Such a Surreal Place

“Ashleigh!” Syn suddenly yelled very urgently. I almost slammed on the brakes, panicking. What was wrong?

“What?” I shouted back, even though he was just a few seats behind me.

“I’ve found our perfect honeymoon destination,” he said at normal volume with a very happy tone in his voice and I continued driving, knowing that no one was suddenly dying.

“That’s great,” I said as I slowed down for a corner. “Where?”

“St Lucia, which is in the Caribbean, I think...” he answered and I dreamt about that for a second. It sounded nice – it was in the Caribbean... “There’s a gorgeous resort there called Jade Mountain, and I seriously think it’s perfect!”

“They have ‘Star’, ‘Moon’ and ‘Sun’ suites, and the ‘Moon’ one seems best for us,” he explained as I listened attentively. “And guess what? It even fits our budget!”

“Wow, good job, babe,” I complimented him, imagining him smiling. He was so adorable when he smiled...

“And it gets better... They have infinity pools!” he exclaimed, clearly excited about this. “And you can go scuba diving, and go for bike rides, and play tennis, and go kayaking, and do yoga, and just so much more!” I giggled at his utter excitement.

“You need a chill pill,” I told him as he joined me up the front of the bus.

“Sooo... What do you think?” he asked as he leaned against the dashboard.

“I think I’ll look at your brochure, then we’ll go on the internet, and then I’ll make a decision,” I replied and he sighed quietly. “But it’ll probably be a yes. If you like it so much, it must be great, right?”

“Well, I think it would be perfect for us,” he said with a smile. “How long would you want to go for?”

“How many nights does our budget let us go for?” I questioned and he flipped the brochure open and thought for a second in his head.

“Um... 4 nights and have spending money, I think,” he answered and I nodded. “But then again, I’m not that good at maths...”

“Hey, it sounds great,” I said and he beamed. He gave me a kiss on my cheek.

“Once you stop driving, we’ll talk about it more, okay?” he asked, but he walked away, not needing an answer. Once I stopped driving, we researched the destination and it seemed pretty much perfect, so I let him book us a ‘Moon’ room for 4 nights (yes, he did his maths fine). Then we somehow found a suitable photographer, and we also booked them for our big day. After we’d just finished planning those things, I got a call from my mother...

“Hey Mom!” I said cheerfully.

“Ashleigh! Who is this ‘Brian’?” she demanded angrily and my face fell. She’d obviously got the wedding invitation... “You could’ve brought him home a few times before you decided to get married to him!”

“Mom... I-I’m sorry?” I stuttered, but I don’t think she heard me. Syn motioned for me to put her on speaker, so after quickly checking for his band members, I did.

“He’s not another rock star is he?” she questioned and my face fell. That wasn’t a good opening line for poor Syn.

“Yes he is, Mom,” I sighed and I could almost imagine her rolling her eyes at me.

“So that means he’s got jet black hair, tattoos, piercings, dresses in all black, drinks alcohol and does drugs huh?” she asked and now I rolled me eyes. Unfortunately, she’d got a pretty much perfect image of my fiancé.

“Yes. That’s him,” I said quietly, wincing as I waited for her response.

“What’s his rock star name? I’ll look him up on my Google!” she started screeching and I noticed Syn laughing quietly at her. She thought she was ‘all that’ when it came to technology, but she really wasn’t... “What is it?”

“Synyster Gates,” I replied. “With y’s instead of i’s in Synyster.” I paused, hearing her typing it in and then pressing enter and waiting for it to load. It was only then that I looked back at Syn, who had out the band’s laptop and was doing the same. He pushed it over to me and now I could see what my mother was seeing. I put my arm around him and I scrolled down. Oh crap. At the bottom, the very last image displayed on the page, was a pic of me and him at the awards show we attended ages ago. Both of us were holding our awards (Syn must’ve stolen his from Matt), we were both smiling like we were having so much fun together, and boy did Syn look gorgeous! But despite our good looks, I knew my mother would NOT approve of me being seen in public with this rock star.

“You looked amazing in that dress,” Brian whispered into my ear and I smiled at him as I felt my stomach go all funny again.

“Oh my God Ashleigh... You can’t be engaged to that!” my mother suddenly exclaimed and I frowned at her calling of Brian as ‘that’.

“Mom! What’s wrong with his image?” I questioned, but I was drowned out by her shouting (yet another) question at me.

“Ashleigh! There’s a picture of you with him!” she exclaimed. Well no frickin’ duh Mom, of course there will be a pic of me and him together. We’ve been a couple for a while now. “Oh no, what have you done?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, totally confused. Brian clicked the next option and a whole new page of images loaded.

“Oh, shit... That’s not gonna look good...” he muttered and I looked at the laptop. I instantly noticed what image he was swearing about. There was a pic of him and another girl in between his father. That looked like a family pic, as in she would be his girlfriend. Or in this case, his ex-girlfriend.