Stumped (page six)-The Wedding

Penelope skipped inside her father's 20 million dollar home and changed into a casual but simply stunning joggers outfit. She had changed clothes faster than any woman Adam had ever seen. She threw on her striped pink runner's jacket and hot pink jogger shorts that appeared to have been custom made by Puma for Aphrodite herself. Perhaps that is why the word "Aphrodite" was written on the back of her shorts, with the "Aphr" written on her left gluteal muscles, an "o" logically placed in the center, and "dite" placed on the side that Adam had pictured in his right hand.
Penelope came half jogging out of the bathroom and shook the remaining water droplets from her hair with a playful toss.

"Alright cowboy. Let's go crash a wedding."

Adam couldn't believe how well things had started to work out. People were helping him. A beautiful young girl was actually giving him the time of day. 'What day is it?' he thought to himself. Didn't matter. The wedding was the last challenge. If he could accomplish-decomlish?-subcomplish?- well, whatever it was when you successfully foil someone else's happiness, that is all he needed to do to feel complete, to feel powerful, to feel important.
Penelope had been running much faster than she knew Adam was capable of in his injured conditioned, but Adam assumed that it was her only giving him proper motivation to complete his task, kind of like tough love. Adam didn't know how many blocks they had already run. There weren't actual blocks to be counting. Every property was practically its own country. After his breath had almost completely left him, and nearly all of his scabs had fallen off, Penelope had slowed her jog to a brisk walk and stopped quite contentedly at the end of a long walkway to a modest (for the neighborhood's standards) brick house.
While Adam had been painfully making his way step by step up the sloped walkway, a very annoyed woman had answered the front door blowing smoke at the face of the young smiling Penelope.

"What," said the lanky and frizzle haired woman.

Penelope just squinted her eyes at the cloud of smoke and pulled a piece of bubble gum from her jacket pocket and popped it into her mouth.

"Umm, my brother and I are here for the wedding." She pointed down at Adam still coughing and spitting his way up the drive-way.

"See, that's him. Sorry if we're late. We just got our invita-"

"Don't care. Whatever. It's my cousins wedding. I'm just here for the free booze anyway."

The tall tree branch of a woman swayed to the side to let the two into a house she felt way too comfortable in. As Adam made his way to the door. Her eyes popped open and a gasp of air had pulled cigarette ash into her mouth. She blew the ash back out with a startling, "SHIT!"
Adam looked up hoping to see the surprised look on Sally Armstrong's face. 'HA,' he thought as he pulled his head up from an extreme slouching position. He fell unprepared into the eyes of that mean stubborn bitch Wendy Dossimer.

'Shit!' he thought, then "SHIT!" he said.

The two were locked in a death stare that would have frightened Satan. Wendy finally snapped out of it and turned her face toward the inside of the house.

"Nope, Nope. Don't let this one in. He's tryin' to crash the party. Nope not comin' in mister."

Her voice became louder with each syllable. It was frightening Adam. He had to think fast. Think on his feet. He wasn't about to let this woman make him a failure. Not again. He had to stop that wedding. No matter what. No matter what the cost. Before the next word could spill from her thin horrible mouth he struck at it with the last ounce of strength he had.
It felt good. Not necessarily hitting a woman felt good, but hitting anything. Adam never had the chance to actually punch anyone in the face before. It was amazing. She spun like a top. It was just like in the movies. He needed to take action and he did. And for once it actually worked. She was now silent/knocked out and all he had to do was step over her and confess his love for -?

'Wait,' he thought.

'I don't even think I DO love Sally. I mean an hour ago I was thinking of fucking Penelope. Ok, ok ok, ok ok. Wait, just-well, hummph. Well, why am I here again? Oh no. OOOOOH no. I'm not doing this to myself again. I'm just trying to get out of an obligation. Just tryin' to talk myself out of it. Nope. Nope. I came here for a reason and I'm following through with it. I'm stopping this wedding.'

Adam went immediately for the backyard assuming that Sally would be the type to impress everyone with her sensibility in having a home-style backyard wedding. Penelope had been by the punch bowl (yes, there actually was a punch bowl), talking to another young man about a band Adam had never heard of before. Sally had been rounding up the troops (brides maids), to the altar where the ceremony was about to take place. Adam began sweating again in anticipation. He didn't know what to do. He hadn't planned it this far. He never thought he would get this far. The anxiety was about to rip the heart out of his chest and send it screaming. He had made it past Wendy, he could handle this.
He approached Sally with ease and caution. He didn't know what would happen but he had confidence that it would come to him like a bolt of lightening.

"Adam! So good you could make it. Ooooh, looks like you've had it a bit rough." She dusted off his shoulders patting off the dust from his ripped sleeves and inflaming his already yellowed bruises. "Well, have a seat now, it's about to start." Her eyes gleamed and she squinted with that same joyful youth he had seen in Penelope's eyes earlier. "Aren't you so excited?"

As she moved past Adam's gaping jaw in her over sized wedding dress, something had come to him.

"Sally." She turned around quickly and naturally like a feather in the wind to greet his face with a smile. "I don't love you Sally. Tell you the truth, I really couldn't give a fuck about you, but you know? I never had the balls to say it. So, yeah, there ya' go."

Sally washed the smile off her face and picked up some speed as she began storming toward Adam. "You came all the way here just to tell me that, you slimy shit?" As she advanced more and more, Adam tried to remain calm.

"Well, yeah."

With that, Sally had reeled back and clocked Adam on the jaw with the force of cement truck; a cement truck that just had it's wedding ruined. Adam spun around in a circle, also just like in the movies, and fell to the ground with his bloody mouth full of dirt once again.

Wendy had since come to, and found herself staring over Adam's pathetic body once again, breathing rapid and very weak, much like an infant.

"Well, well. What'd'ya know? Ain't this somethin' funny."

'And it is,' Adam thought.

"I told you asshole. Next time, I ain't helpin'. So, Fuck you and the horse you rode in on." Or, "the plane," which she thought of later and realized would have added insult to injury and would have been a lot funnier, but, she still felt that was pretty good. She did after all, end with an accurate spitting onto Adam's neck. "Later dick-hole."

Adam laid there for anywhere between 5 minutes and forever tasting dirt and blood in his mouth. His head pounded as the sound of a keyboard played Mendelssohn's 'Wedding March.' "Dun-dun-dun dun- Dun-Dun-dun dun." Penelope could be seen from the corner of his left upper peripherals walking out of the house with that nice young man, discussing music and concerts they have been to. Her cute bottom bounced as she turned to look for Adam one last time, chewing her gum and forgetting all about him with one shrug of her shoulders.

'This isn't so bad,' he thought. 'Once you get used to it.'


THE END