Although a wedding book has been on my mind (and my hard drive) for years, I’d like to thank my best man, Mike Kimera, for giving me the title and escorting me down the aisle.
Now or Forever
Nikki Magennis
We should be halfway to paradise by now.
I look at Susie’s blue kitchen clock. Just past twelve. The flight left three hours ago, heading to the Caribbean with two empty seats in first class.
The washing machine clicks over and I watch the clothes tumble around in the drum, soapy water sloshing from side to side. They’re all too colorful. Bikini, sarong, sundress. Clothes I’m never going to wear. I’m washing them instead of burning them.
Our honeymoon was a present from Charlie’s dad—one of the gifts that can’t be quietly returned. It’s not always possible to apologize. Some things can’t be undone. And “sorry” isn’t always enough.
I get another flash of Charlie’s face. The way his eyes kind of flickered as I ran past him on the path, the way he looked almost as if he was smiling, the way he does when he’s confused. He was a little pale, his freckles darker than usual.
Oh God.
It was all supposed to be a big white dream. We’d be like paper dolls cut out of a magazine. A pretty little church, the perfect lace dress, star-shaped flowers with delicate trails of ivy. Charlie would be nervous and I’d be trying not to laugh. We would kiss in soft focus. Bells would ring.
My phone goes—and it’s playing the fucking Wedding March. My sister must have programmed it as a joke. I pounce on my jacket, scrabble through the pockets and find it, hit the cancel button before I look at the name.
Charlie. Of course it’s Charlie. Did I think he’d just disappear? Six years don’t evaporate that easily. Even if I’ve broken his heart and ruined his life, we’re going to have to at least pretend to be grown-ups. I should call him back.
I don’t. Instead, I pick at the lace of the bright yellow garter Susie made me promise to wear. It’s a hideous thing—the color of crayon sunshine in a kid’s drawing, with too many bows and ribbons sprouting from it—but for some reason I can’t stop playing with it. Back when she gave me the garter—a hundred years ago, the night before the not-wedding—it seemed like a silly, joyous little joke. Now it makes me wince.
“The yellow ones are supposed to attract lovers. Maybe some of your good luck’ll rub off on me, eh?” Susie had given me a big, theatrical wink, but I think she meant it at least a little bit.
Susie and I are best friends from high school. We’ve been through crushes, boyfriends, breakups and make-ups. I’d always been the one with the hectic love life, Susie the one with the steady boyfriends. Until I met Charlie.
My head snaps up as the doorbell rings. I don’t want to speak to anyone, not the flower arranger, the dressmaker or the caterers, not friends and relations or in-laws. There’s not a single one of the thousand people involved in the biggest not-wedding this century that I want to hear from.
The bell goes again. Maybe Susie forgot her key, I think. Maybe it’s not even for me. I tread nervously to the door and reluctantly open it a crack.
On the step is the one person I want most, the one I fear most. The door swings open and Charlie and I are facing each other over the threshold.
“Seb.” It’s his secret name for me. Silly, I know, but it makes me feel as if I’m about to collapse, like I’m a bicycle tire with all the air let out.
I’m shaking my head but I can’t break my gaze, tear it away from those eyes the color of wet slate. Charlie is hard to read, but over the years I’ve learned his tells. Usually, I can pick up his quirking smile, some little giveaway angle of his eyebrow or how he tugs at his ear. Today, he’s standing on Susie’s front step with his arms hanging by his sides, and I can’t tell a thing. Whether he wants to hold me or hit me. I close my eyes.
I don’t know how to apologize.
“I just couldn’t. I can’t.” My voice is thin, about to break. “Where do I start, Charlie?”
What I want most is to sag into his arms. He’s my comfort, usually, my solace and support. I straighten my spine. No. Not now.
I stand back and let him in, taking a breath of his fresh-air-and-skin scent as he passes.
I follow him into the kitchen and it’s easier, somehow, when we’re not facing each other, so I turn my back on him and fuss with the kettle and the teacups. My hand shakes as I pour milk.
As the water comes to a boil, I turn and he’s got the garter, that hideous yellow badge, and he’s turning it round in his hands.
“You wore this?” he asks, a frown folded between his eyebrows.
“Susie asked me to.” I want to snatch the garter away from him. I remember the sensation, tight round my thigh, the cheap fabric stiff and prickly. I stood there being prepped for the wedding and I remember having the sudden, violent urge to run away and rip it off and scratch and scratch and scratch.
Charlie nods slowly.
Normally, he’d crack a joke. Normally, this would be easy—being together, the easiest thing in the world, like everything’s right and how it should be and … and perfect? I look at the yellow of the garter against Charlie’s skin.
“It was all too good to be true,” I say softly. Surprising myself.
He looks up and I can see for the first time a spark in his eyes. It could be dangerous. It could be promising. I take the chance.
“I’m scared, Charlie.”
“Of what?”
“Of us.” I watch his lips. I owe him honesty, at least. I take a deep breath.
“Of suffocating. I was standing up there at that altar and …”
“And what?” he says, his voice edged with flint.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I start to say, before I realize what I’m doing. I start again. Look right in his eyes.
“I don’t know if I can promise you so much. Just you, just me, forever.” There’s a rushing over my skin, and I’m running fast down a slope. But I can’t stop now. “I saw my sex life flash in front of my eyes, Charlie. Do you understand what I’m saying?” I know I’m almost shouting.
Is that worse? I wonder. To have ditched Charlie in front of all his family and friends, to have left him awkward and alone at the church, or this? To tell him the truth, what I’ve been darkly afraid of all along? My lurid, cherry-red, heart-throbbing dirty secret.
How can I promise never to have another lover? Me, who’s always been quick to get bored, and quicker to discard unsatisfactory bedfellows. Who’s been first to try every practice and position, whose whole life is punctuated by sex—exotic and romantic and thrilling and brief and heartbreaking. Yes, I love Charlie, and yes, I love fucking him. But will I really be able to sacrifice every other man in the world—every other possible man?
I
