The One in White

   “You’re late.”
“Did the Queen Bitch miss her punching bag?”
Gareth tried to scowl at my animosity for the sake of our audience, aka Bridezilla, but he didn’t quite manage it, so he buried his face in the russet and amber floral arrangements to hide his smirk as she marched over. No such cover was available for me so I crossed myself, swiped a wedding programme from the nearest pew and covered as much of my face as possible. I still felt horribly vulnerable.
“Madeline.” Biting the bullet, I peeked past the glossy smooth paper in my hands and faced the dragon, who was glaring at my empty hands as if they’d committed some atrocious sin. “Where the hell is your dress?” Keeping a cautious eye out for the bulging vein in her forehead which foreshadowed a complete loss of temper, I bit my lip.
“Someone stole it from the bathroom stall door while I was...” Instead of explaining my bowel movements I let the sentence hang, shrugging my shoulders helplessly. Gareth snorted and Bridezilla glowered at him before giving me a look ten times worse. I couldn’t help thinking that if no one let the air out of her soon, she’d burst. 
She tilted her head to the side, a nasty smile on her evil face. “I suppose someone stole the heels too?” Before I could admit that no, they’d actually disappeared from the taxi on the way to the church, she snorted. “It doesn’t matter. You’re not walking down my aisle in jeans and sneakers. You’ll have to sit the wedding out. You’ll probably have to stand at the very back, since everyone’s been assigned seats in the pews but we’ll make do.” Seconds before I could gouge the make-up off her prissy, beady face with my manicured nails, Gareth started choking on the pollen-heavy flowers he’d stuffed his sensitive nose into.
Like a shark spotting a seal separate from its harem, Bridezilla locked onto her groom’s spluttering, second-choice best man. I’d been forced to step down because she’d wanted a traditional wedding with a male best man, and a fit had been pitched until Danny had finally relented, giving my position to his younger brother.
“Why aren’t you with Danny?” Her hawk eyes scanned him from head to toe. “And where are the rings? If you’ve lost them Gareth Anderson -”
He patted his top-left blazer pocket. “They’re right here Satan.” His eyes widened comically as he realised his mistake. “Satine. I meant Satine.” He coughed in hopes of covering up his slip but Bridezilla had heard him. She heard everything.
“Go and help Danny suit up. He never manages it on his own.”
He blew raspberries at her but she was oblivious to his taunting: her suicidal maid of honour had just sauntered through the door, her burgundy, four-figure-price-tag dress slung over her shoulder without a protective covering.
Satine was so busy chewing out her oldest sister that she didn’t notice Gareth sneaking me past the altar and into the preparation suites to rendezvous with her husband-to-be.

   I stopped Gareth outside Danny’s room with a hand to his chest.
“Can you give us a minute alone? We haven’t had one since Satan became Bridezilla.” He did nothing to stifle his sniggers as he nodded and wandered off, leaving me with an enormous lump in my throat.
Danny, Satine and I had known each other for five years: we’d met on the first day of university in our accommodation flat. Satine’s room had been in-between ours, and every night without fail she’d had a guest of the male persuasion. Danny and I, childhood best friends from the same Lincolnshire village, had bonded over our hatred of her.
Then Danny had been replaced with a clone.
He started following Satine around like a lovesick puppy. Every night he’d sit up waiting by her door, ready to scare off the man-sluts she loured home.
By the time second year rolled around, they were dating.
At graduation he popped the question. She refused. Then his wealthy grandparents died and left him a fortune in their will and she miraculously changed her mind, as long as he didn’t insist on a pre-nup.
Her overbearing personality went into overdrive when she got that diamond ring on her finger. Danny and I were no longer allowed to interact without a chaperone. His third and final sibling, Sophie the atheist, was banned from the wedding because of Satine’s Christian faith. Not that Sophie cared –back-packing across Europe was so much better than sitting in a stuffy church, watching Danny make the biggest mistake of his life.
But Bridezilla wasn’t here now; we were alone.
With that in mind I strode into his suite and slapped him silly.
By the time he peeled my hands off his face, his cheeks were cherry-red and swollen. Maybe that’d stop Satine from saying “I do”. It’d be better if I broke his nose too, just to be safe.
“Maddy, what the hell?”
“You’re an idiot Daniel Anderson. Sophie must have dropped you on your head when you were a baby.” Confusion reigned supreme on his face, as if I hadn’t made my hatred of Satine obvious over the years. I’d pranked her on countless occasions –Gareth and Sophie usually helped. Was my hostility such a mystery?
“Let me spell it out.” Taking a seat on one of the room’s two velvet-upholstered chairs, I crossed my arms and stared at him, preparing for a fight. “You must have a screw loose in your hollow brain because you’re marrying the Devil and dooming yourself to a lifetime of living in Hell.” I leant forward. “And you hate heat Danny. You refused to come out of the villa when we went to Spain for God sake. How are you going to handle fire and brimstone?”
Realisation lit up his eyes and I sighed in relief. While he pondered his sudden epiphany some more, I got to my feet and borrowed the silver flash he kept in his breast pocket. Danny drank the good stuff.
“Maddy, why didn’t you say something before?”
I rolled my eyes and gulped his whisky. Men –he should have realised Satine’s true nature before now. The fact that he’d needed me to point it out…that spoke spades about his intelligence.
Catching my chin in his fingers, he turned my face upwards so I could see his gleaming eyes. One of his hands intertwined with my free one, squeezing like a python strangling its prey.
“Jealousy looks good on you Maddy.”
I spat a mouthful of whisky into his face and burst into hysterical laughter. It took a full five minutes for me to regain my composure, and even then I was on shaky ground. If Danny came out with anymore of those one-liners, I was a goner.
“I’ve always wondered why you hate Satine –now I know.”
He’d cleared himself up in the en-suite while I broke a rib with my chortling, but he stood in front of the three-way mirror now, straightening his tie and grinning at me with that little boy’s smile.
“You don’t have to worry Maddy. Satine might be my future wife but you’re my childhood crush. She’ll never take that away.”
“She’s done a pretty good job over the last two years.” I growled.
His grin widened.
“You are jealous. Aww sweetheart.” He closed the distance between us and wrapped one of my brunette curls around his index finger. And like an onlooker bearing witness to a car crash, I couldn’t stop him from leaning forward and planting his soft lips on mine. I woke up enough to shove him away when his hands strayed, slinking under the cotton of my t-shirt. His warm hands locked onto my forearms and I shivered, trying to hide a frown. “Just because I’m going to be a married man in half an hour doesn’t mean I’m suddenly off the market.” Feeling outraged on Satine’s behalf –hey, that was new- I shoved him away from me.
Still hiding that frown, I extended a hand for his flask, my eyebrows raised expectantly. Keeping a cautionary eye on me he handed it over and abruptly ducked when I chucked it at his fat head. The cap came loose and alcohol flew as it collided with the wall.
“You’re about to get married and you’re propositioning me?”
He paled considerably when he realised how far he’d blundered into enemy territory.
“Maddy, calm down.” Said weakly; “It was just a joke.”
“And I’m the freakin’ Queen of Sheba! A joke isn’t making a tent in your boxers!”
While I was pissed at him for his attempt at adultery, I was more pissed at the fact that I suddenly pitied Satine. She might be a complete bitch and a whore to boot but she was faithful in her [brief] relationships. Danny would break her heart one day with a blonde floozy or a big-breasted numbskull.
“If you’re not one hundred per cent committed to Satine, then you shouldn’t be marrying her. It’s not fair.”
“Since when do you care about Satine? You hate her guts.”
“Female solidarity.” I huffed, cursing him nine ways to Sunday.
The thought of breaking up their wedding earlier had filled me with a bubbly excitement; now my stomach was dropping into my gut and I felt nauseas. Satine would probably slap me. Or she’d cry. I’d rather face a shark with a taste for my blood. Oh wait.
Danny’s hand clamped onto my shoulder when I made for the exit.
“Satine won’t believe you.”
“Won’t stop me telling her.”
He ground his teeth in frustration. “We’re best friends Maddy. Don’t do this.”
“I was best friends with Danny Anderson –a dimpled boy easier to read than a book with a heart too big for his own good. The person standing in front of me now isn’t that best friend, so I’m not interested.”

   I checked Satine’s bridal suite in the hopes of breaking the news to her privately but she wasn’t inside.
My bridesmaid’s dress was though. And my heels. They’d been stashed under the velvet chaise, but I recognised my silk hanger.
In that moment it hit me how perfectly suited Danny and Satine were.
She’d tried to cheat me out of her wedding and he’d tried to cheat on his wife-to-be using me.
Maybe it was time for me to join Sophie.
She was more to my taste anyway –down-to-Earth, honest and female.
“The wedding’s about to start.” Gareth appeared at my elbow, his gaze zeroing in on the chaise that hid my bridesmaid dress. “Isn’t that yours?” The look of realisation in his eyes was nothing like Danny’s –his eyes lit up like sparks, while Danny’s smouldered. “Did she steal your dress?”
Raising an eyebrow at the disbelieving tone in his voice, I scoffed.
“What part of Queen Bitch didn’t you understand?”

   As Satine death-marched down the aisle, her gulping groom waiting at the end, I revelled in the feeling of being the better person. I hadn’t confronted Satine and I hadn’t spilled Danny’s secret. They were going into their marriage blind.
The view wasn’t so bad from the back of the church, and a kindly gentleman vacated his seat the minute he realised that I was stuck standing up, which made me smile. The Anderson brothers took turns searching for me in the crowd, but Danny cut it out when Bridezilla made it to his side, her daddy glowering at her husband-to-be with judgemental eyes. I briefly wondered if he was a mind-reader.
The priest stepped forward.   
Danny watched Satine out of the corner of his eye and she watched him back.
Finally, he leant to the left slightly and asked, under his breath:
“Why isn’t Maddy one of your bridesmaids?”
“You know why.” Satine covered her sharpness with a fake smile.
“You can’t blame her Satine.”
Masking her exasperation, she spoke without moving her lips.
“Watch me.”
“I’m the one who kissed her. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine.” She turned her head so fast; she got whiplash and then some. Her father cracked his knuckles. Gareth’s eyes bugged out of his head. It seemed Danny hadn’t pitched his voice low enough.
The priest quietly backed away.
Satine jabbed a finger into her fiancé’s chest and snarled.
“You kissed another woman on our wedding day?”
“It was Maddy. She hardly counts.”
Steam was coming from Satine’s ears. Her mother had joined the parade on the raised platform and was stroking her father’s bald head, trying to calm him down. Gareth tore the rose from his lapel and shoved it in his brother’s face before leaving the room. Danny watched him go with a numb look on his face.
Sensing that things were coming to a head and that I wouldn’t want to be there when the volcano of Satine’s fury erupted, I got to my feet.
Every gaze in the room was suddenly drawn to me and I blushed. Oops. Satine’s acidic look would’ve melted my face if a room of spectators hadn’t separated us, and Danny’s oh-crap expression made me want to smack him.
I’d come to this wedding under the delusion that Danny was still the little boy who needed my help. But he was big enough and ugly enough to take care of himself now. And Satine had a concrete wall topped with barbed wire surrounding her heart.
I’d come here hoping to be the one in white: the one to shed light on Satine’s disgusting personality, the one who knocked some sense into Danny.
But Danny didn’t need me. He hadn’t needed me in a long time.
“The bride’s the one in white.”  I admitted quietly, mentally hitting myself for not realising it sooner. “And poaching her husband would be a waste of my time, considering I’m gay and in love with Danny’s sister.”
I slapped a hand over my mouth.     
That, I’d never meant to confess.