The Bride of Frankenstein

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Kelsey read from theguardian lifestyle column;
“There's only one way to stop yourself looking like the Bride of Frankenstein at your wedding and that's to break with tradition”

-Ask Hadley

She sensed the writer was most likely referring to the 1935 movie, “the Bride of Frankenstein”.

Knowing it did not stop her mind from wandering and deriving its own interpretation of the words. The words resonated within her.

The quote reminded her of another movie, “Victor Frankenstein” which she had watched recently. There had been a very tall and ugly looking character whose name she could currently not recall.

She interpreted ‘…the Bride of Frankenstein…’ as she could relate to it.

For her, it meant ‘the very ugly bride’.

---

Kelsey had literally broken tradition to stop herself from looking like the bride of Frankenstein at her wedding. That would have been great except for the fact that she suspected that it had been somewhat responsible for her broken engagement, few days to her wedding.

The ‘tradition’ Kelsey broke was “You do not want to mess with any of your in-laws before or even after your wedding”.

Where they came from, the opinion of family members often largely mattered in how a relationship turned out.

---

Kelsey had been engaged to Melvin, her heartthrob for five months. They had been preparing for their wedding which was set to happen in the sixth month of their engagement when Melvin had put a stop to it all. He had ended things and never looked back.

It had been love at first sight for them. They had met in church. Kelsey had been invited to a wedding thanksgiving service by a colleague at work.

After the service, she had been waiting outside to give the couple her love before heading home. The couple was surrounded by well-wishers, so Kelsey had decided to wait her turn leaning against her car.

She had been so engrossed in watching the young couple receive congratulatory hugs and handshakes she had been startled when someone touched her lightly.

---

It was a fine young man in his early thirties trying to get her attention.

He had introduced himself as Melvin and Kelsey had eagerly given him her name. Being tall herself, Kelsey had always liked tall men.

Not only was Melvin taller than her by a few inches, he also filled out the suit he had worn to the church quite nicely. Kelsey expected to swoon if she ever saw him without a shirt. What was more; he had a cute dimpled face and perfectly trimmed beards to match. Just the way Kelsey liked her men.

---

It was not so often such a fine man noticed her.

Kelsey was beautiful; with her pretty face, curvaceous body and long legs, she would attract any man she wanted but handsome well-built men like Melvin were so few and a good number of them were either taken already or married.

She had been very receptive of Melvin’s advances and within a month of their first meeting, they had begun dating.

Melvin was everything she wanted. He was kind and caring to a fault, softly-spoken and never really got angry at her. She had tried a few times to test the limit to his temper.

She had deliberately broken dishes while washing them, kept him waiting for too long on a date and even picked a fight for no reason a few times.

Still, Melvin remained her soft-spoken man. He had told her before he was quite slow to anger and there were quite a few things that got to him. Kelsey had given up after her ‘tests’ failed.

---

Kelsey did witness Melvin’s anger but how could she have known that a wedding dress would play a huge role in it? A wedding dress and a bitter sister in-law she believed.

---

The bigger part of the blame was hers. Melvin had asked her to be honest with him when they had begun dating but she had been unable to bring herself to tell him. As their relationship progressed, Melvin introduced Kelsey to his family at Christmas; his mum and two sisters- Kate and Laura.

Kelsey knew Laura from her school days. They had not been friends but they had had a mutual 'friend', Sandra.

Kelsey had been scared on seeing Laura. She had had no idea Laura was Melvin’s sister. He was not the type to keep photographs around and his phone gallery mostly only contained work-related pictures.

It had bored her the first day she had tried going through it and she had since left it alone. She had been curious as to what his sisters looked like but had not wanted to ask.

That to her, may have struck him as her being too forward, not that he would say it to her face. Kelsey hoped Laura had not recognized her. She loved Melvin too much to lose him.

---

Laura had recognized Kelsey.

She was very good at recalling faces and had seen Kelsey a few times at Sandra’s when they were in school.

Sandra was not really her friend but a lodge mate. They had lived on the same floor of their hostel building back then.

Anyone who had been as close as Kelsey had been to Sandra must have been her accomplice. She knew what Kelsey was or had been and knew she did not want that for her brother.

Where had they even met? She wondered. They did not move in the same circles. They all knew how Sandra had been able to afford living in the elite hostel in which Laura herself had lived.

---

Laura invited Kelsey over on a different day to tell her exactly what she had in mind. She did not think Kelsey should be dating her brother.

Kelsey pleaded with Laura to allow her have her relationship.

According to her, she was not who Laura thought she was and even if she had had a bad past, it was now behind her. She had prayed for a second chance and Melvin was the answer to her prayers.

It took sometime but Laura let Kelsey be, assuring her she would be watching and if she as much as sensed a false move on Kelsey’s part, she would intimate her brother on the life Kelsey had lived while in school.

---

Kelsey had been grateful but had walked on eggshells around Laura ever since.

She did not know how much Laura knew of her past but would not want to find out. Melvin’s mum and elder sister were very nice to her. Laura was the only hitch that even now seemed to be disappearing.

---

Preparations for their wedding were in full swing.

Melvin’s family proved to be very supportive. His mum had paid a wedding planner to give Kelsey the kind of wedding she wanted. Kate was available to help in any way she was needed and Laura had volunteered to gift Kelsey a wedding dress.

They were all being so sweet to her. She was even happier that Laura had moved past her reservations about her.

On Laura’s invitation, Kelsey went for her first dress fitting. When she saw the dress, her smile faltered.

It was nothing like the kind of dress she had expected of Laura who usually had good taste in fashion and even more, far from her dream dress.

She however put on a plastic smile and went along with the dress maker’s every instruction.

---

The dress was ready two weeks to the wedding.

Since her first fitting, Kelsey had kept on thinking how unbecoming she would look in the ugly dress.

Her only sister, Mary was of the opinion that since it was her day, she ought to make everything that was a part of it memorable. She ought to ditch the dress if she did not like it.

Kelsey did not want to remember an ugly dress years from now. She would rather do something about it now that she still could.

So, Kelsey went to see the dressmaker.

She wanted her dress delivered earlier than planned. She would sell it and use the money to buy another one.

She hoped that Laura would not get wind of her plans until she saw her in a different dress on the wedding day.

---

Although Laura had paid the dressmaker in full and introduced Kelsey to her as the bride who would wear it, the dressmaker had still felt obliged to tell Laura of the change in plans.

Angry, Laura wanted to know why and see the finished dress. Kelsey could neither give her an answer nor provide the dress which she had sold just that morning. Laura had been disappointed and accused Kelsey of being the gold-digger she had always suspected she was.

Kelsey had known Laura would be hurt but she had not known it would be to this extent.

Selling the dress did not make her a gold-digger. She planned to use the money to buy another dress.

She was sorry that she had gone behind Laura’s back but Laura would hear none of it and angrily stormed out.

---

Melvin received an anonymously sent package that same evening. Whoever had sent it must have had it out for Kelsey for so long and had finally decided her cup was full or had made a lot of findings in such a short time.

Kelsey had never seen the version of Melvin that came to her house late that night.

He was really angry she had kept such a thing from him. The package contained important information he had no doubts Kelsey had had no plans to tell him before they married.

---

Kelsey had led a bad lifestyle in school.

She could blame it on her poor parent’s inability to cater for her needs but she knew there was no excuse.

She had been advised by Sandra to trade her body for money when it became obvious she would be thrown out of campus for not having paid her fees in a long time. She had needed to support Mary's education too.

Kelsey had had a hard time accepting it but once she had started, she had continued up until shortly before she met Melvin.

She had planned to stop at graduation but losing her womb to an abortion gone wrong in her final year had left her feeling like she had had nothing to lose and so she had carried on. There had always been a problem her salary could not cater to.

---

Melvin had been both angry and disappointed. He had broken their engagement saying they had to put the wedding on hold while he thought of what to do about his recent discovery.

---

That had been over five months ago.

Kelsey knew she had lost him. She knew he had loved her and may have even forgiven her past but for the fact that he wanted kids of his own.

Her past had left an indelible mark on her which was one of the reasons she had stopped each time she had wanted to tell him.

Laura had sworn it was not her who had sent Melvin the package.

She had been angry at Kelsey for switching the wedding dress but would never stoop as low as to sabotage Kelsey’s relationship; she claimed.

Kelsey had not believed her words one bit, not that it mattered anymore.

Laura must have sent the package anonymously to protect her relationship with her brother.

---

Had she made do with the ugly wedding dress Laura had had made for her, perhaps she and Melvin would have been happily married by now.

She was not so sure that their happiness would have lasted. It would have been only a matter of time before her secret was revealed.

The blow would have been much worse if they had married, she had realized.

She had lost Melvin but she still hoped for a second chance; one without secrets and with a beautiful wedding dress somewhere in the mix.

Until then, her work would remain her companion and her primary focus.

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Images were obtained from pixabay

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Original fiction authored by @royalrose

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