It’s definitely a mistake to have worn the dress to the airport. Alana knows that the second she walks past the terminal’s Wetherspoons – rammed at 5.30am – and is greeted by a chorus of “Lost your groom, love?” by a bunch of drunk stags in matching T-shirts. But once she’d squirmed herself into the ultra-fitted dress at home – one last try to see if it would evoke the feelings she knew she was supposed to be feeling today – she couldn’t get it off again. The more she’d twisted to reach the tiny buttons that ran down its delicate back, the more she’d sweated and the material had stuck, imprisoning her. So now here she is, at Stansted Airport, in an ice-white strapless mermaid gown.
Having bolted from the wedding ceremony that’s scheduled to happen in eight hours’ time, she’s relinquished the right to any help with a tricky dress-fastening and to the person who does – did – those little kindnesses that become part and parcel of a long-term relationship. No one says in their Tinder profile: “Looking
