Congratulations to our second gold winner! ♥

The first time Linnet ran in roughly ten years, it was the first of June, and summer was rearing its head in a blaze of sunshine. Linnet liked the sun; if she could, right then she would be reading or sunbathing or most likely staring longingly out of her window, because being a ginger she had a habit of getting burnt to a crisp. She certainly wouldn't be running, though. There was a reason she hadn't run since secondary school, one that she was very quickly remembering as she sprinted down the pavements of her middle-class town.

It didn't help that it was busy; she'd almost tripped over at least five dogs, and could feel the sticky coolness of an ice cream seeping through her shorts after she ran into a small girl. There were people in the parched gardens she passed, too, clipping their hedges in garishly patterned shorts because that's totally what you do on the first decent day of the year. Not that Linnet could talk, she thought wryly as she skidded around a corner and saw the grey exterior of the church haze into view. But she was on a mission.

She was going to get her boyfriend back.

Charlie and Linnet had been together since she'd been a spotty teenager with braces and he'd, well, he'd always been hot, hadn't he? Together until last year, that was. When he broke up with her. And that was fine; she'd been through the stages of grief with several tubs of Ben and Jerry's and Friends queued up on Netflix, and liked to think she'd come out of it a better, stronger person (or at least one who knew an obscene amount of Friends quotes). Fine, that was, until she saw the announcement on good ol' Facebook that morning: Charlie Miller to marry Frances Rushton. Today. At the church a good hour's walk away. Or, as Linnet found out, a twenty eight and a half minute sprint (the idea to drive hadn't crossed her mind until approximately right now).

Linnet had thought she'd been over him, she really had. But the moment she saw that announcement, it had all come rushing back. And maybe they wouldn't be able to date anymore (although she did have an image being played out in her mind of him being so bowled over by her running over five kilometres in her 'As seen in porn' pyjamas that he'd instantly marry her instead, Mamma Mia style). The real issue was Linnet did not want Charlie, her Charlie, the love of her life since year eight, marrying some random woman just a year after them breaking up.

"I bet she's really ugly," Linnet muttered to herself, then felt a bit bad (she was the one in pyjamas with hair she hadn't brushed let alone washed for at least four days (it was summer!)).

Not bad enough, however, to stop her from entering the churchyard.

Almost tripping over a gravestone, she jogged over to the enormous doors. They were shut, and all Linnet could hear was a single droning voice. So the ceremony had started. Linnet took a breath, her chest burning. She'd have to yell. She'd have to just push the doors open and yell, because if she didn't her voice would come out as a pathetic mouse squeak, and she wasn't going to win back an ex-boyfriend with that, was she? So, with another, deep breath, she pushed the doors with all her might. To her surprise, they swung open easily, scraping on the cobbled floor. As one, the entire church congregation turned to stare at her, the dishevelled, red-faced woman in pyjamas stained with ice cream. It was such a fluid, synchronised movement Linnet wondered if they'd practised it in the wedding rehearsal. No. Focus. Had to yell. Another deep breath, and:

"CHARLIE MILLER, I LOVE YOU! DO NOT MARRY THAT..."

Her voice trailed off. A gasp rang around the room (accompanied by a barely-suppressed laugh from a blonde man at the front who'd gotten his phone out). Linnet barely heard it. She was too busy staring at the figures gaping back at her from the alter.

Neither of which were Charlie.

Linnet swore under her breath. What had the Facebook announcement said, exactly? It was definitely a Charlie Miller, but there'd been no photo, or even any clarification whether they were a man or not. Or Linnet had run out before looking properly.

Oops.

The entirety of the church was gaping at her with such abject horror in their eyes that it was almost funny. Almost, but not quite. They looked as though they might be about to run at her and start throwing punches. Linnet swore again.

"Uh, I'm so sorry, this is all just-"

"A big misunderstanding," the woman whose wedding she just crashed finished. But she wasn't talking to Linnet. She was looking at the man now blinking foolishly at her from across the alter. She took both his hands. "Frances, I love you, but I am a homosexual."

Another gasp reverberated around the stuffy room. Linnet was forgotten as the woman, who she guessed was the other Charlie Miller, dropped her fiancé's hands and moved to the centre of the raised platform. She spread her arms wide, her teeth as white as her dress.

"Yes, you heard right. Family, friends, I am a lesbian, and this," she pointed at Linnet, who by now had no idea what the hell was going on, "Is my girlfriend. And we cannot live a lie any longer!"

And with that, she threw her bouquet of flowers in the air, started running full pelt down the aisle and bellowed, "GO!"

Linnet didn't think. She just ran.

Once they cleared the church yard, and it became apparent no one was going to come after them, the woman called Charlie slowed down. Her dark skin was glowing with a sheen of sweat, and there was a wild look in her eyes as she turned to Linnet. "You want a drink? I think we deserve a drink."

"Uh..."

"This place is nice," said Charlie, grabbing an entirely bemused Linnet by the elbow and pulling them both into a café on the right.

It was thankfully empty, except for the girl behind the counter, who barely looked at them, as though two women in a wedding dress and porn pyjamas bursting into the café was a regular occurrence.

"Eat in or take out?" she said in a bored voice.

"Out, I think," said Charlie, turning to Linnet once more. "It's a lovely day, isn't it?"

Linnet nodded weakly.

"Do you want coffee?"

"Ju- just water is fine."

"Okay," Charlie studied the menu on the back wall, then leaned over the counter and whispered conspiratorially, "Do you have any alcohol?"

The girl shrugged. "Probably."

"Okay, so that's one water, and one large coffee with as much alcohol in as you can find. Ah, shit, I don't have any money on me, do you?"

Linnet shook her head. The girl behind the counter looked at them. Her eyes travelled from Linnet's ice cream stain to her wild hair, and all the way up Charlie's wedding dress. And then she just said, "On the house."

Charlie thanked her, then took the two drinks and went to sit on the bench outside with them. Linnet followed her dazedly. Part of her wanted to call her Charlie, find out whether he was getting married or not. Another part wanted to go home and put on Friends and forget any of this ever happened. But another part, the part that sat down next to the woman and took the water she offered, felt she should really just stay here, because she had no fucking clue what had just happened, only that she was accidentally and completely undeniably involved.

Linnet took a sip of water. It helped to calm her searing lungs and racing chest slightly. Charlie glugged back half her coffee in one, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and wincing.

"Never mix espresso and cheap spirits, amigo."

She took another gulp, then sat back on the bench, arranging the white satin of her dress around her with a rustle. Linnet watched the way it reflected the sun, almost glowing against the darkness of her skin. And then shook her head.

"What the hell just happened?"

"I'm not entirely sure."

Charlie drank some more. And then started laughing. And then Linnet did too. Once they started, it was really quite hard to stop.

They sat there for a while under the sun, drinks abandoned on the ground, clutching each other and wheezing in their pyjamas and wedding dress. Several passers-by stared at them, but they barely noticed. It was only when Linnet's cheeks hurt from laughing that she managed to think properly again.

"Seriously," she gasped, hitting Charlie on the shoulder, "No, come on, seriously. Did I just accidentally ruin your wedding?"

Charlie stopped laughing abruptly. She wiped a tear from her eye, and shrugged.

"I didn't want to marry him. I am gay. You just helped me say it."

Linnet frowned at her. "Stupid question, but if you're gay, why were you marrying him?"

Charlie went to take a drink, then stopped herself and poured it down the drain next to the bench instead. She watched it disappear with a thoughtful expression.

"I dunno. My family wanted me to. It was just so much easier than coming out, you know?"

"My family were okay with me being pan."

Linnet hadn't realised until a couple of months ago; before then, she'd just been Charlie-sexual, really. She looked at the Charlie next to her. The luminosity of her dark eyes. The way her lashes cast shadows on the gold of her cheeks. The arch of her brow and the tilt of her nose. The full, smiling rosiness of her lips.

Charlie-sexual. Huh.

"Mine wouldn't be," said Charlie, "They wanted me to marry a nice, rich man, and Frances was alright, so how could I say no?"

"You lied?"

"Well, not just then." Charlie laughed, although it was tinged with sadness. "Did you see their faces?"

"I thought they were about to start beating me up."

"Nah, they wouldn't do that. They're not that bad. I was just a coward."

"I wouldn't say that."

"You said I lied. You're right."

"Not just then," Linnet echoed.

Charlie nodded reflectively. "Not then." And then she looked at Linnet. "So, what about you? How come you ran into a stranger's wedding professing your love to them?"

Linnet felt her entire face go red. "Uh, I thought you were my ex-boyfriend."

"Excuse me?"

"Charlie Miller. We were together for years, then he broke up with me, and I saw the announcement on Facebook, and I just, I don't know-"

"Decided to run to the church in your pyjamas to stop it?" Charlie was smiling, but it was a soft smile. Linnet blushed further.

"It sounds stupid when you say it like that."

"It was kind of stupid."

"I know."

Charlie gave a quiet snort of laughter. "Guess the other Charlie Miller's a lucky guy."

Linnet didn't really know what to say to that, so drank some more water. Just then, a phone beeped with a message. Charlie started, and then stuck her hand down her front and pulled out a phone, shooting Linnet a 'don't even judge me' look. She unlocked it and looked at the message. Linnet watched as her expression went from confused, to horrified, to such sadness that it made Linnet feel sick, despite only having known the woman for roughly ten minutes.

"What? What is it?"

"They- they just disowned me," said Charlie, as though she hardly believed it herself.

"What!?"

"I just got disowned over text," she said slowly. She blinked, once, twice, then tilted her head back and closed her eyes against the sun. Linnet did the same, feeling the heat burning into her skin.

They were quiet for a moment.

"Shit," Linnet said into the silence. "Shit, Charlie, I'm so sorry, I-"

"It's fine," Charlie interrupted. "I mean, they're probably just in shock. They'll come round."

They fell into silence again, listening to the breeze rustling through the flowers lining the street and the lilt of a far-off ice cream van and all the other sounds of summer. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence, just a thoughtful one; rather, the sort of silence that was so soft, so quiet, that words were necessary.

"I'm sorry," Linnet said anyway.

Charlie turned her head to look at her, squinting against the sunlight. "So what do we do now?"

Linnet looked at her too. "I don't know."

Charlie nodded slowly, pulling her lip between her teeth. "Well, the way I see it, we've got a few options. We could go back to the church, explain the misunderstanding, and re-start the ceremony. You could go find your Charlie Miller, and enjoy the way he almost definitely takes you back after this drama. We'd both live out the rest of our lives with our separate husbands, raising children and coping with the inevitable decline of our marriages, and when we're eighty year old alcoholics we'll look back on this day with a strange kind of fondness achieved only by Charlie Miller being an oddly common name."

Linnet thought about it. About her Charlie. About their relationship.

About the Charlie sitting next to her.

"What do you think we should do?" she said.

Charlie was quiet for a moment. And then she reached out and took Linnet's hand. Her palm was warm, almost hot, and fit in her's perfectly.

"I think we should exchange numbers, go home and get changed, and then maybe get an ice cream somewhere. What do you think?"

Linnet thought about it. She looked at Charlie's face, bright under the sunshine. And then she squeezed her hand.

"That sounds perfect"