Slide Away.

On the way to memory lane (Manchester, 2011)

As soon as we walk through the door I hear the irritating high pitched voice of my sister.

"Where the hell have you been?" She is angry, downright furious and yes, now I feel guilty.

"I'm so sorry De, we have massively overslept."

"Overslept?" She indeed sounds hysteric. Behind her I can see a whole flock of women more or less amused staring at us. Great.

"How do you manage to oversleep almost three hours?", she goes on. I shrug my shoulders and bite my tongue. I could ask her the same question, our whole childhood she held the family prize of oversleeping and getting in trouble because of it.

Well, that was before, wasn't it?

"Aunt D., we didn't mean it!" Penny steps forward and hugs her aunt, sounding more than crashed by guilt. She leans against Delilah and looks up at her with her beautiful, light blue eyes. "Please, I'm so sorry." Delilah smiles at her, already calming down.

"It's alright", she mumbles. "Now you're here, at last." She pulls Penny with her in the back of the room and I follow reluctantly. All the women look more than fabulous, in pretty dresses and suits and perfect up-do's and flawless make-up. I feel their eyes on me as we walk to a long clothes rail in the back of the room. All the dresses are pushed together except for two.

"Look, this is yours!" Delilah hands Penny a babyblue dress with a high waist and a ruffled skirt and my daughter suddenly looks to afraid to even touch it.

"Mine?", she whispers. "I can't wear something so beautiful!"

"Of course you can sweetheart. Go, try it on!" Delilah gives a sign to one of the saleswomen and she takes Penny with her to the changing rooms.

"She is going to look beautiful." My sister claps her hands and grabs the last dress. "Let's try this on then, shall we? It's yours."

"This?" I look at the stunning dress. Almost to stunning.

"Aren't you afraid I'll upstage you?" I ask with a smirk. She laughs.

"You wouldn't dare. I'll rip you open, there and then." I believe her without a doubt, I have witnessed my sister in bridezilla mode over the phone more than once in the last few weeks.

"Where is your dress?", I ask while she closes the curtains of the changing cabin behind us. She sits down on the little stool in the corner and watches as I take of my blouse and trousers.

"I already tried it on, they took it away for last minute adjustments. We couldn't wait for you forever."

"Again, I'm sorry. It's just..." I sigh and grab the dress. "Coming back here is always a challenge."

"I know." She stands up and closes the zip on my back. Suddenly, she wraps her arms around me and smiles at me in the mirror.

"I'm still glad you came. And I want everyone to know how much it means to me that my little sister is by my side while I marry the love of my life." I lean into her hug.

"I'm very happy for you", I say and her smile brightens. And I mean it. Delilah deserves happiness more than any other person I know and as difficult and twisted as things may have been between us for all this time she still is my sister, my family. And as that, the one part of me I could never abandon, even if I wanted to.

"You look amazing", she says and I turn around in front of the mirror. It's a beautiful piece of work, this dress. The cut of it reminds me of another dress I wore, many years ago. In this very room.

I can see in Delilahs eyes that she just had the same thought.

"Do you remember it?", she asks. I nod.

"Far too good."

...

Well, that was a long introduction in itself but we're finally going back in time! Thanks so much to everyone who has voted for this story, I'll try to update as soon as possible! See you around and have a wonderful day you all!