I took the next week off cause I knew that well, I'd be unusable at work. It's better to have lovesickness than being sick without love, this became my mantra, but the wise phrases like this never seem to help whenever you are in this position. I haven't seen Adri for days, and it slowly drove me crazy. I held a staring competition with my phone, waiting for her call, but I didn't have to courage to call her first. What if she took it as a move on her? If she had the same feelings as me, she sure would've liked if I made the first move, but that wasn't the case.

She wasn't my first hopeless straight crush, but she was my first hopeless straight love. The One with capital O. A love strong enough that some people never even experience it in their life. I did everything I could to get over her, but neither of my usually failsafe methods seemed to work.

I can only imagine how long it would've taken to heal, or when I would've dared to contact Adri first, but fortunately, it will stay a mystery forever. A few days before the weekend Adri sent an email that I read so many times, I would've been able to quote word by word. It wasn't very long or anything, but it meant everything to me. She and her fiancé finally decided their wedding day, and she wanted to know if I'd be her maid of honor. And not just that. She asked if I'd help her organize the wedding, as her fiancé rarely had time to help her with that. I knew that well I'm gonna torture myself with instead of letting her go, being around her a lot, but I was still the happiest woman on the Earth at the moment.

It wasn't even a question it wouldn't be the easiest to help her, because I lived in Fehérvár then, and she was going to marry in Budapest, but it didn't matter. I r a chance to be a part of her life permanently, and that drop-kicked common sense out of my brain in a second.

At the weekend I traveled to the capital, so we could start to make preparations. And there came a difficulty I didn't take into consideration when I agreed to Adri's terms. As much as I wanted to help her both out of selfishness to be around her, and out of kindness to make her happy, I wasn't the best girl for the task. I've never been the girly type, more like a textbook case of a tomboy. Except for the boyish look thing, because I never went for that. I knew three kinds of clothing styles: metal chick, comfy casual, and casual metal chick. Clothes that made me look great, but in the meantime would've passed as medieval torture devices have never been my field of expertise. To make things worse, I've never been into many other stuff my girl friends loved so much either. Ever since I was little girl, I rather went to play football with the boys, than play dolls with other girls, rather practiced fixing my bike than learning how to do makeup, and rather watched some stupid action flick than a tragic romance. So saying I wasn't exactly up to the task is the understatement of the century, but I did my best.

On that weekend I got to know Laci - Adri's fiancé - a little better than before, and for some inexplicable reason, I started to dislike him. Okay, inexplicable is a little bold claim. He was your oh-so-typical alpha male - a type I always hated - who had the heart of the woman I was helplessly in love with. Naturally, I didn't show any signs of this distaste. Adri loved him, and they had been together for years, so I really wasn't in a position to say anything bad about him for her. Even if I had not been in love with her, I earned no right yet to make comments about him.

They chose a date for their wedding in March, so after Christmas passed, we had to plan everything in a super short notice. Laci was completely absent for most of the times, so we were left alone with Adri to find a place that was available on their wedding date, taste cakes, order flowers, and - yes, my favorite one, sue me - finding a proper wedding dress. It was hard to keep my cool when Adri was running around in the wedding dress saloons in front of me wearing only that sexy underwear of hers. I did my best in giving her advice, but in my opinion, she looked gorgeous in most of the dresses, even those she found herself too fat in. She had a tastefully chubby shape with only as much plus kilos that look great, but it was impossible to convince her about it. Needless to say, it made her a rather difficult customer, so finding the proper dress took two weekends, and visiting all the wedding dress shops in the Budapest agglomeration at least twice. Not that I minded it.

So after all, everything went great, and we enjoyed every single moment of the preparations. Considering how much of a harpy Adri thought she would be because of the pre-wedding stress, all we had was fun and laughing all the time on the weekends.

Then came March, and with it, the problems.

First when I met her parents two weeks prior to the wedding. Let's say we started off on the wrong foot. Then let's say my earlier statement was a minor understatement. Then let's say... you know where this is going. It was a sunny Friday afternoon. I arrived at Laci's house where Adri officially was just a visitor, as her parents would've killed her if they knew she lived with Laci before their marriage. Just as every Friday in the last few months I rang their doorbell and waited for the answer. This time Laci was the one who opened the door.

"Hey Fanny" he smiled at me. We kissed each other on the cheek, then I entered the house. "Everybody is in the living room" he gestured toward the corridor at the end of the hall.

I hung my leather jacket and helmet on the coat stand, then happily galloped to the room while presenting my ideas before I reached the cove.

"Hey kitten, I was thinking, how about when you enter the church..."

That's where my mouth froze. In the middle of the room there stood an austere looking, close to sixty couple, with the contempt on their face I knew all too well from people like them. No, I'm not talking about my sexuality here, I'm talking about my looks. I wore my black high heel biker boots, fishnet pantyhose, black hot pants, and a black torn off sleeves T-shirt with a huge "I" Rolling Stones logo "girls" sign on its front. I can't exactly call this a subtle message, I admit. On top of it all, since the basic training, I have my hair made into a sidecut, and because of the revealing clothes, the tattoos on my arms, thighs and partially on my left shin were clearly visible.

"Gre... greetings" I stuttered as I entered the room.

They slowly examined me from head to toe, then the father looked at Adri.

"Who's this woman, Adrienn?"

Oops. Adri forgot to mention they'd be here, so every chance to give them a good first impression was lost as soon as I left home. Or when I started to exist.

Adri looked at them.

"Mother, father, meet my best friend, Fanny."

"Are you friendly with the likes this?" her mother gestured toward me like I wasn't hearing what she said. "Those tattoos, torn clothes, and that huge tongue. A prostitute dresses like this."

Well. First, I seriously doubt this kind of clothing would be any practical use to a prostitute. Second, at least they thought I was a prostitute, which for 'the likes of them' probably put me several levels above lesbians. Had any of them spoke English, I would've been in trouble.

"Mother!" Adri scolded her. "She's not a prostitute! Every young woman in Pest dresses like that."

This time her father examined me.

"Do you too, Adrienn?"

"No, I'm not."

Oh, the hell she didn't. Sure, she didn't go as far as I did, but she also rarely dressed in this sober, farmer-girl looking set-up she currently wore. Usually she dressed just as everybody with her body type who wanted to look good.

"Then why are you friends with the likes of her?"

My eyes were quickly shifting between Adri and her parents as the argument went. I knew that well I couldn't say anything that would make my situation better, and against my nature, for Adri's sake I really didn't want to say anything that further escalates the argument.

"Father! Mother! Fanny is my friend, and she really is a nice girl!"

Somewhere inside I started to smile. She defended me from her parents!

"Don't dare to talk back to us, little lady!"

Adri shrank a little as her father shifted to a more demanding voice.

"I'm not talking back to you, father, but believe me. She is a nice girl. Please, give her a chance!"

Both folks looked at me. God, I hated their gaze so much. That's exactly why I've always instinctively done everything to turn such looks into even more scandalized ones. If they wanted to make me feel awkward, they could bet their ass I would do my worst to make them feel much more uncomfortable than I did. It wasn't an option here, unfortunately. They weren't just two random old folks at a bus stop, but people who were really important for my best friend, and with whom I would spend quite a lot of time in the near future.

"Don't you have proper clothes?" her father asked me without any kind of greeting or introduction.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir and madam, my name is Fanny Burka," I said while I offered them my hand, because I knew manners, even though wasn't a fan of using them. Neither of the parents accepted my gesture. There went my luck. Of all the millions of villagers in Hungary, I got two from the small minority of unkind people.

"Well?" the father asked after I clearly wasn't going to answer his question.

That was when Adri quickly got between us because she knew my before explosion looks all too well. For her sake, I wouldn't lose my temper, but she didn't know me well enough yet to be sure about it.

"Fanny, please, would you follow me to the kitchen for a second?"

She had to goad me with a little push, to turn around and go with her, but in the end, she didn't need to force me.

"Look," she told me as soon we got out of her parents' earshot "I'm really sorry for my parents' behavior."

I was shaking my head.

"Well, I got those kinds of looks before, but usually, they wait until they know me better."

"Please, forgive them. They are deeply traditional. Where they live, this look is still not accepted."

I rolled my eyes. That doesn't give them the right to judge me. At least give me the chance to hate me for my personality, or something! Had they have a little patience, we would've come to that too.

"Look... how about if I leave now? You don't need the extra drama during your wedding preparations, especially not because of me with your parents."

"Don't do this! You helped me thru all this and kept me together. Without you, I'd have long gone crazy."

"Well, now you'd go crazy exactly because of me. Your parents don't like me, and right now, I'm not a fan of them either. That will turn the whole day a disaster."

"Please, don't do this! They'll get to know you, and change their opinion."

"Seriously?" I looked at her doubtfully.

She looked away.

"Well, it's unlikely, but please, at least give them a chance."

"Believe me, I only want what's the best for you. You can't send your parents away, so it's clear I have to leave."

"Please, Fanny. I swear, if there will be any argument, you can leave. I won't hold you back" she looked at me with that stray puppy look of hers, that could make me do anything she wanted, and she purposefully or not, used it several times on me.

So, needless to say, I stayed.

And needless to say, it was a mistake. I had to listen to the comments all day long about how indecent my dress, my tattoos, my behavior, my way of speaking were, and how punks like me were responsible for ruining the world. And when they finally got off my back, they started to scold Adri for the revealing wedding dress she chose. Honestly, if that dress was revealing for them, I can only imagine what kind of opinion they held back about mine.

It was the longest afternoon of my life. By the time we reached the evening, even Adri didn't try to convince me to stay. She saw it well that there wouldn't be friendship or even a decent conversation here. We had a sad goodbye that day because it really wasn't how we planned this afternoon. Maybe if she hadn't wanted to surprise me with her parents, or I felt like less sexy clothes day that morning, everything went differently... But this way, the day hardly could've gone any worse without a zombie outbreak.