Colder than ice

'Listen to your heart there's nothing else you can do'

29th December 2019

'You look beautiful Dot' Joe breathes, taking in his beautiful bride. She smiles, he can see her blushing underneath the veil she is wearing. 'Thank you, Mark.' He turns to his, soon to be, father in law. 'I promise I'll look after her.' He flashes him a smile that won her over so many years ago.

'Today we are here to witness the marriage between Joseph Graham Sugg and Dianne Claire Buswell.' The priest starts. He's conducted a million marriages before, but something strikes him about Dianne and Joe. Many of the young couples split, sometimes before the wedding, but usually in the following two years. Something him about these pair, almost like the relationship is layered on love rather than lust. He watches as the pair smile between them, as he says some prayers over them. It's not a big affair, maybe forty people at maximum.

They hadn't wanted a large wedding, only inviting close family and friends. There was going to be a very large party tomorrow, everyone was coming. This was about them, and their love. Just the pair of them. Tomorrow they were celebrating their love with everyone else, but for the wedding, they wanted it to be intimate.

She was wearing a white, floor length dress and she has her hair done neatly. To Joe, she is the prettiest thing he's ever seen. She is absolutely stunning, and he wondered how he got so lucky. Joe was in a suit, not as special as Dianne's dress, but he believed that it was more about Dianne than him. She was the centrepiece of all of this. It is the bride's day, he was just a part of it. He hadn't seen her dress, he was unaware how she kept it a secret when she was useless at keeping secrets normally.

'I, Joseph Graham Sugg, take thee Dianne Claire Buswell, to be my lawful wedded wife.' She looks up at him, as their eyes lock briefly. 'To have and to hold.' He grabs her hand, 'from this day forward, for better, for worse.' She squeezes his hand, at this moment it's just the two of them, in their own little world. It's like all the people at the wedding have disappeared. 'For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.' He can hear her breathe out a little, as if she were sighing in relief that he had turned up. He knew her greatest fear was that he wouldn't turn up, that he would just bugger off, leaving her on her own with a child. She knew it was irrational, but at that moment it was a concern of hers. 'To love and to cherish, to death us do part, according to Gods holy ordinance and thereto, I pledge myself to you.' He beams at her, as it's her turn. His heart rate speeds up, not that he has any fear about what they are doing. He's wanted to marry her from the moment they could legally get married at 18. The more he stares at his beautiful bride, the more he falls in love. He didn't even know that it was possible to love her even more.

She takes a deep breath, composing herself. He had seen a few stray tears leak from her eyes. He knew that it wasn't anything to-do with her thinking it was the wrong decision. Like him, she was overcome by emotion. This was the final knot in their rope. They had a beautiful daughter, even if they found out she couldn't have anymore, they had an absolutely amazing daughter. They both had jobs they enjoyed, family they could rely on. They knew how lucky they were.

'I, Dianne Claire Buswell, take thee Joseph Graham Sugg, to be my lawful wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. To love and to cherish, to death us do part. According to Gods holy ordinance and thereto, I pledge myself to you.' She turns around, as he neatly pulls up the veil, neatly folding it over her head. At this moment in time, they were sure they would be together forever. Over the years, their friends would fall in and out of love, leaving lots of awkward reunions where certain members of the group wouldn't turn up if someone else was going. However, at this moment, that was the furthest thing from their minds. This was so pure, so beautiful. They were the first ones married, the next one to get married would be Zoe and Alfie, but that would be four years down the road.

They became the envy of their friends, having such a committed relationship. They would be the rock within their friendship, they would be the ones that lasted. Until Ruby, to this day they aren't sure how they coped after the first couple of weeks. They isolated themselves from their friends, their nearest and dearest. They understood, they were lucky with their friends, none of them had appeared to cut connections with everyone. Neither Dianne or Joe confided in them, none of them understood. Maybe if they had they wouldn't have fallen as far as they did.

It was as if they had fallen down the well, losing the light. They were one wrong step of falling into the darkness, and not being able to get back up. They were on the fine line, tight roping along the fine line. All that they had worked for, it had been put in jeopardy. They had gone through life, getting by. It hadn't been easy, but it had never hurt this much. You can't predict this happening, you can't predict what's going to happen. They would have never dreamed that they would have been a family with a child that never came home from university. They didn't know that their life would smashed into small shards of glass. At this point, they didn't know the future.

But at this moment, none of this mattered. At this moment, they loved one another and that's all that mattered.

A/N Thoughts?