Permanent Memories

Olivia

I'm getting married in two weeks. Fourteen days. The guy I'm getting married to is in a band and we have been together for 5 and a half years, ever since I moved to Sydney six years ago to escape the tragedy that is my parents. He is the best thing to ever happen to me, I actually can't believe I'm marrying him.

All of these thoughts are running through my mind as I am driving to Melbourne to pick up my wedding dress. I don't trust the company posting it so I'm driving nine hours to go pick it up. My fiance is staying home and babysitting the dog and cat while I'm gone, as I have convinced him too, yet he insists on talking to me the whole way there.

He helps me put bags, a couple snacks and a bottle of water onto the front seat warning me to stay safe and drive slowly and carefully past the road works between Sydney and Melbourne.

He hugs me goodbye, kisses my cheek and watches me reverse out the driveway.Five minutes down the road, my phone buzzes. I pull over and look at the screen"Prince Charming" flashes across the screen.

I smile and answer it. We talk for about an hour and I get to the first lot of road works. We go silent for the few minutes I'm driving through them. It's as if he is holding his breath. So quiet that I thought my phone had died or he had accidentally hung up. I have a momentary freak out after finally exiting the road works until I hear him curse at the cat for scratching his leg. I laugh at him and tell him he can talk again.

***

I stop at a service station and unplug my phone. I tell my fiance that I'll be back shortly. He makes some puppy pouty noise that makes me laugh as I promise my love to him and hang up.

After filling up my car I go inside the small building to pay for my fuel and a Kit Kat bar. As soon as I get in the car my phone rings. With my mouth full of Kit Kat, I answer and listen to my soon-to-be husband go on and on about how, in the time it took me to hang up, refuel the car, and pay, the dog peed in the pool.

He goes through quiet stages where he just sat in silence, wanting to still feel close, and that if he wanted to talk he could.

***

I stop at a service station for lunch and I hang up abruptly on him, cutting him off from his whining.

He starts babbling on about the wedding and how excited he is to see his family. When I ask about my family he goes into a full football commentator. He won't shut up about them.

"I don't understand why he has to be there, he hasn't been there for thirteen years of your life Olivia." I hear his voice through the Bluetooth.

"It doesn't matter, he is my father, I am his daughter, surely he wants to see me walk down the aisle." I say looking at my phone momentarily as if it was actually him.

"Yeah, but Liv, he missed out on over half your life, and you're inviting him to the wedding." He growls down the line. "He makes my blood boil."

"I know, babe. Relax okay? I'm mad at him too, if he wants to come, he can, if he doesn't show I won't be upset." I lie, of course I'll be upset if my own father won't be at my wedding.

My parents always used to fight, I was an accident. Something that happened in college, that wasn't meant to happen. This is how I happened;

Alcohol + Vanessa (my mom) + Ryan (my dad) – Contraception = Me (Olivia).

My mom sat me down one day and told me I was an accident. I was nine. I remember her talking to me about it, I cried for a week. I was a spring break accident. A stupid drunken mistake and I swore to her that day, as soon as I turned eighteen I would be leaving America to go to Australia to get as far away from my messed up family as possible.