Dumped, Actually
Nick Spalding
CHAPTER ONE
MAN PROPOSES, WOMAN DISPOSES
‘Will you marry me?’
I look up into Samantha’s eyes, and see tears of sublime happiness forming in them.
Behind us, the jazz band has stopped playing, on cue, awaiting her answer. The crowd that have formed around us hold their breath, expectant looks writ large across their faces.
The sun bathes the entire plaza in its warm and comforting light, and there’s a happy breeze teasing Samantha’s blonde hair, which frames the smile that she has on her face exquisitely. It’s like something out of the best romantic comedy you’ve ever seen – only it’s real and it’s happening to me.
‘Yes, Ollie,’ she says breathlessly. ‘Of course I’ll marry you!’
A cheer goes up from the crowd, the band start to play the wedding march and I embrace my new fiancée, spinning her around, as we both laugh and cry with the joy that fills our hearts.
It’s the perfect moment, in the perfect day.
I couldn’t be happier.
Roll credits.
‘Lauren, don’t wipe bogies on that man’s leg.’
My glorious daydream is instantly shattered as I look down to see a pudgy finger covered in green-and-brown jelly coming ever closer to my jeans.
With a mild cry of revulsion, I step back out of range of the snot-covered digit.
‘Ow! Ollie!’ Samantha exclaims from beside me in the queue. ‘You stepped on my foot!’
‘Sorry, sweetheart!’ I cry, giving the bogey-wielding child a dark look.
The mother, well aware of the horror her offspring is about to inflict on my brand-new skinny jeans, pulls Lauren away, with an apologetic expression on her face.
Luckily for all concerned, the queue starts to move forward again, and Lauren and her snotty finger are taken well out of my personal space. I pity the poor person that Lauren eventually attaches that slimy mess to. It looks like the kind of thing that will take several hot washes to get out, and possibly several bars of anti-bacterial soap if it gets near the skin.
Speaking of hot – the sweat running down my face is testament to the unseasonable weather we’re currently experiencing in the long queue for entry into Thorn Manor, the country’s newest and most exciting theme park.
I gaze again at my girlfriend, who seems to have got over my moment of clumsiness and looks eager and excited about the day ahead.
Samantha’s love of theme parks is absolutely adorable. We’ve spent many long and happy days visiting the best of the bunch around the UK, trying out the rides, eating far too much junk food and probably spending way too long in queues like this one.
This is Thorn Manor’s opening day, and it is gleaming with corporate freshness. Like a brand-new toy still in its box, desperate to be played with for the first time.
What better way to celebrate Samantha’s twenty-ninth birthday than a day spent here?
And what better place could there be for me to get down on bended knee and ask her to marry me?
It’s just perfect.
When I managed to score tickets to Thorn Manor’s opening day, I knew that it was just too good an opportunity to pass up. The serendipity of it opening on Samantha’s birthday was the kind of thing that could make you believe that there actually was a God, and that He had an innate sense of good timing.
I couldn’t have scripted it better if I’d tried.
It took me weeks to work out the best way to propose, and several more weeks to get everything in place for it. The management of the theme park were more than happy to help out, I’m pleased to say. They leapt at the chance to have a marriage proposal happen on their grand opening. The positive PR will be magnificent for them.
Letting Samantha and me be among the first to try out their new rollercoaster, ‘The Blitzer’, was extremely kind of them as well. As was allowing the band I’ve hired to be waiting for us at the end of the ride, after we get off it.
It’s all been timed down to the minute.
The Blitzer’s first loop around the track will happen at midday. It will slow to a halt in front of the ride’s broad plaza three minutes later. When Samantha and I get off the coaster, the band will start to play everybody’s favourite piano power ballad from a few years ago, ‘All of Me’, which is Samantha’s absolute favourite.
Then I will take the 24-carat-gold diamond ring from the top pocket of the waistcoat the trumpet player is wearing and get down on one knee to ask Samantha to be my wife.
It will be wonderful.
It will be epic.
It will be perfect.
It had better be, anyway – the amount of money and time I’ve spent arranging all of this would make you sick. My credit card bill and the bags under my eyes are both gigantic, and unlikely to fade any time soon.
Never mind, it’ll all be worth it once I hear her say yes!
And I am absolutely positive she will say yes. We’ve been together long enough that I know how she feels about me. After all this time, I know Samantha very well, and I’m sure that she’s as ready to take this next step in our relationship as I am. Our love for one another is very strong. She is most definitely ‘the one’. I have no doubt about it whatsoever.
‘Bloody hell, it’s boiling,’ Samantha says with a gasp, pulling her vest top away from her midriff.