Page 25 of Fighting Mr. Knight

Bonnie

It’s moments like this I’m glad I was dumped.

The aisle walk is procession by importance, in ascending order. I am the least important, Becky is maid of honour and Kate and her father walk in last.

That means I’m the one walking in first after the priest, but no one looks at the priest, do they?

I’m so bloody nervous.

Yesterday we rehearsed this walk a million times, and I was even in my six-inch heels, but I was also wearing stretchy yoga pants, not packed into a bandage dress like a sausage casing. We look lovely but are highly dysfunctional.

“This is us!” Becky says breathlessly as we pull up to the chapel, downing the last of her Bucks Fizz.

Poor Becky got no chat out of me on the way over as I repeated my useless affirmations.I release my worries with every breath.

We are already thirty minutes late. One of the drivers slept in. It happens to the best of us.

The first limo stops outside the church, and I see Kate’s dad and the limo driver helping Kate out of the car.

Kate looks beautiful and free in a long, flowy, hippy-chic white dress tapered at the waist. She could be pooping under that thing, and you couldn’t tell. I’m jealous.

My lip quivers watching my fair-haired freckled best friend of two decades.

I blow Kate a kiss out of the window, and she waves back, her face a contortion of nerves and shock. It’s finally happening. The first four hours of her wedding day were pretty slow as we rotated in and out of styling chairs. And poor Kate had the nervous poops.

After being watched and judged all day, she’ll have to put on the bedroom performance of a lifetime.

It sounds exhausting.

The priest and an altar boy greet her at the steps of the church.

Our limo driver opens the door for us and Becky shuffles out of the car first. I step out quickly behind her. Too quickly.

I feel a sharp object punch my eye socket as Becky accidentally elbows me in the face.

Fuck. That hurts.

Reallyhurts.

The temporary blindness and confusion are quickly followed by a stinging pain in my socket.

“Fuck!” I hiss loudly, trying to flush out the eyeliner seeping into my eye with rapid blinking. “Fuck, fuck.”

The priest is staring at me, snarling, and I remember I’m cursing loudly outside his father’s house.

“Has she been drinking?” Father Donaghy snaps at the wedding planner.

Kate peers worriedly over the planner’s shoulder.

Becky turns. “Are you okay?”

I can only see her out of one eye.

“Why do you have your eye closed?”

“It’s fine.” I grimace. “You nudged me with your elbow. Don’t worry.”

“Sorry.” She appears more preoccupied than contrite, but I’ll forgive her today. “We’re fine,” Becky calls, then turns to me sternly. “Let’s go. Kate is already anxious that we’re so late.”

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