Dan is seated on the balcony of a bar facing the wild. Facing the wild is perhaps befitting, given how wild the last couple of days have been for him. It is a calm Wednesday afternoon. It was supposed to be his wedding day. He has tried to numb the myriad of emotions that keep attempting to surface with different forms of alcohol. The rising sun found him taking tequila. It helped him fall into deep sleep for a few hours. He woke up looking for whiskey when his phone notifications reminded him that this was supposed to be his wedding day.
People say that brides get more excited about wedding days, but they’d probably not meet Dan. He looked forward to that day. Dan wanted to get it right from the get-go. He was the kind of man who believed in family, traditions and doing things the ‘proper’ way. From the moment they met, he had liked Virginia, whom everyone called Virggy.
He wined and dined her several times before formally asking her to be his girlfriend. Dan didn’t steal the first kiss like others; he asked Virggy for it like a proper gentleman. He didn’t believe in moving in before marriage and didn’t date Virggy for ages before proposing marriage. Dan was sure about her. Much like the rest of his life, he did everything by the book.
Unsurprisingly, Dan was loved by his family, and Virggy’s family were delighted at their daughter’s choice of partner. Their approval was evident during the traditional wedding process. Everyone looked forward to the big day. Dan had a hectic job, and they were working on a massive project during the wedding planning period. However, Dan had a close friend, Mark, whom he could count on for anything. He turned to Mark for help when he couldn’t leave work to go for site visits or help Virggy with other wedding decisions. Virggy understood Dan’s work demands but wished that he was available to help with the wedding plans. She knew Mark, but they were not that close initially. This, however, changed with the frequency of meetings they had to attend together.
Their conversations expanded from wedding stuff to other personal matters like a friendship would typically progress. When Mark started helping Virggy with the wedding preparation, she’d video call Dan briefly to show him what they were looking at, but after a while, she just sent images once they had done the selection with Mark. He hardly noticed the change and often thanked Mark.
“You are like a blood brother to me. I can’t thank you enough,” Dan told Mark.
“Don’t mention it,” Mark told Dan.
“Virggy would be very stressed if you were not there to help us. I owe you big time, man,” said Dan.
“You’re my boy, but I’ll cash in that favour later,” Mark teasingly told Dan.
On a weekend when Dan wasn’t needed at work, he asked to take Mark for lunch. Dan went for lunch with Virggy. The couple was thanking Mark for his help with the preparations. They were all enjoying the conversation when the waiter brought their food on a creamish or pale purple plate, depending on one’s colour perception. The plate sparked a debate.
“This is a beautiful plate,” said Virggy.
“Trust women to notice such things. Is this cream or purple?” Dan asked.
“It’s magnolia,” Mark said, looking at Virggy.
“Aah, magnolia!” Virggy repeated. They both laughed.
“Magnolia? Is that even a colour? What’s funny? What am I missing?” Dan asked Mark and Virggy. When they finally stopped laughing, Virggy turned to Dan.
“So, on one of the occasions we were working on the wedding preparations, we bumped into a couple that was fighting as they left their meeting with the wedding planner. They were so dramatic and the planner told us it was about colours, specifically magnolia. Anyway, you’d have had to be there to get the joke,” said Virggy.
Virggy and Mark continued to imitate the couple and laugh as Dan watched them, not quite getting the joke. Dan felt left out but didn’t linger on it. This was one of the many inside jokes that Virggy and Mark shared.
A few weeks later, Virggy had to check on her wedding gown. None of her friends were available, so she asked Dan to accompany her. Dan was also busy with work, so she went alone. When they showed her the dress, she was in shock. The designer had done a terrible job, and it didn’t look like what she wanted. She needed to talk to someone, so she called Mark in tears.
“What’s wrong, Virggy?” Mark asked after picking up her call.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but everyone else who was supposed to help me with this is busy,” Virggy told him.
“You’re never a bother. You should know that by now. What’s gotten you so upset?” Mark asked her.
“They have botched my wedding dress. I don’t know if I’ll get what I want in time for the wedding,” Virggy explained.
“Where are you? I’m coming to you,” Mark said.
In less than an hour, he joined Virggy at the shop. He scolded the wedding gown vendor, and it bore fruit because the dress was ready two weeks after the incident. That was also the moment that changed everything. Mark’s reaction to the matter changed how Virrgy viewed him. She fought the feelings a bit, but on an evening, when grabbing a drink with Mark, they both got drunk and spent the night together.
They both knew they were using the alcohol as an excuse. It happened again before they remembered they were disloyal to Dan. Fortunately, the wedding was less than a month away, and the plans had been finalized. They managed to stay away from each other physically but found it difficult to refrain from texting each other. In the messages, they felt conflicted about whether to feel remorseful or pursue their feelings for each other.
Virggy expressed her feelings for Mark but felt obligated to marry Dan. He had been good to her, and her family liked him. She pictured the fallout and begged Mark not to tell Dan about what had happened between them. They would vow not to talk to each other again, but one would succumb to the urge and text.
Since the wedding was on a Wednesday, Dan’s boys threw him a bachelor’s party on Friday. Mark was part of the party. Despite several objections from Dan, the night got wild, and everyone became inebriated. At some point, the group moved to the bar counter of the venue to get more shots. Mark briefly placed his phone on the counter. Dan was next to him when a message from Virggy came in.
“Why is my wife-to-be texting you at this hour while she hasn’t responded to my messages?” Dan asked Mark.
Mark panicked and quickly put the phone in his pocket.
“Aren’t you going to read the message?” Dan asked him.
The situation quickly got awkward, and Mark lacked believable excuses. They fought with Dan as he got Mark to admit that he had something going on with Virggy. Dan felt something was off since lunch but had brushed it off. The message increased his suspicions, and Mark’s reaction confirmed this. He got into a physical fight with Mark. Mark had to leave the group.
Dan then called Virggy several times, but she didn’t pick up. Mark told her what had happened immediately after he left the rest. Virggy had been torn about proceeding with the wedding while having feelings for Mark, and the fight pushed her to make a decision. She called Mark several times and showed up at his house when he didn’t answer. She had made her choice.
By Sunday, both families had been informed that the wedding would not happen. Dan took off to a hotel on the city’s outskirts to process everything that had happened. It was harder on that Wednesday afternoon because instead of starting a life with the woman he loved, he was drinking but couldn’t drown his sorrows. He couldn’t believe that had happened to him.
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