Forever yours

the bridesdress fiasco

*Luisa*

"Aren't you supposed to look happier somehow?" asked Kelly, raising an eyebrow.

"I am happy.", I said, stroking the fabric of the white dress I was trying on.

"Oh yeah, tell that to your face." my cousin's girlfriend laughed a little nervously.

I ran my hand through my long hair and took a deep breath "Maybe this just isn't the right dress.", I went back into the dressing room to try on the next dress.

It wasn't the dress and I knew that. It just wasn't the wedding I had wanted. Mostly because it wasn't the man I had long imagined as the man by my side. And yet, I would marry Ben. Because I knew it was the right move. I was sure he loved me and that had to be just enough for us, because even though I really liked him, he wasn't the man I had lost my heart to.

But the man I actually wanted was no longer "available". He was in a happy relationship, as far as I knew, because contact between us had broken off a while ago. Pretty much a year and a half ago, when he had retired from Formula 1. He had had a low and we had argued, then contact had broken off.

I hated it, because he just meant everything to me.

But I would marry Ben and thus finally close the chapter "Kevin Magnussen". A chapter that was much longer than I would ever admit.

I tried on the next dress, with the help of the saleswoman, and stepped back outside.

Kelly, Gina and Victoria all shook their heads at the same time. So I immediately turned back around and tried on the next dress.

The dress wasn't the problem and I knew it. No matter what I wore, I wouldn't look happy in it, nor would I feel comfortable in it because I just wasn't ready to marry Ben.

But it was the right thing to do.

Everyone liked him.

My parents loved him. Even Uncle Jos was fond of him, and Jos was about the most critical person I knew. So was my cousin Max. He thought Ben was good and that meant something. And when the proposal had come a few months ago at Christmas in the circle of the family, I had said "yes", because I somehow knew that everyone had expected that from me. Yet Ben had actually been more of a distraction for me. It had never been planned that it would become so serious.

And now I was standing in a bridal store trying on dresses. The ring on my finger sparkled. It was a beautiful engagement ring, not quite my taste, but it was, purely objectively, a beautiful ring.

My mom had cried with joy when Ben had put it on my finger.

Everyone had been so happy and I was damn good at living up to my family's expectations. Not that my parents ever pushed me to do anything, but I felt the pressure of being a Schumacher every day.

And while Mick followed the same path as our father and soon started his second Formula 1 season and Gina followed our mother and became a successful dressage rider and horse breeder, I was somehow always the Schumacher who didn't really fit into the picture.

I had raced as a child and teenager, but had never really been able to assert myself, so I had given it up. I had never been particularly good at riding either. I could ride and I was good with horses, but it wasn't my passion.

My passion had always been drawing and painting and as I had gotten older, I had gotten into tattooing and had become a tattoo artist and piercer. My parents had of course supported me in my dream and I had some freedom through the job, which had turned out to be an advantage especially in the last year, because I had been able to go to almost every one of his races with Mick.
I loved my job and had made my own name with it. But I was out of the ordinary and sometimes felt like I just didn't fit into our family.