“I have one” I called “Who was your first time?”
Derri stared weakly at me, she laughed quietly under her breath.
“No, I choose dare now!” she quickly said
“You can’t change your mind-come on! Who was it?” I carried on
“Do we have to play this? It’s hot in here might get some air”
“No! Who was it? Come on, this is my weekend I wanna know!”
“Come on Derri, she knows doesn’t she?” asked Jo quietly
“Know what Jo? What do I know Derri?” I looked at them both, I suddenly felt very small.
Jo and Derri looked at each other. They looked back at me.
“No, not, not…Dave?” I stared at Derri. “It can’t be? No, I won’t let it be! Not my Dave! The man I’m marrying in a week was not your first time.”
I looked at Jo; she couldn’t look back at me.
“What and you? When? How could you?” I demanded, they didn’t answer for a while until Derri spoke, “It was ages ago. It didn’t mean anything. We were teenagers”
I felt like the whole world had come crashing down on my shoulders. This couldn’t be happening.
I didn’t say anything. I just looked at them both. I didn’t want to know anymore, and then I looked at Dawn.
“Well I should just be grateful Dawn hasn’t slept with my fiancée too…have you Dawn?” I said confidently.
She sat there in silence, and then eventually she looked up
“No, of course I haven’t. Don’t be so ridiculous.” She quickly denied the allegations.
As soon as those words came out of her mouth, I knew the truth.
“When?” I asked
“Never because it didn’t happen”
“When Dawn?” I said calmly but sternly
Dawn looked down at the empty bottle of vodka,
“When you and him broke up, in the summer…”
“When we were still together? I cut in.
“No when you had broken up, it was just a one night stand.”
I looked at all their guilty faces, “I can’t believe this, all my best friends have slept with my husband to be! You’re supposed to be loyal to me. I bet you all used to compare notes. Laughing at me behind my back” I looked at them with disgust.
I didn’t sleep that night. I got up and went to reception. I called Dave. No answer.
I left an answer message “You’ve slept with all my friends. How could you? My best friends? Anymore I should know about?” I cried down the phone, my speech wobbling, my heart felt like it had been ripped into two and half of it just thrown away.
I was just leaving the reception when
“Kate? Kate Smith?” A deep voice was coming from behind me. I wondered weather to turn round or to just carry on. Who could it be? Do I really want to go through a whole load of questions?
I turned round then I saw his face, those eyes; you could never forget eyes like those. Blue as deep as the sea.
“Tim? Tim Johnson? Oh my god! How are you?” This was getting too much, I’ve just found out my fiancée was one of my best friends first and who do I bump into? My first.
“Im good thanks. What are you doing here?” I was startled at it all. His good looks blinding me. His dark hair in a perfect style as it always was, his sweet smell surrounding him, woke me up and made me forget about everything. For a split second, I wanted to run up to him and give him the biggest kiss, so emotional and soft. I wanted to be with him, forget about my problems. Forget about the girls and Dave. But I couldn’t, I had responsibilities.
Even though I should have, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him why I was really here. I don’t know why. It’s not like I wanted to see if there was a chance for him and me. He’d ask too many questions.
“Kate?”
“What sorry? Oh I’m err on a break with the girls.”
“Do you have time for a walk?”
I looked at the moon. It had a face that told me, this was something I had to do.
“Yeah sure.”
We walked around the sight but I managed to keep him away from my dodgy caravan.
There was so much about Tim that I had missed out on. It made me realise that when we were together we were so naive. It just shows that even when you think you know someone the best you can, you really don’t. That was the second time I had figured that out in one night.
No matter how much we talked I couldn’t bring myself to tell him why I was here. I don’t know why I didn’t want to. Maybe I was scared, scared that this pretty picture I had in my head of the time that I would meet with Tim again would be jeopardised by the fact that I had grown up. I suppose that was also why I didn’t want to tell him. Telling him I was engaged would break my memories of him and me as teenagers, and the memories of him and me would then be of us acting like adults. Something I didn’t want to go through.
We sat on the merry go round for a lot of the time and he told me about what happened after I left him in Tenerife. This was good; I felt I knew him much better now. Almost as if we’d never lost contact. Then he leaned in and kissed me. It felt amazing, it wasn’t fast and passionate, it was gentle, as if he knew and understood what I was going through, I dint want to pull away, I kissed him back, and for a few special seconds, I forgot about all my worries, it felt good it felt right. I didn’t know what to do should I keep kissing back or should I back away.
“What was that for?” I asked shyly,
“I don’t know,” he paused, his eyes moving in away to make up an answer “you just looked like you needed a kiss.”
“I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow” I looked at the moon, no longer was it telling me this was something right, now it had a disappointed look on its face. I got up and turned away. My body was shaking, I turned my neck to look back at him, his deep blue eyes fixed on mine. I sighed, I wanted to turn back and fling my arms around him so much, but I couldn’t let myself.
I didn’t go back to the caravan. I just walked about. Sat on the beach and thought about my life until dawn.
So far this was hardly a hen weekend to remember. On the first night, I had found out all my bestest friends had all slept with my fiancée, I had re-met my first love and my first time and he tried to kiss me and now I didn’t know weather I wanted to try and sort things out with Dave or leave him.
Dawn woke up first that morning and saw the loo was in use. She assumed it was me.
“Look Kate, I’m really sorry. I know what I did was wrong and I should have told you earlier but I didn’t know how to and well if I could change it I would but you know that and I don’t know what else you want from me.”
However that was not me in there and she soon realised that when I walked past her in the middle of her little speech. I rolled my eyes at her and walked straight back into the caravan, whilst Dawn ran into the caravan after me with embarrassment. The man, who was in the loo, soon came out and started snooping around the caravan. We all backed into corners s he couldn’t see us. We were scared he was a ‘peeping tom’.
I didn’t speak to the girls much that day. I sat on the beach in silence. It was hardly beach weather though. It wasn’t hot or sunny.
I wanted to go clubbing that night and get plastered. And being in the doghouse they wanted to do as much as they could to get back on good terms so they agreed. Being drunk was the only way I could handle being around them.
So we did go clubbing, dressed as schoolgirls, more like prostitutes though. Have never seen a schoolgirl looking like we were.
However it was hardly a night to remember, I got wrecked and passed out on the toilet all night. Whilst Dawn got chatted up by George who turned out to be the so-called ‘peeping tom’, and Derri and Jo went to buy chips.
It must have been two hours later when the security guard banging on my toilet door to tell me that the club had closed, awakened me.
So there I was again, on my own, drunk as a skunk attempting to make my way home. I must have looked a right state; I could barely stand up let alone walk in a straight line!
Eventually I made it back to reception. There Tim was again, some how, due to no fault of my own, I managed to keep bumping into him in the times, which I did not want to be seen by anyone.
We went for a walk again, the moon bouncing of his face, the gentle night breeze, running through my hair. It was not a long walk, considering the world was spinning faster than the fastest roller coaster, in my head. All through the night, Tim was making subtle gestures of affection, like stopping and just staring at me, gently touching my arms, looking at my hair, moving it out of my face. I liked it, I wanted to respond, but I couldn’t, I was engaged, instead I pretended I was oblivious to what he was doing.
What I can remember, we sat on the bench, by the cliff top and looked over the horizon for a bit and then the next thing I knew I was kissing him in the morning! I felt all feelings of love and affection and lust, but they weren’t for Tim.
“What? Tim? What are you doing?” I backed away, in a fluster but still half asleep.
“What, well….” I cut him off before he made any less sense than he actually was now.
“Wait, We didn’t, you know did we?” I blushed
“Oh no, no last night I made you a cup of tea, you managed to have about one sip of it before you passed out, and that’s where you have been all night.”
I felt a big sigh of relief.
Tim picked up my plastic tiara with a veil. I tried to retrace my steps of last night, that’s right, I was wearing it all night, but then when I was leaving the club, the security guard tapped my on the shoulder and handed it back to me.
“This is yours then?” he looked at me in anticipation “You kept fiddling with it last night. I was going to ask you about it then, but you weren’t in the best state.”
I didn’t know what to say I just looked down at the fresh cup off tea “Yeah, look im sorry I didn’t tell you.” He didn’t say much but left me to explain everything that had happened.
“Marry me!?!”
“What?”
“Don’t marry Dave, marry me!”
“Don’t do this to me, I’m getting married in a week.” What was I doing, he hasn’t slept with any of my friends, he’s way better, part of me thought, but then another part of me hated him, hated him for putting me in this situation. Maybe he is the better bet, but at the end of the day, I don’t love Tim, I loved him but I don’t anymore, I love Dave.
“You don’t have to; marry me instead. This is well….” I cut him off
“The first time you have ever asked marriage of someone? What should I be honoured?” I said spitefully
“Well, yeah.”
I needed to get out of there, thinking he wouldn’t follow I ran out of his cabin. And there standing in front of me was Dave.
“Kate! Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” He tried to hug me. I was surrounded by my fiancé to be and my first love that had just proposed marriage to me. I suppose I should be flattered. How often does a girl get two offers of marriage in the same week? I couldn’t handle it. I didn’t want to be with either of them right now. I just ran, I didn’t know where I was going, I just ran as fast as I could.
I ran for what felt like ages until the ‘Kate’s’ had stopped being chanted. I stopped and turned round.
“Oh look it’s the happy couple! Go get a room. Just stay away from me both of you.”
I turned around again. Now I had Tim, Dave, and Dawn with George (the guy she got with last night) all chasing me. Eventually I got to familiar ground. The caravan. I stopped, I had to think. ‘If I went in there I wouldn’t have anywhere to run. I would be trapped, but would they all be stupid enough to follow me in there?’
I ran in, tears streaming down my face, Derri and Jo were playing cards around the table.
“Kate? Look we’re sorry! Please Kate we’re sorry.” Derri pleaded with me
“Yeah, you’re all bloody sorry but does that make it alright? No! How would you feel if on your hen weekend, you found out that the guy you were about to marry and spend the rest of your life with had been with all you friends! Slept with all you best friends. And then he couldn’t even bring himself to tell you even if it was ages ago?”
They just looked down but soon looked up when Dawn came crashing in. She sat by me and did her apology speech pretty much like the one I’d just had to listen to with Derri and Jo. I couldn’t take this anymore. The anger inside me was too much. I grabbed her head and pushed it onto the bed, I got her hair and started to pull it. Dawn retaliated and did the same to me, soon Derri and Jo joined in.
So on the last day of my hen weekend I had a huge catfight with my best mates. We were all rolling around everywhere, hitting each other, and pulling each other’s hair as much as we could, when the caravan started to move, it was moving quickly! We screamed! The caravan was out of control!
“We’re all gonna die!”
“Shut up Dawn!”
It was swaying and tipping until it started to roll over itself over and over and over and over again. Eventually it started to slow down and stop. Everything was upside down and broken and in a mess. We were all now sitting on the ceiling. I could hear the pounding of footsteps running towards the dented and smashed up old caravan.
“All of you get out!” I screamed. Derri and Jo shuffled out. Muttering their apologies again. Dawn didn’t move. She looked at me and stood there on the ceiling. “I told you to get out, what part of get out don’t you understand?” I carried on but in a calmer breathless voice.
“I’m not leaving here until I know you’ll listen to my apology.” Dawn said slowly
“Why should I listen? You lost the right to be listened to when you slept with my fiancée.”
“Look Kate, its not just me. Derri and Jo are in the wrong too.”
“Yeah but I wasn’t with Dave when they did it. They are getting the silent treatment. They are getting all they deserve.”
“Please Kate. What more do you want? Blood?”
At this point all my anger was coming back. I couldn’t control it anymore. I slapped her good and hard around the face and to be quite honest it felt brilliant.
Dawn left, she climbed out the back window. I sat there hunched in a corner on an old mattress. Tears strolling down my face. Staring out the window. Thinking.
Dave came in.
“Kate?”
“Leave me alone. Go away”
He didn’t go away and he didn’t leave me alone. Instead he sat beside me and tried to give me a hug. I tried to shake him off, I’ve never been able to and I still couldn’t. He held me tight and wrapped his arm around my head in a way to shut out what was going on around me.
“I’m so sorry Kate.” He started to apologies. Another apology wasn’t what I wanted.
“Why did you do it? Why didn’t you tell me?” I cried.
“It was all ages ago. I don’t know, I guess I was scared I would lose you or you wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
“Thanks. Think I’m going to break down at the first sign of danger in our relationship” I joked. He lifted my head up with his hand and looked me in the eye, I looked him back.
“Tell me this isn’t the end?” I didn’t know what to say as a reply. I just carried on staring into his eyes trying to find an answer in them. I didn’t want to lose him.
I looked him up and down with my eyes and smiled.
“This isn’t the end”
He smiled back and gave me a hug. A hug, which was very much needed. We got up and left the broken caravan.
I left Dave with Derri and Jo, as I walked over to speak to Dawn. She started it off which was good because I didn’t know what to say.
“So I guess this is it? Just remember I’m sorry Kate.”
“Hey, Dawn what you talking about, I might be engaged to Dave but you and me are already married. Best friends forever! That’s you and me.”
I looked her in the eye. I wrapped my arms around her neck and gave her the biggest hug I could.
Derri and Jo joined in. We were all back together again!
I turned around, I looked at Dave, the man I loved and the man I was going to marry, I looked at Tim, the man I used to love and wasn’t going to marry, he turned his back on me and walked away.
Maybe he wouldn’t have hurt me like Dave did, but if I had chosen to marry him instead, I am pretty sure I would have regretted it. I honestly don’t think I was the girl for him, he’ll find that girl one day and then he’ll laugh at the thought of marrying me.