Chapter Text
Dan had never imagined himself getting married. He would sit with his childhood best friend Rebecca as she played with her dolls, dressing Barbie in white and Ken typically in the clothes he was pulled out the box in. She would make them say their vows, as accurately as a seven year old girl can remember them from watching a second cousins wedding over the summer holidays, and end the ceremony by smushing the dolls faces together in an effort to make them kiss. Dan didn’t see the appeal. Him and Rebecca were attached at the hip, and children at school had coined them boyfriend and girlfriend, throwing playground taunts of babies and weddings, while the girls would ask if they could be their bridesmaid. These interactions would always leave Rebecca beaming from ear to ear, whereas Dan would be left trailing behind, blushing. As they reached secondary school, Dan watched his friends explore their high school crushes, flirting with each other and stealing kisses behind the bike shed. But Dan didn’t have any crushes, he didn’t have any kisses in between science and drama. Instead, he had Rebecca. She had remained by his side since infancy, their lives intertwined via the friendship their mothers shared. So, when Rebecca started twirling her blonde curly hair and giggling at all of Dan’s jokes even when they weren’t funny enough to warrant such a reaction, Dan felt as though she was his only choice. She eventually got tired of the consistent, non reciprocated flirting and asked Dan if he liked her. Backed into a corner, with pressure from his friends and the overwhelming push to be liked at school, Dan said yes. She was pretty, he supposed, popular too, and they already knew everything about each other.
When the time arrived for them to choose universities, it only made sense that they attended the same one. They had never been without each other, and although Rebecca thrived in her social circles, Dan felt as though he would be lost if he wasn’t by her side. She was all he had ever known. During their time at the University of Manchester, they had ended up in the same accommodation as each other. Rebecca made a surplus of friends on her nursing course, however, Dan opted to steer clear of his peers on his English language course, and went on to complete his PGCE without being noticed by his classmates. It was only natural, of course, it had been the same throughout their lives so far. Rebecca was the popular one, Dan was her little lost puppy.
When graduation rolled around, their next step was to move in together. Rebecca had come from a wealthy background, and her family had offered to pay for the couple to move in together while they found their feet in their careers. Dan hated this, but with the little money he earned at Costa at the weekends, he had no choice. As time went by, the couple had managed to pay their own way, but with neither teaching or nursing bringing in much money, and Rebecca’s tendency to overspend, they found themselves falling back onto the security of Rebecca’s family money. Every time Rebecca came home with an extravagant purchase regardless of their budget, the two would argue. But still, she was all Dan had ever known, and with this weighing on him, he would forgive her.
With their twenties rolling by, Dan and Rebecca were attending increasingly more weddings as time went on. They were all Rebecca’s friends of course. Dan would sit in his suit and tie and watch as Rebecca jumped for every bouquet, followed by heavy sighs and longing eyes every time she didn’t catch it. Their families had begun to ask when they were going to get married, and as time went by, it seemed less and less of a joking query every time. Rebecca was dropping hints at every turn of her hope for a proposal, for a wedding. Every time they visited their local shopping centre, she would slow her pace at every jewellery shop and would take a moment to glance at the wedding dresses in the window of the bridal shop. She would show him rings she liked, wedding venues she had found and had begun talking about where she wanted their honeymoon to be. And so, with the increasing pressure of Rebecca’s longing and their families insistent questions, he popped the question. Dan had originally intended to propose at her favourite restaurant, however, upon telling her family that he was going to propose, they insisted that it should be in a better setting. They gave Dan the money to pay for a trip to Paris, leading to him getting down on one knee at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Rebecca had immediately realised what was going on when Dan was nervous on the way up, and so as Dan kneeled down, Rebecca had shrieked and practically snatched the ring from him. But still, as the couple kissed under the moonlight, Dan still could not imagine himself getting married.
It’s not that he didn’t want to get married. He’d had dreams about it, of course, of himself standing at the altar in a far too stiff suit with straightened hair to match. Dan would shift a bit, nervous and uncomfortable that all the attention was on him. The doors to the church would open to reveal the woman he was marrying. The catch, however, is that the woman would always be void of a face. In the places where soft features should lie, where eyes and a nose and a mouth always are, there lay nothing but a black hole.