Written on 31 March 2019
Gretchin
They're keeping him overnight, which I'm sure he won't shut up about. This will just turn into another story for him and his fucking idiot mates to laugh about. We're in rural Somerset, and he's white, so the worst thing that will happen is him losing his license and getting a bit of community service. Absolutely no way I'm going to be there to support him though.
I've just got off the phone to his Mum to tell her as much. Typically, she somehow intimated that this was my fault, and that me leaving him was dereliction of my wifely duty to look after him. But I'm not his wife, and in fact the clarity I now feel about the importance of never ever marrying the moron makes me feel pretty great.
Im smoking one emergency cigarette after another outside the hotel, wondering whether to hire a car and drive home. This being rural Somerset, though, the chances of finding a car are slim.
Katy comes out of the hotel. I haven't actually apologised yet.
“Can I get one?”
“Sure.”
I pull out a cigarette and hand it to her with a lighter. She sits down on the pavement next to me, looking rather frenzied, breathing deeply.
“I'm assuming you're not staying with Pete?”
“You assume right.”
“Probably a good call.”
She keeps her eyes fixed on the hotel entrance.
“Are you sober enough to drive?”
“Just about.”
“Cool. Let's go then.”
She stands up and strides towards a battered hatchback. I get up and follow her. She reaches the passenger door, tosses me some keys and gets in. I look round at the entrance. Tim comes dashing out.
“Get in.”
“KATY!”
“Gretchin, get in. Let's go. “
Honestly, I want to be as far away from this wedding as possible. My plan is to never see any of these people again. Katy evidently has the same plan. I get in the driver's seat.
“KATY PLEASE.”
I turn the ignition.
“KATY DONT GO!”
She winds down her window.
“Tim, I've said all I'm going to say.”
“Please, I can't deal with this.”
“You'll be fine.”
I reverse out of the space before he can block us off. He runs after the car.
“Go go go.”
I put my foot down leaving a scrabbling groom who I'd later find out married the bridesmaid who also fucked his Dad.
We drove through the night back to London. Smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee or whiskey, talking little. We became friends that night. Best friends, really. Both needing to leave our houses, we moved in together. Tim and Pete never found out where. We both eventually settled down with actual people. Nice people. And we were bridesmaids at each other's weddings.
That night, we didn't really know what to do or where to go. She only had her wedding dress, I only had the stupidly expensive dress I'd bought especially.
We thought “fuck it.”
We carried on down to Dover, hopped on a ferry and headed down to Nice.