Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)

Happy bride my ass. I was so consumed with my work on the album that we finished the final track, at least five weeks had passed since that moment I had with Adam. My fingers were sore from all the guitar playing and drumming that I had done. With my baby belly was getting more impossible to hide and having to find more clothes evermore frequently, the dress that Debbie had originally found for me but didn't bother to let me know that she had put on hold, had to be adjusted slightly to make room for the unknown.

We were at the bridal store were she was making me trying on a Vera Wang dress. The most common phrase about Vera Wang dresses was that "Vera Wang doesn't fit you, you fit Vera Wang." The attendants kept on quoting it to me as pulled at the dress around my slightly protruding stomach. Debbie managed to get the dress zipped up, but it hugged me tightly there as well as making my breasts look larger than I would've liked and pulling them to tight against my chest. I groaned as I looked at myself in the mirror, Debbie hovering near me with a glass of champagne. I just wanted to postpone this wedding until I had my children but I knew that wasn't going to happen with Debbie here to help and already had payed for much of what we, Debbie, had planned.

"You look really pretty," Debbie said, pulling at the dress so that I looked a little better.

"You're just saying that," I whined, turning from the mirror and sitting down on the chair by the mirror with a humph. "I want to look decent in this dress but with these two children that I have within me, anything I ear shows them clearly."

"You're about what, three months into your pregnancy now?" Debbie said. "It's like this wasn't expected."

"I wanted to wait until after they were born, after the tours and the showcasing of the new album," I said, my hands resting upon my stomach.

"Stop getting cold feet," Debbie said. "You're getting this dress because it makes you look like the sexiest thing on this planet and you're just bound to get boned multiple times by my brother on your wedding night."

"Thanks for cheering me up but I don't think it's working," I sighed, getting up from the seat and heading back to the changing room, feeling the dress pulling at me as I moved. "The dress is a no go."

"If you don't by the dress, I think I might just have to," said a heavily accented voice from behind me as I as about to pull the curtain across the dressing room.

I turned around to see an asian woman standing where with a large smile across her face. Her face seemed familiar but didn't click so I decided to ask, "You are very welcome to have the dress once I'm out of it but who are you?"

"Some might call me the bridal gown queen," she said as she motioned for me to go to her and I did so. "You must be Kassandra. Your friend, Debbie, was very adamant to find the perfect dress for you."

I almost gasped when she said that but I remained quiet as she made me turn around and adjusted the dress around my stomach, making it looser so that it fit snugly around my baby belly. She then also adjusted the bust line so that it didn't hurt so, the black material underneath it keeping it in place. When Vera led me back to the mirror with Debbie hovering in the distance and her lips pressed against the champagne glass, the dress almost suited me perfectly but I stilled noted the imperfections in myself even though I promised myself that I would stop criticising my self worth. I tried my hardest to push all the lack of confidence out of my mind and turned to the side to study the dress from a different angle.

"That is much better, don't you think?" Vera said, smoothing out some of the crinkles. "You're friend seemed to have pulled it too tightly around you, causing you to feel very uncomfortable and look worse in the dress when it should have made you look beautiful."

I almost laughed when I saw Debbie skulking the rest of her drink, and said to Vera, "Are you on the guest list? Because I would love you to be there."

"You're lucky I am," Vera said with a smile as I turned to her. "If anything went wrong with the dress upon the day, I would doubt you would call upon your friend here or your husband for that matter, it would just ruin the surprise."

"I consider myself luck that you appeared when you did otherwise I would have walked out of here without a wedding dress," I said and hugged her tightly.

"You are most welcome," she said as she helped me back to my dressing room. "And if you are going to wear heels, I suggest the ones I put in there for you."

I turned to look in the corner of the dressing room and found the shoes she was talking about. When I turned back to Vera to thank her, she had disappeared and I was left with a half drunk Debbie who was downing her third drink. I rolled my eyes at this, closing the curtain to the changing room and began unzipping myself form the dress. As I was slipping on a pair of leggings and my boots, my mobile began to ring that made me swore underneath my breath. I scrambled through my clothing on the ground and pulled it out, seeing Tommy's name upon the screen. Sighing, I answered the call.

"Yes, honey," I said, picking up a long off the shoulder top and thick jacket.

"You're late."

"For what?" I said awkwardly as I slipped on the rest of my clothing.

"Dance class, duh."

"Fucking shit," I said, rushing out of the changing room to the counter were I motioned to the attendant that I wanted to pay for the dress that Debbie was drunkenly pulling out of the changing room. "Oh, and can you tell your sister that she clearly has a drinking problem when I get there? Because she's had about five drinks since we've been here."

"Yeah, I kinda forgot to mention that. Make sure she doesn't have anymore for me?"

As the young girl that worked at the store stored the dress in a protective hanger, Debbie took another glass of Champagne from a girl passing by with a plateful. I rolled my eyes and took the drink from her, draining the glass myself. She gave me a protesting look as I pointed towards the car and she stormed off with a sour glance back at me as she waited on the street, saying to Tommy, "Disaster averted."

"By you drinking the glass of wine? I don't want you turning up to class more than 'just a little' intoxicated."

I gave my card to the girl behind the desk and she swiped it, pressing the buttons she needed so I only had to sign and she gave me back my card, saying over the phone, "I love how much you care for me but I have this rule: if you touch it, you eat it."

"Does that apply to the time when Camilla…"

"No," I said, thanking the girl behind the desk and taking the dress. "That does not apply to when Camilla gave you a blow job." The girl looked at me strangely as I waved her off and I went to the car to put the dress in the back, making sure that it didn't have any creases in it. "That was clearly a test of our relationship and besides, I touched and claimed you first."

"Whatever you say, just get your cute little behind over here."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

By the time that Debbie and I had gotten to the rehearsal studios, Debbie had completely passed out and it took a while to actually get her awake. I pinched her, prodded her and hit her across the face. Don't worry, it's not like it was hard but it managed to get her awake. She looked around expectantly as I pulled her out of the car and locked it behind her, rushing into the rehearsal studios that happened to be a very simple and bare room with a floor to roof mirror and a ballet bar in front of it. There were a few seats littered on the side, Adam sitting in one while Tommy looked out the window.

I ushered Debbie to one of the seats beside Adam and went to whisper in his ear, "Look after her for me, she's just had one drink too many. Thanks."

Adam laughed as I dumped my belongings on the ground beside him and pulled out a pair of high heels, switching the shoes that I had on for those. I stumbled across the floor to Tommy, placing my hands upon his shoulders to steady myself. I made it look like I was leaning over his shoulder to kiss him on the cheek but he only laughed and turned around to me. He took me by the waist and drew me in, kissing me lightly upon the lips. I felt the stickiness of his lipgloss attaching itself to my lips, tasting its sweetness as we broke apart. He rested his hand large hand upon my stomach, rubbing it slightly. It as the first time we had done this and it made me blush with embarrassment as he fell to his knees.

"Hows my babies going?" he said, talking softly to my stomach. "I can't wait to see you little ones, to see how beautiful you are and to see if you are as magical as your mother."

"Will Mr. and Mrs. Ratliff please take the floor?" said a voice from behind me, taking note it was the voice of the dance instructor.

"Come on, Tommy, we have a lesson to get to," I said, taking his hands as he stood and almost laughed as, even with my heels on that I could hardly walk in, he was the same height as me. "Are you wearing platforms?"

"What lies do you speak of?" he said with a smile as we walked into the middle of the dance floor to the instructor.

"Take your positions, bride and groom, for the first dance as husband and wife," the instructor said who moved across the room and played the music to the positions that Tommy and I held.

We stumbled a few times, still, but I forced myself to keep us going knowing that we only had a week to go before the day came were we would actually have to perform this. If I had the option of whether I could dance at the wedding or not, I would choose the latter. I could play the music that others could dance to but I could not dance to it myself. It was quite pathetic, really. Tommy, I could see, was struggling too, but we pulled through.

By the time we finished with heavy breaths and close to each other as Tommy dipped me down with his nose trailing up my chest, along my collarbone and finishing with his lips hovering above my own, I could feel him shaking. I was guessing it was with the intensity he was dancing and not the fact that he struggled to keep me in that position, I was hoping. After a few seconds, he pulled me up and we turned to the dance teacher who held a discontent look. My heart dropped as I knew we had failed at some step along the way. I glanced to Adam and Debbie who stared sat us, completely amazed.

"It's still not perfect, is it?" I said to the instructor.

"It will never be perfect," he said, moving towards us. "You are musicians, not dancers. All the couples that come here are not expected to have any previous experience in dancing but I at least expected you both to have some rhythm."

"A little harsh, don't you think?" Debbie said in her drunken state and I stiffened, worried at what she might say. "That was amazing!"

"To the individual, they would seem quite talented," the instructor said with narrowed eyes Debbie. "But they are not yet perfect."

"But they're damn well close to it," Debbie said, standing from her seat and swaying dangerously. Adam stood from his own seat and helped steady Debbie as she made her way over to the instructor. "Give us the track and we will be going."

"They still have two more lessons before the day and I expect full compensation for those lessons if they do not wish to continue," the instructor said and Debbie slapped him hard across the face, making me jump.

"They will not be continuing with those lessons and you will definitely not be getting full compensation for those lessons," Debbie said, swaying dangerously once more and if it weren't for Adam, she would have fallen. She took the disc from the player and held onto it as tightly as she was holding not Adam. "Good day, sir." She looked to Tommy and I. "Let's go. We have better places to be."

As Debbie lead Adam out of the room, he glanced back at us, pointed to her and mouthed, "I love her."

Tommy gave Adam the middle finger as we walked to the chair that Adam had vacated and I picked up my things. We followed Adam and Debbie out of the room, giving the instructor a sarcastic wave goodbye. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, we found Debbie against the wall and throwing up. Adam had a disgusted look upon his face as he stood a fair distance from Debbie. Tommy groaned at the sight and went to his sister, trying to help her as much as he could. I stumbled over to Adam, holding on to his arm to steady myself in the heels as I kicked them off and picked them up in my spare hand. I glanced up at Adam, asking, "Where's your love for her now?"

"Shut up," he said to me, moving to his car that was parked a few up from mine. "I don't want her in my car, so that means you're coming with me."

"I feel bad for ditching her," I said as Adam grabbed onto my wrist and dragged me down the street.

"Too bad, so sad," he said as I threw the keys to Tommy who held his hand up in the eye and caught the keys in mid air.

"Good catch, love!" I said as we reached Adam's car. I wandered to the passenger seat of Adam's car and searched for the boots I had on earlier. Adam got into the car and started it up. "So much for practicing your dance."

"I wasn't exactly planning on actually doing that with Debbie," Adam said as we headed off home.

"So I wasted my money on something you didn't even appreciate," I said as I pulled on my shoes and chucked my heels into the bag. "That's like me saying I don't want to wear those shoes during the dance."

"I get your point," Adam said. "In my opinion, though, I don't think you should wear those shoes during the dance. That's the downfall that the instructor was talking about."

"Now that you say that, I think so too," I said as we pulled up into the driveway.

The house was already looking like something crazy as we began preparations for the wedding. I wanted something small but I unfortunately convinced otherwise to have something extravagant as this. It was mainly Debbie's concoction along with some help from Adam. A week out, bits and pieces were being brought into the house to be stored until the big day. There was extra hands it he garden as flowers and plants were being embedded into the garden so they would bloom by the end of the week. Adam and I walked through the streams of people.

I split off from Adam, saying that I wanted to get changed into something more comfortable while he went to the lounge room. I walked back out to the front door when he went out of sight and found Tommy getting out of his car with Debbie by his side. I rushed down to the passenger door and helped carry her out of the car towards the one of the many guest bedrooms I had let her stay in while she was here. I found something she could change into, Tommy by my side to help me. By the time we had settled Debbie into the bed, we were exhausted once more and left the room. I motioned for him to follow me back into the bedroom where I told him I wanted to speak to him.

"What's up," he said as I peeled off my clothing and put it in the pile to be washed.

"Have you thought about the honeymoon?" I said as I peeled off all my clothes, throwing them in the pile by the door and throwing my boots into the wardrobe. I was dressed only in my underwear.

"I thought the tour might be our honeymoon," Tommy said as I walked into the bathroom and started up the shower.

"How romantic," I said sarcastically as Tommy joined me in the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

"It could be, if you think about it," he said as he stood behind me and peeled off my panties, letting them drop to the floor. "I'll get us a separate room where we could be…alone." He pulled me roughly against him, his hands hovering in areas he hadn't been in a while. "It could be our little secret romance we could tell to our kids."

"Speaking of kids," I said as I peeled off my bra and stepped into the shower with Tommy following me. "If we have our little romance on tour and we try to, you know, do it, what will happen to our kids."

"They can stay with Adam for the night," he said as we both ran our hands through our hair in sync to wet it.

"That will be like every night without their mother," I said. "I would like a time where it can just be us constantly and not a time where we have to worry about our children."

"A trip to mexico, then," Tommy suggested as he reached down to the shampoo and put some in his hand as he massaged it into my head. "How does that sound?"

"Better," I said as Tommy let the shampoo wash out of my hair and I turned to him in the meantime to wash his hair. "It might have to wait until we finish the tour so we can have sometime alone with my original body back."

"There are certain aspects of this one I like, though," he said as he let his hands run over my body, his hands resting upon spots where he loved me physically. "You're practically glowing"

"And you're about as deep as a thumbtack," I said, grabbing the conditioner and running it through my hair.

"I'm so glad that I'm making the decision to marry you," Tommy said, taking the conditioner from me. "I think we could get along well."

I rolled my eyes as I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around me, tying up my hair as I took my underwear with me into the other room. I threw my underwear into the other room with the rest of the clothes that had to be throw into the wash and began to pull something on that I considered comfortable. Track pants, a long sleeved top as well as one of Tommy's shirts were slipped on over a fresh pair of underwear. When Tommy stepped out of the bathroom, he moaned about how he wanted to wear that shirt but eventually found something else he could wear along with my help. As he stood topless in my room, the water glistening off his back, I kissed him along the shoulder blades and running my hands along his back. He slipped his shirt over his head and turned to me, my hands still touching the skin underneath. He kissed me lightly, his hands hovering over my body. The heat was growing between us, the intensity holding back by a thread. I could feel my heart beating in my chest as I almost fell into his beautiful embrace.