these words instead of simply letting me say I Do. ‘But the difference is,’ I whisper, which is all I can manage, ‘that I can’t imagine being without you because you’re part of me, and I want to tell you things and show you things and see your face light up when you laugh.’ I turn my head to look for his face in the dark, my Matt’s face. ‘You can’t imagine being without me because you’re scared to make the jump.’
‘You’re putting words in my mouth.’
‘I know, but it’s words you’re too scared to say. You said it yourself, this is more than cold feet. I think this is an escape plan. And I get it,’ I sigh. ‘I get it but I don’t feel the same, we’re in completely different places. There is no way for us to move forward with our plans and our life together. And I’m going to be mad at you for a long time for holding on to this and only telling me now.’
He’s silent for a while and then says, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Me too,’ I whisper back.
He’s been a part of my life, my identity, my heartbeat for so long that I can’t imagine how to function without him. And I know life doesn’t stop at a break-up, I know that after some heartache and healing I will move on – I know because my mum did it, even after five kids. Matt was my first boyfriend, my only love, he got to know me as I was getting to know myself during those teenage and university years. And it seems so alien to me to know who I am without him.
We don’t s
peak again but lie together for what we both know is the last time and eventually his breathing slows and he shuffles into the deep sleep of someone who has finally released something heavy that was weighing him down.
In turn, after I’ve memorised the feel of his skin and the sound of his breathing so I can hold them with me, I release myself from under his arm, which was weighing me down, and I walk away.
Chapter 2
All threads to unpick
Rewinding our decisions
Everyone, shut up.
I brace myself. ‘Blurghurghurghurgh,’ I say, in that way that actors and singers do when they’re readying themselves for a performance. I shake out my shoulders and roll my neck and place a sisterly hand on my Michelle Obama print above my desk. Then I click the ‘dial into meeting’ link.
I am the last to join the call, and when the audio and video connect I’m hit with a wall of my siblings in their individual thumbnails, all talking over one another.
‘Hello, everyone,’ I say.
‘Heeeey!’ cries Marissa, the first to notice me, her face floury from whatever delicate morsel she’d been whipping up over the course of the morning. Having recently returned from an advanced patisserie course in Paris (yes, really, I know) she’s on track to become one of the youngest dessert chefs at the London hotel she works at.
Benny is scraggly haired and shirtless, sitting on his bed during his final year of university, the sun glinting off his face from a window beside him.
‘Benny, did you just wake up?’ I ask.
‘Yep, last night was sick, everyone’s gonna start revising like, all day every day soon so we had this epic night out.’
‘Please don’t tell me we’re about to see any other nipples rise out of that bed, B,’ Mara comments, and in his thumbnail Gray lifts his head from his phone to look at his computer screen lest he miss anything. Mara continues, ‘Hi, Charlie, what’s on your agenda to talk to us about today? The invite wasn’t very clear.’
