Having Your Jelly Baby

Hello guys! So I've returned... again. I know half of you who read this will probably think I'm an idiot, but I hope that you still like this story if you decided to read it. I've mainly just uploaded this for a lovely friend but I hope you're all doing well and leading happy lives! :D Please let me know what you think! Lots of love, River xoxo

Prologue

Let's just say watching the love of your life getting married to your sister is a traumatic experience. That's probably why I sat there during their wedding reception savagely tearing heads off babies with my teeth. Jelly babies, of course, not real ones. I don't believe in cannibalism.

The last few months leading up to the wedding had been spent pretending not to be a completely and utterly devastated wreck. To cut a long story short, my boyfriend of two years had ended up dumping me for my sister Mia after realising that he preferred her, instead - resorting in me being unceremoniously dumped, and subsequently having to function with a heart which had been stomped all over.

'Your teeth are going to rot, you know,' Hannah – one of Mia's other bridesmaids - said, sitting down heavily on a chair beside me after having spent the last hour dancing with a (not totally unattractive) Italian cousin of the groom.

I shot her an irritated glare, ignoring her comment and continuing to take sweet after sweet out of the bag and biting into each one viciously. Now that she had mentioned it, my teeth were kind of starting to hurt.

Stopping mid-chew, I subtly (well, I hoped it was subtly) massaged the side of my jaw facing away from her, before spitting out the congealed mess into a napkin which I abruptly snatched off the table. After a silent minute, I held out the bag to Hannah.

'Want one?'

Hannah visibly recoiled, wrinkling her nose in thinly veiled disgust and shaking her head. 'Er, I'll pass on that offer, thanks. I'm so knackered though, aren't you?' she said with a yawn. Stretching, she crossed one of her legs over the other and propped her elbow up on them, resting her head on her hand as she stared out to the dancefloor.

'Mm,' I agreed, leaning back tiredly on the slightly too hard white chair which was sort of killing my bum. It was sort of to be expected, considering I had been sitting down on it for the last hour, watching people dancing and laughing. Every so often it would become difficult to breathe, and I would have to close my eyes tightly shut and count to ten. Although I probably looked like a total nutter to anyone who caught me doing it, it was the only way I could stop myself from bursting into tears.

I know what you're probably thinking. That I'm a pretty selfish bitch for acting like the moodiest person on the planet at my sister's wedding. It was just that I had spent so long with the biggest, most false grin to ever grace someone's face plastered onto my lips that I was just...exhausted.

I had promised myself that I would only have a massive cry and/or total fit of anger as soon as Mia and Connor's backsides were out in the Maldives, and I was safely in the confines of my own flat. That way, no one had a chance of seeing me have the complete breakdown which had been building up within me for all these months.

Everyone should have been grateful that it hadn't happened yet, and that all they were getting so far were death glares. As soon as the happy couple said their I do's and shared their heartbreakingly happy kiss – when I realised that there really was no going back - I figured that it would be acceptable to let the guise drop and just rot in my misery.

I sounded bitter. (I was.)

It was Hannah's voice which yanked me out of the river of sadness I seemed to start drowning in when I was left with my own thoughts for too long.