“I can’t wait to have a weird friend history with someone.” Sal snuggled into Cheryl’s side. “Is this okay?”
Cheryl was surprised to find it was. She wasn’t the touchiest person, but something about Sal circumvented her usual walls. She wrapped an arm around them and smoked, feeling close to contentment for the first time all evening. Although as she stared up at the sky, she realised it had been longer.
She loved Patrick. She wanted to marry him as much as she had the day he’d proposed, and if there was such a thing as soulmates in this world, he was hers. But the wedding situation was getting out of hand and taking with it the ease she’d always felt in her fiancé’s presence.
It had all started with her dress. She’d initially planned to go shopping on Labour Day weekend with only Eden at her side. Then Patrick had informed her that his mum was coming to town with his four sisters-in-law, and wedding dress shopping was officially a group affair.
Cheryl had instantly smelled a rat. Maybe if she’d put her foot down then and there, she’d have stopped the wedding slide. Instead, she’d told Patrick that sounded lovely. Katherine, Patrick’s mother, wasn’t usually pushy, but she and the daughters Normal had clearly come to Melbourne on a mission. Cheryl was practically frog-marched to the fanciest bridal boutiques in Armadale and made to try on dresses so expensive they didn’t even come with price tags. Eden had tried to intervene, but she was dogpiled by Patrick’s sisters-in-law and plied with bottomless champagne until she was giggling and cheering the gowns as loudly as anyone else.
Stressed as she was, Cheryl had liked a lot of the dresses. But then Sass, the bridal assistant, had brought her a Vera Wang with a corset bodice and delicate tulle skirt, and The Thing happened. The dress felt right the second Cheryl had seen it, and when she tried it on, it fit like a dream. Looking at herself in themirror, she’d teared up at how much she looked like a beautiful, elegant, happy bride. When she’d exited the changing room, everyone gasped as if it were a Hallmark movie.
“That’s the one,” Katherine had said firmly. “That’s the dress.”
Before Cheryl could blink, her future mother-in-law had handed the overly eager Sass a black AMEX. She’d tried to protest, but everyone shushed her and gave her more wine. She turned her attention to Eden’s bridesmaid gown and the flower girl dresses—which were also paid for by the mysterious black card.
“KitKat, I looked after it,” Patrick had said when she came home, tipsy and hostile, to demand answers. Toward the end of the bridal store debacle, she’d pulled Sass into a change room and all but threatened her with legal action if she didn’t tell her the price of her dress.
The answer—as much as a brand-new sports car—had made Cheryl feel like she was covered in fire ants, eating her skin and devouring her blood. But Patrick seemed genuinely confused by her panic.
“Wedding dresses are crazy expensive, baby. You’re still covering your mum’s nursing home bills, and I know you’d rather go into debt than let me help you.”
“So? That’s my choice.”
And Patrick had given her one of his patented ‘I’m the sexy man of the house, and I know best’ looks. “Not anymore. I wanted us to get married, and I take responsibility for how much this wedding will cost.”
“By siccing your mum on me?”
“She’s just excited to help! It’s the last wedding she’ll get to plan for any of us.”
“Until your brothers get divorced,” Cheryl had muttered. She was being a bitch, but considering how often Patrick’s brotherswere in the doghouse for sports betting five grand or ‘winding up at the strip club’ after work drinks, it didn’t seem out of the question.
But instead of taking her bait, Patrick had taken her arm, his gold-brown eyes melting her in that utterly unfair way of his. “I can’t wait for the wedding. Mum says she’s never seen a more beautiful bride.”
“Yes,but?—”
“I bet you break my brain; you’ll look flawless in that dress.”
Then he’d kissed her, and Cheryl—still pretty lit from bridal store wine—ended up banging Patrick Fitzwilliam Normal on his living room floor instead of demanding to repay him. That was something that happened frequentlybeforethe wedding plans had started, but became stupidly common after Vera Wang D-Day.
Cheryl had known she couldn’t contribute as much to the wedding as Patrick. He was a professional sportsman from a rich family, and she was a fatherless pov with a sick mother and a gig in communications.
But it soon became clear she wouldn’t be allowed to contribute to a single wedding-related thing. Not the venue, the flowers, the caterers, her make-up, or anyone else’s make-up. Not only that, but Patrick and his accursed relatives had expanded the wedding budget from ‘mid-tier black tie event’ to ‘GDP of an oil-rich island nation.’ Every decision was made on quality instead of cost. Every decision increased her feeling of being covered in ants.
“Nothing but the best for my KitKat,” Patrick said whenever she tried to talk to him about it. “Let me take care of everything.”
Cheryl wanted to, but she’d also grown up pouring water into her orange juice, and the numbers flying around what was ostensibly her wedding made her want to scream. And no matter how many times she told Patrick he’d become that old guy fromJurassic Park who kept throwing money at bullshit no matter the expense, he stayed irritatingly proud of what he clearly saw as chivalry. Then he fucked her until she couldn’t think clearly. And now she was staring down the barrel of a Woman’s Weekly wedding spread with a single looping thought in her brain:I hate this. I hate all of this. I hate that this is happening to me.
“Huh?”
Cheryl started and found herself still sitting in the beer garden of a male revue, Sal Thomas looking expectantly up at her. “Sorry?”
“You said, ‘this is bullshit’ and kind of thrashed around a bit,” Sal explained.
“Oh.” Cheryl ground the last of her cigarette. “I dunno.”
“Don’t be like that! I told you about fingering your mate!”
“You did.” Cheryl sighed, aware shedidwant to talk to someone about the Patrick Jurassic Park situation. Sal seemed open-minded and removed enough from the Normal family to be safe. “I’m not sure how I feel about my wedding.”
