The promised rain had finally caught up with me around two miles from home. The shower was heavy, so much for the forecast of just the odd light shower.

I swallowed hard and concentrated on the road ahead. The rain and the darkness made driving difficult, so I slowed down. This particular road was notorious in the wet due to several right-angle bends and adverse cambers[1]. I didn’t want to add to the statistics.

Just after I’d made the last turn, I came upon a car by the side of the road with its hazard lights blinking in the rain. Seeing a car in that particular location surprised me. What made it worse was seeing a woman in a white wedding dress flagging me down.

I stopped my van, turned on the hazard flashers, and after grabbing my ‘brolly’, I got out and went to meet her.

Even before I reached her, it was clear that she was wet through.

“Thank God you came along. It just died on me,” said the woman.

I knew that she was referring to her car.

“I live just along the road,” I said, thinking hard.
“Why don’t I tow you there? At least then, it will be off the road and out of danger. This corner has been the site of a few accidents in the last couple of years.”

“You can do that?”

“Anything to get out of this rain.”

“What do I need to do?”

“Get back in your car while I hitch up a tow rope.”

She didn’t need to be asked a second time. Once she was safely inside her car, I went back to mine and moved it in front of hers. Thankfully, her car was a classic mini, and the towing point was easy to find. Plus, I had a tow rope in the back of my car. Don’t ask me why I had one, but I did. It was going to earn its keep tonight.

Despite my best endeavours, I got wet attaching the tow. That was inevitable, but thanks to some luck, I’d dressed down for the day, so it wasn’t going to matter in the long run. With the tow rope attached at both ends, I picked up my brolly and went to the driver’s side of her car. She saw me coming and wound down the window.

“That’s the rope attached. I’ll drive slowly. Please try to keep the tow rope tight using your brakes. After about half a mile, I will indicate right. That will be the entrance to my drive. I will go slowly, and when it is time to stop, I’ll put on my hazard lights. I’ll open up my front door, and then you can come inside. Ok?”

She managed a smile. I could tell that she was getting cold by the shiver that she tried hard to hide, but I knew the signs.

“You’ll soon be in the warm.”

“I don’t want to give you any trouble.”

I chuckled.
“It isn’t every day that I get to rescue a damsel in distress.”

She looked puzzled.
“I’ll tell you later. First, we need to get you and your car into a safe place.”

I didn’t wait for a reply but headed back to my car.

---

The next five minutes were tense for me. I fully expected the tow rope to break with a jolt, but it didn’t, and we made it into my driveway without any more drama.

I grabbed my bag and made a run for it, even though I was already pretty wet. Once inside my front door, I switched on the lights and looked back at the car. I could see her sitting there with her head in her hands. All sorts of wild thoughts ran through my mind, but one kept rising to the top. She’d been left at the altar, and the traumatic effects of that were just catching up with her.

I stood there for a few seconds, hoping that she would see the lights and come inside, but she didn’t move. There was nothing left but to go and get her. I knew that if she didn’t get out of those wet clothes soon, she could end up with pneumonia.

I ran back to her car and tapped on the window. She jumped with surprise, and for a moment, she glared at me. Then she smiled.

“Sorry,” she mouthed and opened the door.

“Come on. We need to get you out of those wet clothes.”

Without thinking, I grabbed her hand. For a moment, she resisted, but then she came with me into the house.

After shutting the front door behind us, I said,
“Please stay here while I get the shower running. You need to get warmed up. While you are doing that, I’ll find you some clothes.”

“Thanks,” she muttered.

---

“Here, get this down, you,” I said as she came into the kitchen after her shower.

“What is it?”

“Just cocoa. Now that you are warm on the outside, you need to warm the inside.”

“Why are you doing all this for me? You don’t know me from Adam?”

I smiled.
“As I said before, it isn’t every day that I get to rescue a damsel in distress in person. Let me introduce myself, Angel Ford, at your service. My day job is as a mediator for the court. I try to rescue marriages. It looked like yours didn’t get that far?”

“I’m Elizabeth Gibbs. Elizabeth or Liz, but never Beth. It was pretty obvious what happened to me, wasn’t it?”

As she said who she was, her mask went back up.

I decided not to mention ‘being left at the altar’.
“How did you get to where I found you after… whatever happened for you not to get married?”

Liz sat looking at the table with her hands cupped around the mug of cocoa. After a few seconds, she began.

“As you guessed, I was supposed to get married today. Shane, my fiancée… ex- fiancée was waiting for me at the church, and I was in the limo with my father when he received an email. Normally, he’d ignore it, but he has a big business deal going through, so he looked at his phone and attached to the email was a video of my fiancée and my maid of honour…”

She swallowed hard,

“My maid of honour and my husband-to-be were having sex in our bedroom. What was worse, it happened yesterday. Dad had delivered a dressing table… we only moved in two days ago. He delivered it yesterday morning, and there it was in the video.”

“Oh shit. That must have been horrible?”

“I’d just finished watching it when we arrived at the church. I was fuming, so I left Dad in the car and headed into the church. I stormed up the aisle and socked him one right on the jaw.”

“Did he seem surprised?”

She shook her head.
“That’s what made it worse. All he could say was, ‘Sorry Babe, it only happened once’.”

Then, a voice from his side of the aisle said,
“Liar. They’ve been going at it like rabbits for months.”

“Who was it who said that?”
“His brother.”

“Ouch.”

She smiled as she relived the event.
“What did you do?”

“I put my knee where it hurts and left. On the way out of the church, I grabbed my sister's arm and dragged her with me. It is her car that I’m driving. I left her in… I think it was Calne. She lives there… After that, it is all a bit of a daze. Until… the car conked out.”

“Where did all this take place? The wedding or not wedding, I mean.”
I kicked myself for not being more concise with my questions.

“Swindon at midday.”

“And you have been driving around since then?”

“Not really. I think that I ended up at the ‘White Horse’ for a while. I had no phone or money. Then it began to get dark, and I cried. We should have been serenaded on a gondola in Venice at that time. Then it came on to rain and… well, I ended up where you found me.”

“Well, you are in the dry and warm for at least tonight. Is there anyone who you can call to tell them that you are safe?”

“I’d better call my sister. She won’t give me the third degree. My parents would be on their way to rescue me and wrap me in cotton wool until I am old enough to get my pension.”

I smiled at her description. My parents were just the opposite, but I’d met many couples where the failure of the marriage was down to interfering parents.

I handed her the phone.
“Make the call and then come upstairs. I’ll have a bed ready for you in a few minutes.”

“Are you sure that I’m not putting you out? Don’t you have better things to be doing?”

I grinned.
“Let me see what I’d planned for this evening. A date with a gorgeous feller? Too late for that now, and besides, out here in the sticks, places for a date are limited. No, after the late shift at the marriage guidance centre, I come home and vegetate in front of some mindless pap on TV. I find that it helps me reset my mind.”

She grinned.
“Ok, I get the idea.”

Five minutes later, Liz joined me upstairs.
“This is your room. There is an unused toothbrush on the bedside table.”

“I’m so grateful for this. How can I repay you?”

“Don’t think about that now. Just try to put at least some of what happened today behind you.”

“That won’t be easy.”

“Just think of tomorrow as being the first day of your life as a much wiser person.”

She grinned.
“I know, be positive.”

“That’s right, sleep well, and I’ll see you in the morning. Breakfast is at eight.”

---

[the next morning]

Although I didn’t sleep very well, which in large part was due to listening to Liz crying in the next room, I crept downstairs well before seven and pottered around, trying not to make much noise. I needed something to take my mind off the previous evening. I was troubled by two things, the first being that no woman should have to go through what she’d experienced on her wedding day. If I had my way, her former husband-to-be would be publicly castrated, but that wasn’t going to happen.

I occupied my time by starting the process of making some Soda Bread. It would not take long, but at least it gave me something to do.

The second and possibly more troubling was that I fancied her. Nothing was going to happen, but seeing her standing in my headlights in a sodden wedding dress had brought to life feelings that I had thought were long dead and buried. While I prepared breakfast, I renewed my determination to play the courteous host and not muck it up.

Shortly after eight, I heard the sounds of movement from upstairs. In a bit of a panic, I headed for the downstairs toilet and ran a brush through my hair in a forlorn attempt to make myself presentable for my guest.

“Good morning,” I said to Liz when she walked into the kitchen.
“Did you sleep well?”

“I did, but in fits and starts. Thanks again for rescuing me.”

“There is no need to thank me. What do you want me to do with your dress?”

“I would think that it is beyond repair,” I added.

“I’ll take it with me. I might get some satisfaction from setting it alight!”

“Good for you. Breakfast?”

“Please. We were supposed…. Sorry. I haven’t eaten since this time yesterday.”

---

After we’d eaten, I said,
“I’ll take a look at your car. If it is what I think it might be, then it could be an easy fix.”

Liz looked at me with surprise written over her face.
“I have two brothers who love to take part in banger racing, I’m afraid.”

It wasn’t quite a bare-faced lie, but I wasn’t ready to tell her the truth.

“What do you think the problem is?”

“Water in the distributor. On these early Mini’s, it is stupidly placed behind the radiator on the front of the engine.”

“Is it easy to fix?”

I smiled.
“Yes, Take the top off and dry everything out. It should only take a few minutes. When I put it all back together, I’ll find some waterproofing spray, and then you will be all set.”

Liz’s whole demeanour brightened up.

“Did you call your sister last night?”

She hesitated before saying,
“Yes and no. Yes, I dialled the number, but I hung up the call before it went through.”

“Then,” I said,
“We should get you on your way before your family calls out the Police…”

---

“There you are, Liz, one set of wheels in running order. You should make sure your sister has the distributor waterproofed before winter sets in. Otherwise, she has a nice set of wheels there.”

“Angel… you have been a real Angel to me after what happened yesterday. Thank you.”

She left after giving me a big hug.

Ten minutes later, she was back.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t have the foggiest idea where I am.”

I managed to suppress a giggle.

“I had much the same feeling when I first came here. I have a map in the kitchen. I’ll mark where I am and the way to the main road. Where do you want to end up?”

That last question stumped her. She gave an involuntary shake.

“I… I can’t go to the house that we were supposed to be living in.”

Then she gave another shudder.
“What’s wrong?”

“I put up most of the money for the deposit on it. That’s thirty grand.”

“Then the place is yours, not his.”

She shook her head.
“I can’t go back there ever. The thought of him with my BFF is just too much to live with.”

“Then we need to get you some legal representation. Inform the mortgage company and then put it on the market.”

She shook her head vigorously.

“Everything is in his name. He insisted on that.”

Her plight suddenly became a whole lot worse.

“It sounds like he used you. Am I right?”

“It does sound like that.”

“Where is this home?”

“Swindon. On an estate half a mile to the west of the old Honda plant.”

“Let me make some calls, and let us see what the real facts are about your home.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“Errr… It is my job. I told you last night.”

She looked worried.
“Don’t worry. You were in survival mode.”

This time, Elizabeth managed to smile.
“I guess I was, wasn’t I?”
“What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a guidance counsellor. My job is to try to make the separation of couples as amicable as possible. The last thing they want is to go to court and have all their dirty washing made public. I come up with plans to help them avoid a nasty contested divorce. Division of assets is what happens when I fail to save the relationship.”

Then I added,
“I guess that for you, making his crimes as public as possible is probably high on your list of things to do?”

“You betcha. And he’s a teacher. I thought that they were supposed to have morals?”

“Not in this day and age. It is mostly everyone for themselves, and they don’t care who gets trampled on in the stampede.”

“I… I feel like I’ve been trampled on in a huge stampede.”

“Good. Now it is time to move on to stage three.”

“Three?”

“Stage one is you kneeing him in his dangly bits. Stage two is self-recrimination. You did that driving around and all that crying. Stage three is acceptance of the situation, which seems to be where you are now. Step four is stopping and taking a deep breath. Act in haste and all that stuff. I can cover the other stages later. You are starting to accept that you have been used. That is often the hardest one for the wronged person to accept, mostly because they think that it is all down to something that they did. Most of the time, that could not be farther from the truth. Does at least some of this make sense? A lot of men are born bastards, and fate seems to make them do horrible things to undeserving others.”

Liz nodded her head.
“Let me get that map. Then we can both visit your home. There are things of yours in there that belong to you. You need to get them before he… or she sends them to the rubbish tip.”

“We?”

“Yes, Liz. We. I think that fate may have decreed that we meet as we did last night. Things happen for a reason.”

An hour later, we pulled up outside the house that was supposed to be her dream home.
A car was parked in the driveway.

“That’s his car,” remarked Liz.

“Good. Let’s go in, and then you can collect at least some of your stuff after I coach you on what to say.”

There was more than a moment’s hesitation on Liz’s part.
Then she strode up to the door and rang the bell. A few moments later, a man answered.

“Hey, babe. We were starting to get worried about you. Where have you been?” said the man.

“Don’t ‘babe’ me. After yesterday, you have the nerve to be in my house? That is galling.”

I smiled. Liz was following the script perfectly.

“This is not your home. It is in my name, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember perfectly well. You tricked me with some bollocks about capital gains tax. I will be going to court to get you out. Then I will sell it. I want my money back at the very least.”

“You can’t do that. Everything is in my name.”

“That’s not what my solicitor says.”

“How can you afford a solicitor? You have no money.”

“They are working Pro-Bono. That means for free, in case you don’t know.”

The words ‘for free’ changed his whole attitude. Liz took the opportunity to go off script.

“Keys, please. I want your keys and hers as well… I assume that she has a set?”

“This is my place. It is you who is trespassing.”

“Then I’ll take my things and leave… That is always assuming that you haven’t already thrown them away?”

He shook his head.

I said,
“I’ll get the bags. We can start in the master bedroom.”

“Who the fuck are you? I don’t know you?” he asked me.

“I am the person who is helping Liz get on her feet again.”

“How do you know her?”

I managed a smile.
“That is between the two of us. Let us say that fate probably had a hand in our meeting. I’m here to help Elizabeth face the future, nothing more, nothing less.”

I didn’t wait for a reply as I left the house and went to my car for the bags.

“Did we get everything?” I asked Liz as she stuffed the last of at least ten black plastic bags into the back of my car.

“Apart from the furniture, I think so.”

I looked at my watch.
“Good. We can get this lot unloaded into my garage and get to Trowbridge in time to meet Jonas Young to discuss getting him out of the house.”

“From his reaction to our arrival, he seems likely to fight me all the way.”

“I agree. As he’s shacked up with her, then there is no way that he can say that it was just a fling. At the very least, I’d ask Jonas to put what they call a lien on the house so that he can’t sell it and disappear with the proceeds.”

“I saw a flyer for one on the local estate agents on the kitchen top,” said Liz.

“Then tell Jonas that. Don’t embellish anything, just tell him the whole truth in as much detail as you can remember. Don’t worry about rambling. Jonas is good at sorting out the order of things. That’s why I recommend him to clients.”

“Won’t you be there?”

“I can’t be part of the discussions between you and your legal representative. My job is to remain impartial.”

“Angel? How can you be impartial in this?”

I pulled the car over into the entrance to a field.

“Liz… I know that this is the wrong time to say this, but I’m finding it hard to remain in the middle because I fancy the hell out of you. Please let me keep trying to be impartial, and then I have to hope that in time and when you get yourself sorted out, we can be a couple or, at the very least, remain friends. I like you, Liz and at the moment, you need all the real friends that you can get. Where are all your friends from the wedding? Why haven’t they been calling you offering to help?”

“Angel… I had no idea that you had feelings for me like that.”

She sat for well over a minute with her eyes closed. I recognised the behaviour. She was thinking.

“Thank you for being honest with me. It does look like I am very much on my own at the moment. Let me speak to Jonas, and then I might have a clearer idea about what to do next.”

Then she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
“Can I take my sister’s car when we go to Trowbridge? I can drop it off at her place afterwards.”

I smiled back at her.
“Good. You are starting to think for yourself again. That is step 5 of the recovery process.”

“How many steps are there, please don’t say twelve?” she said, trying to make a joke.

I managed a small laugh as I got the car going again.
“There are as many as you need to become as normal as possible again. Each breakup is different, and I have to adjust my help accordingly. There is no single fix for all problems.”

“I don’t envy your job.”

“Sometimes, I wonder why I do it, but I carry on.”

“What did you do before becoming a counsellor?”

I chuckled.
“I worked in the Honda Factory for three years after finishing University. I worked on the line and found it mentally numbing.”

“What did you study?”

“Sociology and Human Relations.”

“So, this job is more up your street then?”

“It is, but it isn’t an easy job. Leaving people’s problems in the office is the hardest part.”

“Then I come along and drop my problems right onto your lap at home.”

“True, but I could hardly not stop and rescue a damsel in a wedding dress, now, could I?”

“I’m so glad that you did come along when you did.”

“This is where I say goodbye for now. Jonas is one of the good guys and won’t rip you off when it comes to charges.”

Liz’s face dropped. She’d been busy on her phone while we waited for Jonas to finish dealing with another client. We’d been lucky to get a slot with him at almost zero notice.

With some reluctance, I went off to work even though I knew that my mind would not be on solving other people’s marital problems. Luckily, my appointment list for the day was sparse. We tried to give staff an easy day, at least one day of the week. On that day, we could make follow-up calls and write up case histories.

Liz called me late in the day and gave me the good news that Jonas had agreed to take her case and would be applying to get a lien on the house that she and her ex had bought. That would stop him from selling the property and disappearing with all the profits from the sale. The bank records that Liz had provided proved that she had paid for almost everything, including the deposit. That would help when applying to the court to get a lien on the property.

She also told me that she would be staying with her sisters until she could find a place of her own. I maintained my ‘I’ll support you’ front even though I was disappointed that she’d be soon gone from my life.

Two days later, Liz came with her sister to collect her things from my garage. Once again, I tried to put on a happy face. My job often required me to adopt this appearance, but I hated doing it when it was aimed at someone I cared about.

Life without Liz returned to something approaching normality, but the incident with her had been noticed by my colleagues. I got the inevitable ‘Who is he?’ and ‘When can we meet him?’ questions from them.

“It was just a single date, and no, we didn’t go to bed together,” was my stock answer.

Gradually, their inquiries into my non-existent love life faded. I rued the missed chance and put that down to the dregs of the timid gentleman that I once was.

I didn’t see Liz for almost a year. We ran into each other at a supermarket car park in Swindon on a Friday afternoon. It was the typical two cars don’t go into one space encounter. Luckily, our cars didn’t quite touch, but it was close. When I saw who the other driver was, my heart nearly stopped.

I let her park in the single space and found one of my own a few rows away. I tried to find her in the shop but failed. I didn’t even think about getting the things I’d gone to the supermarket for in the first place. Instead, I went back to my car and sat there feeling so foolish that it hurt.

It was only a knock on the driver’s door window that brought me back to reality.

“Liz?”

“I thought that it was you… Back when I was parking the car.

“Sorry!”

“Angel, there is nothing to be sorry about.”

“How are you doing? Did you get your money back?”

She grinned back at me.

“Why don’t I buy you a coffee, and I can tell you all about it?”

“Are you sure? Don’t you have some cooking to do?” I replied, looking at her bag of groceries.

“They can wait. I want… I need to thank you for introducing me to Jonas. He is a wizard.”

“Ok, let’s grab that coffee,” I said, trying to put on a brave face.

“That jerk of an ex is a real piece of work,” said Liz as she put two mugs of coffee down on the table of the booth where we were sitting.

“Jonas found out not only is he married, but he’s done this jilt a fiancée at the altar twice before, once in Bristol and again in Exeter. He is a real scumbag. When he found out about the lien, he dumped my former friend like some hot coals and did a runner back to his home in Oxford. Thanks to Jonas, the police were interested enough in a possible fraud case to take some prints from the house. That’s when his sordid history began to unravel.”

“It sounds like you had a lucky escape?”

“All thanks to getting wet and meeting you!”

“No thanks are needed, I assure you. I just did what any decent person would have done.”

“Sorry, Angel, but that is utter bollocks. You are unlike any woman that I have ever met.”

The gates of hell began to open in my mind. That’s where so many people want people like me to go. I had to change the subject.

“Are you still living with your sister?”

Liz paused. I could tell from her body language that things had moved on a lot since I’d got her out of her old house.

“I lasted a couple of months, and I got an ultimatum, so I went flat hunting. I’m living in Wooton Bassett now.”

Her voice tailed off.

“What is it?” I asked in my soft voice.

“Liz… I was so stupid… When you told me about yourself… I panicked. I never told you how you saved my life, and I just left you in the lurch.”

“That’s the story of my life, I’m afraid.”

“I was too much of a coward to come to your home and say sorry. When I saw you just now, I knew that it was time for me to come clean.”

“This isn’t easy… but hardly a day goes by without me thinking about you. You… You singlehandedly saved my life.”

“And you want to say thank you? That’s my job… You know, helping people out.”

“And who helps you out? Who is there? Be honest with me now. No psycho babble!”

I managed a small chuckle.

“No one. I’ve done it all myself. Who would want me anyway? Knowing that I was born in the wrong body from an early age makes me an outcast.”

“I know how you feel. My current flatmate is like you, but they aren’t you.”

“I sense that you want more from them than they can give you?”

Liz shook her head.
“No. It is you that I want. I want to be the person who looks after you when you come home after a hard day.”

“Me? Why? I can’t give you a family. I know that you wanted children.”

She smiled at me.
“I did, didn’t I? I’m working for a children’s charity. We find adoptive parents for them.”

The words that she didn’t say told me everything.
Then she reached over the table and took my hand in hers.

“Could we at least give it a try?”

Her words left me trying to say something, but nothing would come out. Liz saw my problem. She solved it in one move by kissing me only, this time, it was real.

I was still a bit lost for words when we broke apart.

“I enjoyed that,” said Liz.

The smile on my face told her everything that she wanted to know.

“Liz,” I said,
“We should not rush into sleeping together. We do need to get to know each other properly first if we are going to make a go of being together.”

She smiled.
“Nothing like putting a damper on proceedings?”

Liz grinned.
“Only joking. You are right. Fools rush in and all that stuff.”

“Thank you, Liz and I’m saying that without my work hat on. My last relationship failed because of that. I leapt in with both feet and to hell with thinking things through. I crashed and burned much like you did last year. I think that neither of us wants to go through that again.”

Liz came to me and took my hands.
“Angel, you took the words right out of my mouth, but I think that the odd kiss and a cuddle should be allowed.”

I grinned and kissed her briefly on the lips.

We were good to go.

[seventeen months later]
Liz had struggled, but with Angel’s help, she’d managed to get her life together again. With every passing day, Angel felt that her chances of having a life with Liz seemed to get smaller and smaller.

“Angel,” said Liz one Sunday morning.

“You want to move on?” I said, anticipating her words.

Liz grinned.
“No Angel. Just the opposite. I’m comfortable here.”

“But not in love with me?” I said, trying to second-guess her again.

“No. Didn’t we agree to try to live together first? While I got my life back together and

“We did.”

“We have lived together for almost eighteen months, and not once have you come on to me in all that time. I don’t need to be a genius to know that it has been hard for you. Now that ‘he’s’ banged up for the next ten years at least, I’d like to try to have a closer relationship with you.”

I felt so ashamed for reading her so badly.

“Have you gone off the idea?” asked Liz

“No… No, I haven’t. It is just that you caught me by surprise.”

“Well?”

“Liz…” I said, stuttering and at a loss for words.

I took a deep breath and said,
“Sod it, Liz, all the signs you have been giving out these past few months have been just the opposite. At first, I thought that it was the trial and the stress of giving evidence, but the trial has been over for more than a month. Then you surprise me with this. Yes, I’m confused.”

“Sorry. At first, I thought that you were not interested in me. It has taken me some time to pluck up the courage to bring up the question.”

“So here we are, stuck in a rut like so many couples. Comfortable with living together but not being romantic.”

I managed to nod my head.

“I… I feel so ashamed,” I muttered.

“Angel, there is nothing to be ashamed about.”

Liz reached across the table and took my hand. I didn’t resist.

“You… You are a very special person. I count myself lucky that you found me by the side of the road when you did. Since then, you have been the perfect roommate.”

“And you want more?” I muttered.

“Only if you do.”

“I do. I do.”

Liz let go of my hands and came around to my side of the table. To my surprise, she straddled me, effectively pinning me to the chair.

The surprises kept coming when she held my face in her hands and kissed me.

This time, the kiss was real. I had never been kissed like this before. The feelings that I had repressed for so long awakened, and slowly, I responded.

When we broke apart, I asked,
“Where do we go from here? We can’t exactly go on a first date, can we?”

Liz laughed.
“No, we can’t. Why don’t we just try being a couple rather than two roommates?”

I responded by kissing her.

[sixteen weeks later]

“I feel so nervous,” said Liz.
It was the day of our wedding. It was a small, low-key affair at the registry office in Swindon. What made it unique in our eyes was that underneath our dresses, we each wore an underskirt that was made from her original wedding dress. This time, both brides-to-be were wearing part of the dress that had brought us together in the first place.

“Don’t be nervous. Remember that this time, your partner-to-be has not slept with your best friend, nor have they tried to cheat you out of all your money.”

“Thank you, Angel.”

The door to the registry office opened, and we were called in. Liz hesitated for a moment. In an instant, all sorts of horrible thoughts went through my mind. Then I looked at her. She was wiping a tear from her cheek and smiling at me.

“Sorry for being so soft,” she whispered.
“No need to apologise. This is a big day for both of us.”

She nodded as she wiped the last of the tears away.
“Let’s do this!”

When we emerged, neither of us was ‘the bride to be’ anymore. Both of our lives had changed that rainy night, and because we had not rushed it, we hoped this would be a change that would last a very long time.

[1] an adverse camber is where the road is banked the wrong way. Think of a NASCAR oval and then make the banking higher on the INSIDE of the corner rather than the outside. Then try driving at speed around it. You will be forced will off the track if you are not aware of the problem. Then do it at night on an unlit road.
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To remove competition header.