Wedding, Day Two - 9/6/2006 in 2005 - 2007: High School

After I was done showering and throwing up, I came out into the living room. Molly and Dave were waiting for me on one side of the Rousseaus' L shaped couch, looking terribly concerned. I slumped down on the other side as gently as I could, without looking at them. I could barely stand up, and it hurt when I moved too much. The pain in my stomach hadn't gone away or gotten any better. I just couldn't stop thinking about it. I kept willing my insides to relax, and then I would hear Dave breathing again, and they would knot right back up.

"How are you feeling?" said Molly.

"Not so great."

Mrs. Rousseau came over. "Aidan, I'm getting you some tea. Do you have an upset stomach?"

"Yes."

"Peppermint is good for an upset stomach. I'm getting you some peppermint tea. Do you think you could eat something?"

"Uh... I'm not sure."

"I'll get you some toast. You shouldn't have butter, butter isn't good for an upset stomach. But we have jelly and honey..."

"I'll just have plain toast, thanks."

Tom came downstairs and pointed at me. "What's wrong with her?"

"She's... not feeling well."

"Oh. Well no pressure Aidan, but you have three hours to recover."

"Great."

We spent the next couple of hours in silence while I tried to get the tea and toast down. By an hour before the wedding, I was feeling "a little shaky" rather than "unbelievably nauseous." We frantically set up. We frantically changed. Then we sat around for a while while we waited for someone to tell us what to do. For some reason I ended up sitting alone with Dave on the little cement platform where we had set up. The tide was quickly coming in, and it looked as if a storm were brewing. It was very windy, and we hadn't yet figured out how we were going to hold our music to our stands. I'm sure we looked ridiculous, all by ourselves on the beach, in our fancy wedding clothes, holding instruments, and not doing anything, or talking to each other.

"There's going to be a wedding here?" I said.

"I guess," he said.

"The beach is like four feet wide, and the tide's coming in."

"Yeah. I guess they should have checked the tides before they planned this."

"Does this look a little bit like a nor'easter to you?"

"Yes."

"Do you think people will like the A Train?"

"I don't know."

"Has it struck you how ridiculous this situation is?"

"It did just now."

We both started laughing. Silly, irrational laughter that might have given away how emotionally exhausted we both were.

We stopped. I noodled.

"Look, I'm... Sorry about last night," he said.

"It's alright," I said automatically.

Pause.

"So Molly... Told you..."

"Yeah."

That was about it. Molly came back. She panicked about how it was raining a little. Then it stopped raining. Then she panicked about paperclipping the sheet music into submission. Then she panicked about nothing. When people started to show up, we played. It was highly mediocre. Our music blew off of our stands even though there were paperclips in every available spot. Apparantly no one could hear much because of the wind and the surf. We couldn't hear the minister. We could just see her gesturing enthusiastically and hear a word here and there, like "marriage" or "love" in between waves. The bridesmaids had to move in a little at the end so that they wouldn't get wet.

After the wedding, the three of us hung around and actively were miserable while Tom socialized with his family. Then we started hanging out with the reception band, who also didn't know anyone and who also weren't assigned to a table. Actually, we were assigned to the little kids' table. But we decided that we would just hide inside the house and steal lobster rolls and cookies from the catering staff, who also didn't know anyone. It was kind of cool.

Then they invited us to play with them. We kind of kept saying, "Really? You're really serious?" But they were. The bassist let Dave take over for a few songs, and they let me play the flute. The singer would go "flute solo!" and I would take a flute solo. It should have been amazing. But I couldn't stop being miserable. I continued to be miserable for the entire day. I was miserable at the wedding, I was miserable when we drove around doing nothing, and I was miserable when we sat in Tom's room doing nothing. Tom kept suggesting that we smoke. Or that we drink. I wanted to, honestly. I really wanted to. I just wanted to be less conscious. But I was afraid of getting caught.

I just wanted to go home.

That night, Molly and I both started to feel nauseous. So much so that I called my mother and asked her to pick me up the next day so that Molly wouldn't have to drive. Molly freaked out about getting the van home. I said that Tom could drive it, or Dave could drive it, or my dad could come and he could drive it. She continued to freak out.

"Well, do you think you'll be able to drive it?"

"No! But it needs to get home! Do you not understand that?"

We recovered on the couch again the next morning. Mrs. Rousseau made us more tea. We thanked them for everything. They gave us fifty dollars. We all went home.

I spent a lot of time at home lying around. I basically spent the entirety of Monday lying around. I felt broken. I couldn't get rid of that feeling in my stomach. Or maybe it was a different feeling. Or maybe it was more than one feeling. Just an uncomfortable, unsettled, something-is-not-okay feeling. What a sucky week. I'm still getting over it. I'm still trying to convince myself that things are okay. At least I established that they were just making out. I asked Dave on the last morning, awkwardly, when we were alone for a minute in Tom's room. I was trying to decide whether or not I had the right to know, and finally decided that I didn't care. I'm choosing to believe that he wasn't lying. It sounded like it might have been more. And... I needed to know.

I honestly can't tell how well I'm writing these entries. I just need to get them out there, so I'm doing them relatively quickly. My thoughts are scattered right now. Trying to organize them is hard. This might be edited later.