Page 10 of Forever is Now

“No, I want a back. I mean, for the amount I’m paying for this dress—it better have a back. Otherwise it’s just an extortionate amount for what is essentially a scrap of fabric.”

I got better at looking at wedding dresses, at understanding what I liked and what I didn’t like—mermaid was the silhouette I thought most flattered me, and I wanted minimal lace, and no sleeves—so by the time we actually got around to booking dress appointments I was able to give the women there a pretty good idea of what I wanted.

It was pouring with rain, when Hana drove the three of us to Exeter. We parked outside The House That Moved, where Pirouette Bridal was based, and I remember looking up at the Tudor-style building and thinking just WOW. It was impressive, and I loved it, and I just felt that my dress was inside there.

We were ten minutes early so we decided to wait in the car for a little bit, just to see if the rain would stop, but alas it didn’t. Hana had spent twenty minutes at my house re-straightening her hair after she’d made the dash from her car to my house, and now she was fretting about it. We had no coats with us—I’m not too sure why, when it had definitely been raining in Okehampton—but we found a plastic bag in one of the seat pockets and she fashioned that over her head as a hat.

“This is beautiful,” I said as we hovered outside the door—okay, we were trying to work out how to open it. It appeared to be locked.

But then the lady inside saw us and opened the door—apparently very easily—for us. We flocked inside, and I was very aware of how we were dripping water everywhere. Thankfully there were no dresses in the immediate vicinity for us to shed our raindrops on.

“You must be Summer?” the woman asked, with a smile. “I’ll just go and get your seamstress.”

My seamstress?

I remember feeling like I was stepping into some other world. A world where I had my own seamstress.

It was all pretty cool—and I felt so magical, trying on so many beautiful gowns. The shop had a couple of floors, and there was a dressing room on each floor. I was just upstairs, on the next floor, and it was a pretty small room, but so beautifully decorated. And just walls and walls of dresses. It was a bit overwhelming really. Trying on actual wedding dresses. But it really made it sink in.

I ended up spending way more money than I thought I was going to, but I got a Maggie Sottero gown. It had a mermaid silhouette, was strapless, and had this gorgeous beading all around the bodice. The veil also had the same beading around the edge. And as I stood there, behind the little curtain, staring at myself in the mirror before revealing myself to my friends, I just had this moment of clarity—of realization. Knowing that me and Ruari were going to be together forever.

I never had any doubts about marrying him. None at all. I knew he was my soulmate. My one true love. I’d never been so certain about anything before.

And that kind of brings me onto the next thing I wanted to tell you. Well, not you specifically, Adelaide—because this could feel a bit awkward, but telling the world I guess. And that is kids. Let me just find my notes. [Sounds of papers shuffling] So, Ruari and I wanted kids—I mean, we’d discussed it before. We’d both said we wanted them and we’d assumed that with us being asexual that we’d adopt. But it was shortly after I’d tried on wedding dresses—and bought mine—that I was aware of a change within me. Not to say that I was becoming allosexual or anything, because I wasn’t, but I felt a different... feeling. A feeling I’d not had before.

The feeling of wanting a baby with him. We’d hug and my ovaries would ache. We’d be sitting on the sofa, watching MasterChef or The Traitors and I’d look across at him and my arms would just ache. I wanted a baby. I wanted his baby.

I imagined it all the time—it’s strange how quickly I became obsessed with it, and maybe it was all the wedding planning. Imagining our lives together. I wanted a little boy and a little girl, and I wanted them to look like us. Or rather, to look like him. Yeah, that was it. I didn’t really mind if they looked like me or not—because I’d know they were mine. I’d know.

But I also found myself wanting to be pregnant, and this was something that I never really thought I’d want. Before, when I’d see heavily pregnant women, I’d always feel a little queasy. Uncomfortable.

But now I was imagining what it would feel like. To have a baby—his baby—growing inside me.

He was surprised when I told him this—or maybe he wasn’t. I’m not sure. It was sometimes hard to read him. But we decided we’d go for IVF. This seemed like the easiest option for us. Our asexuality didn’t mean we’d get it free, not like we would if we were a lesbian couple, on the NHS, but we had savings. And we talked nonstop about our baby.

“Maybe we’ll have one within the first year of our marriage,” he said, and I agreed, and we talked about it as if it was a given.

We planned out the whole of 2018. I had a contract for more books, and so for me it would be writing and the baby. We even picked out names.

But then the bad luck started.

Ruari’s mother died very suddenly two months before the wedding. It was an overdose.

Ruari and I were in our flat. It was a cold, chilly morning, especially for May, and we were still in bed. A weekend, so we didn’t feel particularly lazy about having a lie-in—because that was one thing Ruari really hated feeling. Lazy.

The heating wasn’t yet on. We had it on this timer, but the timer was a bit faulty. It didn’t always work when it was supposed to, so the air was cold, and I think just neither of us wanted to get up. He was playing a game on his phone, wrapped up in the duvet, and I was sort of half-asleep, imagining our kids and how perfect it would be when we were married. And then the doorbell rang. We had one of those super loud bells. You know the type for the elderly, where it’s like amplified and has a speaker? Yeah, well, they’re loud, aren’t they? And so we both jumped when the bell rang because the speaker was in the landing area at the top of our stairs.

Ruari bolted out of bed. His side was by the window, so he peeked through the curtain.

“Shit,” he said. “Police.”

There were two of them. Officers in uniform. We grabbed dressing gowns to cover our pajamas—and went to let them in.

I had this weird sense of déjà vu from that dream I told you about, you know, where police are telling me something has happened to Ruari, and I remember feeling confused at first, because here they were with their somber faces, yet Ruari was fine. He was there, next to me, alive and well.

The officers sat us down. I can’t remember their names, though they introduced themselves. I can’t even remember what their words were. But Portia was dead.

There was fire in Ruari’s eyes at first, rather than shock or grief or anything else I’d expected. “She’s done this to spite us,” he said, because his mother hadn’t wanted us to get married. She didn’t really like me—but I think it was more that she’d never have liked anyone Ruari wanted to be with.

---