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MindReader’s car pulls onto his drive as I emerge from my nap. It is two hours after the wedding, and he is paying me a visit, having managed to sneak away from ushering and having his photograph taken.

I hear his key in the lock and my stomach flips over, as it does sometimes in MindReader’s presence.

He scoops me up and puts me on the larger sofa, spooning himself close to me.

“How do you feel?” he mummers.

“Okay,” I say, and I remember the ceremony.

The church was filled with flowers and candles, MindReader’s arm warm and safe around my shoulders. I felt quite awful quite quickly, probably because I expended most of my energy straightening my hair (ever the girl) and shaking with nerves. I was, of course, fine. I smile, turning to face MindReader.

“It was really fine,” I say, “thanks to the Internet.”

He smirks and kisses my hair, my eyelids. “You and your support group,” he says.

He pulls me nearer to him as I remember the vows, how I caught his eyes on in sickness and in health and he squeezed my hand, a silent message passing between us.

“The speeches were really good,” he says, a kiss on my ears, my fingers.

I snuggle closer to him and consider how often we kiss, how we are never not touching.

“Are we still sickening?” I say. “After over a year?”

“Definitely,” he says, lacing his fingers with mine and drawing them around his neck.

“I think,” I say, holding the truth that has sat so calmly in my mind for the past eleven months, tasting how it feels in my mouth, “that you are The One.”

The truth of the words falls on the air between us. “I know,” MindReader murmurs into my hair, “you are just – it. I am so sure.”

I smile into his hair, which smells of my shampoo.

Right.

Body did not enjoy the hair dresser. I appreciate that, and have given Body lots of rest, including going to bed early last night. Body then woke up at 9am so I do not quite understand why it can’t sit up if it won’t let me sleep either. Body is unreasonable. Body is like lady before her period. ALL THE TIME.

As the wedding approaches (26 hours to go) I am a bag of nerves. I think I probably pulled some hairs out last night on the phone to MindReader. I don’t actually know what would happen if I went beyond my limits but I think it may involve collapsing and/or fainting.

I have become increasingly neurotic about the smallest of details (you told me I’d be at the church ten minutes early not twenty) and have become obsessive to the point of psychotic on the subject of sleep (I am grateful the dogs have been sent away but what if people make a lot of noise when having their hair done?). This is all aside from the fact that I have to take my own BREAD. I think if I met me, I would think I was a big loser.

I am not trying to be a bitch, and nor do I think it’s my wedding day, but I am feeling nobody quite understands how scary it is to be far, far too ill to do something and to do it anyway. People with flu do not go to weddings, and that is essentially what I have, except it’s lasted for 7 months.

Above all, I wonder why MindReader told me there was a spider in his living room last night.

Dear MindReader

I have been thinking about it for a while.

I am not well enough. But I owe it to you.

You, who have come around four, five times a week of late, getting up at 6am to drive back across the country to work. You, who watch the stars with me as the rain comes down and mists our faces. And you, who have cupped my face in your hands and whispered that you would be ill instead of me if you could.

So, I shall see you this Saturday at the church service of your sister’s wedding. Not because I can, as I had hoped by this time, but because it is time I did something for you.

Billygean