Burning Moon (Wattpad Version)

Chapter 7

“I guess I’m just tired of crappy stuff happening to me,” I walked over to the table, sat down and hoped that we were close enough to the Bermuda Triangle for it to magically suck me in. 

“Guess what my wish was?” I said.

“What?”

“That bad shit would stop happening to me.”

Damian walked over to the table and sat down. He looked genuinely concerned.  

“I’ve been trying so hard not to think about it… but, do you know what it felt like when he didn’t show up, in front of 500 guests?"

“I’m sorry, Lilly.” Damian reached across the table, and for a moment I thought he was going to hold my hand, but at the last second he picked up the bottle of water and poured us both a glass.  

I mentally sighed; my life was a complete disaster zone.

We sat there in silence, sipping our sparkling water and listening to the bubbles pop and fizz. For some reason I thought about my wedding invitations -- I’d put so much effort into them. I’d spent hours at the paper shop choosing just the right colour, texture and thickness. Hours spent with the designer finding the right layout and design elements to make it perfect. The invites were an off-white colour -- Romantic Eggshell Dream was the name of the paper. They were embossed in the corners with a delicate flower design and all hand written in calligraphy -- some old lady sat there for days doing them all -- and then folded in half and tied together with pale lavender ribbons. What a waste!

And then another thought hit me. This scandal was going to be spoken about by my family for the next millennium, at least. In fact, it would probably be passed down from generation to generation in the great oral tradition of story telling. Some great, great, great niece of mine living in the year 2104, where robots feed you breakfast and everyone lives in hydroponic bubble suits, would still be hearing the story of poor Aunt Lilly who was left at the altar in front of all her friends and family. My family couldn't help it, they loved to gossip, they simply couldn’t keep it in. So for the rest of my life, at every family function I would probably hear…

“Shame, shame poor Lilly. You must be heart broken.”

“Oh shame. You must be so embarrassed. I don’t know how you cope.”

“Poor, poor Lilly, maybe you should just go live out the rest of your sad, pathetic, lonely life under a rock in the middle of the desert with only lizards to keep you company.”

I was grateful when a loud voice suddenly broke through my self-flagellating thoughts.

“Your hamburgers,” said the man in the black suit who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and was very suddenly moving things around the table to make space for our food. He glanced at me with a displeased look, as he bent down and picked up all the candles and flowers that had fallen over. I mentally kicked him in the groin and smiled politely.

I looked at my plate. My burger might as well have been hanging from the roof of the Sistine Chapel. It was a work of art and I almost felt bad for eating it… almost. But by this stage, I was starving. I grabbed the burger, took an enormous bite and started wolfing it down. It dawned on me that I didn’t care that I probably looked like a hungry scavenger, frantically pecking on the last remains of a carcass. Because the one good thing about having your life declared as a disaster zone, is that things that bothered you before, suddenly seem so insignificant.

Take eating in front of a guy for example. Why is it that when a waiter arrives, whilst in the company of a male we’re trying to impress, we suddenly morph into panic-stricken possums, and in meek little voices say, “I’ll have the salad please, no dressing, no croutons.” We have these strict woman rules about what to eat and what not to eat on a date -- no spinach or any other kind of leafy green that clings to your teeth, no ribs or spaghetti and definitely no soup. So we order a plate of leaves and spend the night moving a lonely piece of lettuce around our plate, as if eating something with the calorific equivalent of air would impress him. And you know the hotter the guy; the less you’re gonna eat!