My Big Fat Low-Fat Wedding

chapter 22



If I thought I’d spent all my tears crying yesterday, I’d be wrong. I’m perfectly capable of crying my eyes out today as well.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m not even sure why I’m crying. Is it because I look like a weirdo in my wedding dress? Is it because I still can’t believe my friends abandoned me yesterday, only to confuse me by coming through for me in the end?

I think my tears are a culmination of everything.

I’ve been so utterly obsessed with losing weight for the wedding. Today’s wedding that I’m supposed to be at right now. I just can’t bear it though. The thought of walking down that stupid aisle with everyone looking at my oddly shaped body. And me staring back at them not knowing why they suddenly decided to show up after cancelling.

“Aw, dearie. Did you get left at the alter?” An old lady has asked me this. I don’t blame her for being curious. After all, I am sitting on a bus wearing a wedding gown.

I’m officially a bride, unlike the last time I’d paraded around in public wearing a wedding dress that I’d been sewn into.

“No, I’m just…” I can’t bring myself to answer the old woman through my tears.

“He’s not worth it, love!” Some bloke bellows from the back of the bus. “Marry me instead!”

Sod it.

I bunch up my skirts into my fists while holding onto a small piece of tissue for my tears and runny nose. Hopping off the bus at Barnards Green, I decide to walk the remaining half mile home.

It’s not easy walking quickly along the pavement wearing such a big gown. I’ve had to bunch up the train of the dress in one arm while keeping the tissue smashed to my face due to all of its leaking waterworks.

Beep! Beep! Beep! Goes a car horn.

I look up in time to see my fiancé pull up to the curb driving his mate Vince’s brand new Range Rover in pristine white. “Need a lift?” Callum says, rolling down the window.

I bow my head. “You’re not supposed to see me in my dress.”

“What? Not ever?”

“Oh you know what I mean.” So many tears gush from my eyes at this point I fear dehydration on the spot.

“Get in the car, honey.”

“It’s not a car, it’s a four by four and I don’t want to go to our wedding right now.”

“You don’t have to marry me right now. I’m taking you home, silly.”

His words gnaw at heart. “I do want to marry you! I just don’t want to marry you in this dress… or at that place… or with all those idiots—”

Callum hops out of the vehicle and helps me into the passenger seat. He drives us both home and also helps me shift the dress I’m wearing in through the front door. Somehow I manage to find a decent way of sitting on the sofa while Callum makes us both some tea.

“Aaahhh,” he breaths out a sigh of relaxation as he sips his brew moments later. “That hits the spot nicely.” He sets his cuppa down onto the coffee table.

“So how was your stag do?” I glance up at my dapper groom after setting down my own cup of tea. He’s wearing the dark grey tuxedo we’d picked out for him. He looks absolutely amazing. He looks ready to marry and here I sit asking him about nonsense. “Sorry, I meant to say you look amazing.”

“So do you, babe. You look like a girl I could marry.”

“Funny.” I smile stupidly. “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

“So why don’t we go back to the venue then?” Callum reaches into his jacket pocket and brings out his phone. “I’ll call ahead and make sure all the idiots leave. We’ll get married on our own, honey.”

He’d do that for me?

Scooting closer to my dear, darling man, I press his phone down into his lap. “One or two idiots will have to be there as witnesses. And someone has to get us to both say I do.”

“I think the new phrase is I will.” He kisses my wet cheek.

“Will you though? After I left you at the alter?”

Callum smiles. “I’d let you leave me at the alter one hundred times if it meant you’d eventually marry me just once in the end.”

“Oh, Cal.” I sink into his arms and we both become smothered in the folds of my dress. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. I look so stupid in this dress. I don’t know why everyone treated me like crap yesterday.”

My fiancé sits up looking surprised. “You most certainly do not look stupid in that dress. You couldn’t look anything less than gorgeous in anything you wear. Not to mention how beautiful you are stark naked.”

Before I know what’s happening he leans in and bites my neck like a wannabe vampire.

“Oh stop it.” I giggle and let him continue his nibbling for a little while longer. “Okay, stop it soon.”

He pulls way eventually, but I can tell he’s a bit reluctant to do so. If it were up to me I’d rip off this blasted dress and give him a bit of nibbling in return for the rest of the day.

“I guess all the wedding preparations finally got to me.” I try to lower my head, but Callum tips my chin up with a finger. “I’m so sorry, Cal. I tried to take all of your mum’s aerobics classes. I tried to keep eating right. I’ve been absolutely manic about my body shape and now that today has finally arrived I don’t even like how my stupid body looks in this thing!”

I punch the puffy fabric of my dress with both fists. The soaked tissue flies out of my hand so I grab a clean one from the box on the coffee table.

“I love the way you look in your dress.” Callum brushes tears off my cheek, so I don’t even need to use any more tissue. “But if you don’t like it then why not take it off?”

“Why? So we can have a quickie?”

“What…? No… well…”

Dropping my tissue, I palm his cheeks. “I think you mean yes.”

“I think you might be right.”

***



It takes about fifteen minutes to get me out of my wedding gown and all of the control underwear pieces. This in no way lowers our raging libidos and loved up hearts. I want this man and I want him more than ever by the time we’re both fully naked and lying together on the sofa.

He makes quick passionate love to me and when we’re finished I’m left gasping and laughing.

“What’s funny?” Callum strokes my hair.

“Maybe you should have just f*cked me thin.”

“Come again?”

“Yes please!” I wrap my arms around his shoulders and pull him close.

“You know what I mean.” Callum growls into my neck. “F*ck you thin, babe?”

“Yeah!” I sit up and my fiancé tumbles off of me and to the side. “Sex is great exercise, plus it’s a great de-stressor. Although, I suppose I wouldn’t want your mum to feel left out.”

“Oh what?” Callum practically screams into my ear in outrage.

“Ha!” I laugh out loud. “I didn’t mean that, you silly sausage. I just meant I wouldn’t need to take your mum’s aerobics classes if I got enough sexercise with you all the time.”

I expect my fiancé to join me in my laughter, but instead he gets up off the sofa completely. “I’ll be right back, honey. There’s something I want to show you.”

Too curious to wait, I join Callum upstairs. After putting on my dressing gown I notice my fiancé is wearing his bathrobe as he enters the bedroom. Only his dressing gown, and his hair for that matter, are covered in dust.

“Did you just crawl through the attic?”

“I did indeed, and I found this.” He’s holding a musty old photo album.

Together, we sit on the edge of the bed. “I thought your mum said all your old photos were lost in the house fire.”

Callum shakes his head. His facial features look worried. “There never was a house fire after dad died. That was all in Mum’s head.”

Oh my. This is interesting news.

“She threw out all our old photos and home videos, but I was able to save this one.” Callum opens the book.

“Is that you?” I smile grandly. “You were a f*cking adorable child!”

“Thanks, babe. That means a lot to me considering I was also blatantly a very f*cking fat child.”

“Don’t say it like that. You were delightfully chubby.”

“Now do you see how it makes me feel when you call yourself fat?”

I look up at my darling fiancé. His eyes are brimming with tears.

“Dad was overweight too. He drank at least ten pints a day and he was a smoker.”

I’m gobsmacked at these revelations. Callum never likes to talk about his deceased father. And every time Brenda mentions him she always paints him in a healthy light. I had no idea about the reality of the past situation.

Callum points to a picture in the album. “This is dad before we found out he had lung cancer.”

The photo shows a large middle aged man with a big beer belly sitting on a chair. He’s smiling and so is the sweet chubby kid who’s standing next to him in the photo; his son, and now my fiancé.

“This is dad after the chemo-therapy began.”

Callum has turned the pages and I’m shocked when I look at the photo he’s indicating. His father looks like a completely different person in this picture. He’s lost all but a few wisps of hair. He’s got liver spots and skin blemishes all over his pale skin. He looks like a man who aged forty years rapidly and he also looks like a person who lost a lot of weight. Too much weight.

“I was the one who drove my dad to the hospital every time. Mum couldn’t bear it. Whenever she was with him though, she never left his side. Every time I’d sit with the two of them Mum would just beg and beg him not to leave her. The only conversations she had with him during that time was asking him not to die.”

“Oh, Cal.” I take my fiancé into my arms as a tear spills from his eye onto the page of the tattered photo album. “I’m so sorry, honey. I had no idea.”

“Nah, you couldn’t have known, silly. I never told you and I think I now realise why.”

I look up at him.

“Mum changed when dad died. I fully expected her to break down, but she picked herself up instead. She became a health-nut and started pushing me into getting fit. I was only young at the time. I was sad that I’d lost my dad, but I was happy to see my Mum keep it together. If my exercising was what kept her happy, then I was glad to do it.”

So that’s why he never argues when his mum tells him to do something involving fitness. He just wants to keep his mum happy. “She doesn’t want you to become unhealthy and leave her like your dad did.”

“Exactly.”

Well, I for one definitely view Brenda under a much different light now. “I guess this means your mum really does love me too.”

“‘Of course she does, babe. But what do you mean?”

“She wants me and you to stay physically fit so that we don’t leave her like your dad did.”

The tears flow again. Here we two sit crying like babies on a day that’s supposed to be filled with smiles instead. But you know what? These are happy tears. To hell with ceremony’s that are supposed to express love by signing a piece of paper. This is all we need to make this day a special one whether we get legally hitched or not.

That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do the right thing. I do need that piece of paper in a way because it will enable me to show my fiancé just how much I love him.

***

“I’ve got some bad news, honey.” Callum helps me into my wedding dress — sans control underwear.

“Oh no, what now?”

“I think we’re a bit late for our own wedding.”

“You think so?” I look at the wall clock. “You’re right. Two hours late really is ever so unfashionable of us.”

We both laugh, but I choke a bit when Callum starts tying up the back of my corset. “Not too tight please.”

“Oh right, sorry.”

We get my dress onto my body in the end and I feel a bit more comfortable in it without the slimming wear on underneath. “I’ve got some bad news for you as well, I’m afraid.”

Callum crooks his eyebrow showing interest at my statement.

“I’m going to have to delay the wedding further to speak with your mum.”

“I think Mum will be okay.” He snorts. “She’s been one tough cookie for me over the years as it is.”

“Fair point, but I’d still like to apologise to her.”

“What for? You’ve been a star, babe. I’m the one who should apologise to you.”

Turning, I give my fiancé a strange-faced look because I have no idea what he could possibly be on about.

“You’ve put up with Mum forcing you into her aerobics classes. When I stopped you from having that enema done, I kind of realised I’ve been letting her have her way for a bit too long now. So if you do want to have a chat with my Mum, I’ll be speaking with her as well. She’s not going to be pressuring you with any more exercise suggestions and I definitely won’t allow her near your colon for any sort of irrigation purposes.”

Shaking my head I grin at him. “You certainly have a way with words, even if they are words about my bowels.”

“Don’t worry,” He says. “I haven’t written anything about your digestive system in my wedding vows.”

“Pah!” I snort a laugh. “Thanks for that.”

Callum dons his groom tuxedo once again. Gosh but he looks like a handsome James Bond. Like my favourite Piers Bronsnan Bond, not the more recent Bond who I just don’t fancy in the slightest.

The drive back to the wedding venue is a pleasant one, made luxurious by the fact that we’re sat in the newest type of expensive Range Rover on the market.

“I saw this thing on an episode of Top Gear the other week.” I stroke the dashboard with my bare hand. “I never thought I’d get to ride in one in my lifetime!”

“Sometimes it pays to have a friend who owns his own manufacturing business.” Callum steers us straight into a ditch. The suspension on this vehicle is so incredible, I barely feel the pothole as a slight bump.

“Maybe you should close the cafe and I’ll start up my own manufacturing business.”

“What exactly would you manufacture?”

Callum glances briefly at me before putting his eyes back onto the road ahead. “I don’t know, but it definitely wouldn’t be robots.”

Oh dear god. I can’t believe he even went there as a joke. Now that I think on it though, I’m sort of glad he’s broached the subject. “What was up with that massive robot of Oliver’s?”

“Don’t worry about that now, honey. We’ve got a wedding that we’re about three hours late for already. Do you think our guests will still be there?”

I highly doubt it, and I tell Callum as much. I’m not all that fussed though. It’s not like I know what’s going on in the minds of those who cancelled on me anyway. The fact that they’d pulled through today still doesn’t replace all the suffering I endured last night.

I mean, why put me through that? Was it some sick joke organised by everyone involved with our wedding? Come to think of it, I never even spoke to Lara or Tina at the venue about how they’d both cancelled on me. I have to wonder if they both know something I don’t. Maybe everyone knows things they’re keeping from me.

Even though I’m sitting in what’s probably considered the world’s most luxurious on and off road vehicle, it’s not filling me with anything other than pleasure in how comfortable my backside is.

My stomach is stressed out. We have to go back to the venue and see everyone now. How will they all react to how late we both are? Shouldn’t I be feeling more guilty about the entire mess?

I don’t know. I’m one big ball of confusion. Between phoning wedding guests to say the wedding was off yesterday, and recalling them to say it was back on again, I don’t know if I’m coming or going lately. Well, I do know that we’re definitely headed in one direction right now. And that’s straight towards the wedding venue that I’m not sure I want to exchange vows at with my husband-to-be.

“Maybe we should just elope, Cal.”

“We could,” he replies. “But the paperwork is already available at the venue.”

“Oh yeah!” Well that’s lifted my spirits. Maybe if I call ahead and ask Georgina if all of our guests have left, then I won’t have to kick everyone out when I get there.

I sulk for a bit in the opulent car seat before realising how selfish I’m being. Not every single one of our wedding guests cancelled on me yesterday. When I think about the boredom they must all be enduring at the venue, I get a sinking feeling in my gut.

“Shit, Cal. We really are late, aren’t we?”

“It’s okay, honey.” He reaches over and pats my hand. “I’m sure our guests know that these things sometimes happen.”

“What?” I look at him, astounded. “Brides often leave their grooms at the altar, do they?”

“Actually, we both left the wedding.”

I nod in agreement. We both did indeed leave. And now we’re both returning for the main reason and purpose of this infernal day.

Finally! I’ll be marrying the man of my dreams.