She decided she was going to commit to this diet. Of course, she said that many times before, but Sydney was serious now. It was crucial that she shed 15 pounds before her wedding. And maybe Tuck would appreciate the effort she was putting forth enough to let her honeymoon in Paris instead of Hawaii where the sun went ahead and burned like hot coals on bare skin. Sydney didn’t care so much for sun, but she let Tuck pick just this one thing and he was adamant on making her stick to her word. After all, he sat through blue bells even though he would have preferred daffodils and vanilla when he would have preferred marble (but, Tuck, marble cake is for eight year olds and you might as well just ask for ice cream cake and party hats while you’re at it) and he bore a grin when she decided to seat his unamicably divorced parents at the same table. So maybe she should have let him pick just this one thing.
“Tuck, it’s my skin. My poor, fair skin that will get all pink and sore if you drag me to Honolulu. Plus they’ve got those --------- volcanoes that can destroy civilizations. It’s true, I read about it.” Tuck said nothing and just gave her one of his looks that acted like a tranquilizer. It was a look that she hated and that sometimes backfired on himself as it caused her to go off about how she wasn’t crazy and that he needed to contribute to these conversations with more than just a look. But this time she backed down, and maybe it was the diet that was exhausting her will to argue.
“Honey, I’m sorry. I’ll just pack extra sunscreen,” she offered while stroking his hand in apology. She’d try again later.
Sydney went into the bedroom and twisted her hair into ringlets in front of the mirror. Her red hair bounced and caught light from the window between each strand, capturing the rays of sun in cylinder prisons. After every lock had been accounted for, she placed her hands together, thumb to thumb and index to index, attempting to shove her torso into the little space she had made. She didn’t quite fit there, and angrily, popped another breath mint. She had to lose two pounds a day in order to reach her goal by the wedding and so far, all she had eaten were breath mints and grapefruit halves- which she read were a lovely low calorie breakfast when unsweetened. Sydney was already so discouraged by her unrelenting hunger that she began to cry and produce such unpleasant noises that Tuck got out of his chair to comfort her.
His shoes tapped against the floor, their sound drowned out by his fiance’s boisterous weeping. If she hadn’t been crying so hard, she would have felt his breath on her neck as he drew closer, followed by the stubble on his chin perching softly on her shoulder.
The dust rose upwards, as was revealed by the beams of light that expanded and contracted with the movement of the wind. The tree branches swayed, deciding whether to leave the sunlight, or hide it away behind its fruit. The house was painted gold with light now, except for the space where Sydney and Tuck stood motionless. And with each second that they did not move, they seemed to appear more like a painting. All edges softened and colors blurred and mixed together through Sydney’s wet eyes.
She shattered it all in an instant with a quick gasp, “Tuck, I’m a cow! Look at me, I’m going to look like a cow on our wedding day! In my wedding dress!” She groaned in such a way that beat her throat as red as her hair after a couple of goes. Tuck told her how beautiful and skinny she was, but Sydney just stared down at the little splashes her tears made on the wood flooring, dragging her bare feet across them in slow revolutions.
“I can’t go to Hawaii like this! I’m going to have to wear a bathing suit and everyone’s going to think I’m a fat, old lard.”
“Honey, you’re never going to see those people ever again, so why do you care if they think you’re heavy?”
Whipping her head around in fury, Sydney pushed Tuck hard, although he barely rocked back an inch, and stormed out.

After this incident, Tuck bought a pack of mints at the drugstore and fixed it with a little bow that he placed on her pillow, in hopes of making amends. She accepted it, without a word, and continued on with her diet, without a word, consuming mints in generous amounts along the way.

Soon it was only days before the wedding and Sydney lost 10 pounds and the garbage cans were filled with tin mint packs, grapefruit rinds, and whatever it was that Tuck was eating.
That had been another thing. Sydney stopped making dinner in those two weeks, so Tuck had been scraping the inside of the fridge and cabinets for any kind of sustenance worth indulging in. For two weeks he had feasted on canned tuna, canned beef hash, canned peaches in syrup, canned artichoke heart, potato chips, beer, and the occasional apple from the neighbor’s tree when he had been feeling particularly low in any sense of the word.
He had learned to be very sneaky about it, because once while he was leaning over the fence to twist one off of a low hanging branch, the neighbor’s pitbull woke up and nearly took Tucks hand with it.
“Sydney, I won’t have it anymore! This diet is killing you and it’s killing me,” he would often say.
And then Sydney would give him such a sour look that Tuck couldn’t help but pucker and throw his hands up in the air exclaiming that he was going out to eat real food and that she should join him and live as regular human being.
As for Sydney, she spent most of her days distracting herself with hobbies like needlepoint and sewing, and all the things a wife are supposed to do, besides maybe cooking. Although, the strangest thing had happened one morning while she sat sewing ¨Home, Sweet Home¨ into a pillow. Her new favorite place was by the empty fireplace in her grandmother's old wicker rocking chair. She had been settled there for quite sometime before the burning happened, and wasn't expecting in the slightest. It had started like a little fire in her chest. Then it got a little hotter as if her insides were starting to fry. After coughing a couple dozen times, she even produced some blood. A little speck right in between the first ¨Home¨ and ¨Sweet.¨ And when she saw it her eyes bulged, more than she thought was ever possible.
She tried to scrub it away with her fingernails, and she spilt tears for perhaps the 20th time that day. The blood very well could have been a hallucination because of her hysterical hunger, but she could even feel it on her fingers as she scrubbed. The dot got larger and paler the more that she tried to remove it.
She coughed again and the patch of material was splattered once again. Sydney ripped it out of the frame and wiped her lips with it, angrily. Marching to the kitchen, she threw the fabric into the waste basket and washed her mouth out with a glass of water. She wasn’t going to have any of that ruin her wedding date.

Gradually, and then suddenly, the wedding day had come. Sydney was starving, having gone 5 pounds beyond her initial goal, and Tuck was clearly malnourished from the lack of essential vitamins and minerals in his day to day diet. Both pale, thin, and moaning from sleep deprivation, they appeared almost like the living dead.
Tuck planned to eat ravenously at the reception, having spared no expense on the food and it was promised to be gourmet, after all. If you had asked Tuck what was on the menu, he could have told you every item down the last pepper corn: baked salmon with sauteed broccolini and risotto cakes. Grilled lemon and pepper chicken with Egyptian carrots, cooked spinach, and potato gnocchi. Filet mignon with bearnaise sauce. Fettuccini alfredo. Shrimp c***tails. Free champagne with a strawberry. A chocolate fountain, biscuits, fruit, mini quiche, 3 different cheese fondues, French bread, and Turkish delight.
Not to mention the cake. The cake was all Sydney could think about. It had been so long since she had tasted anything sweet. Anything with calories. Anything with icing. This was going to be her little reward for toughing it out. She dreamt about this cake at night and when she would drift off due to low blood sugar. Six tier Tahitian vanilla with buttercream frosting, white quilted fondant, candied roses, and a tiny little Sydney and Tuck holding hands at the top. They were probably a lot happier than the regular sized Sydney and Tuck at this point.
Sydney sat at her vanity ordering champagne from the bar just so she could nibble on the strawberries. Her dress was beautiful and so was she, with that hourglass figure that she had worked so hard for. The heavy makeup job did wonders covering her starving and melancholic expression that her face had permanently molded to, and her hair’s dry and fading locks had been temporarily revitalized by a good amount of conditioner and hairspray. She wore quite the mask, but it fit her well.
Time ticked slower and slower, it seemed, as the spouses-to-be waited for the ceremony to start. The ceremony meant very little to them the further the little hand inched its way around the face of the clock.
“Sydney,” said the bridesmaid, leaning in through the crack in the dressing room door. “Come look at the cake, it just came in. It’s amazing!”
Sydney growled animalistically to herself and hissed, “No thank you! I know it’s amazing, I’ve seen pictures!”
“Trust me, Syd. You have to see this cake with your own eyes. Pictures do not do this cake justice.”
“Get away! Can’t you see I’m busy getting ready for the most important event of my life? I will see the cake at the ------- reception when we’re supposed to!” Her anger and hunger appeared in the form of tears that lay cradled in her bottom eyelids. The bridesmaid apologized profusely while rushing to gather tissues to stop the tears from exposing Sydney’s real face. After four more strawberries, she began to calm down even if she was a little drunk.
Minutes after the bridesmaid had disappeared, Sydney got a little curious. So it wasn’t long before she had snuck very cleverly down the hall into the kitchen where the cake dwelled. She opened the door and immediately locked her gaze on it. It was truly amazing, and like nothing she’d ever seen. And she could have it, too. That fat, old cow of a cake just sat there for Sydney to indulge in.
She put down her glass, shallow with champagne, and stepped towards the masterpiece. The lights were so bright that it could have been an angel smiling upon her. It’s here to save me, thought Sydney, floating towards it. She inhaled deeply. Never had she been so intoxicated by a scent before. She could smell every grain of sugar and every teaspoon of imported vanilla. It was so heavenly that it must have been another one of her dreams.
She popped a breath mint, but quickly spat it out in disgust, throwing the tin across the room with it. The burning aftertaste of the mint swelled to an appalling peek on her tongue and she tried to spit that out, too. Sydney gagged and coughed, but the taste kept festering, worse than it had ever been before.
In panic, she reached out in front of her and sunk her skinny, little fingers into the corner of the bottom tier. Her fingernails filled with fondant and cream as she penetrated the cake’s soft wall. She reached deeper in until her hand was lost completely in white, and wiggled her fingers around just a bit. Then she began to retract her reach. The quilted skin broke and out tumbled fluffy yellow crumbs onto the table and the skirt of her dress. Yet somehow, she didn’t care. She didn’t even give a second thought to her lovely figure or her perfect dress or how she was going to look in that bikini. All that existed was her and that marvelous, marvelous cake.
She lifted this behemoth of a piece up to her lips and shoved the whole thing in her mouth. The taste alone brought tears to her eyes and she didn’t even think about stopping them. It was so sweet and buttery she drooled on the floor even as she chewed. And it slid down her throat so decadently. She had never used that word before, but if there were ever a time to use it, it would have been in those moments it took for her esophagus to push it down into her empty, shrunken stomach.
Her hands were a mess, but she didn’t have to time to lick them before she reached in for another piece. Then another and another. Sydney grabbed onto more cake like she was climbing the side of a cliff, her hands never stopped cycling. She guzzled every bit down with frivolous gulps of air which lay in separate lumps in her belly. Regardless, she kept going, and she was going to continue until her hunger subsided.
Finally, Sydney extended her arm all the way to the top tier, but as she grasped a small handful, she began to feel a little funny. Her chest burned painfully and she grabbed it, smearing cake all over her her bodice. Her heart was on fire that way that it was before, but only now it was tenfold. The blood had come back, but there was much more this time. Dots quickly turned into pools and soon she was standing in a deep, red ocean.
The cake was all gone from her stomach as well. Her body had become so used to being empty that it rejected all hope for fulfillment. Sydney could feel the acid in her esophagus eroding at the skin away.
Her vision grew weaker as she expelled more blood and cake. Her head floated up like a feather while her body crashed down to the floor and the ocean shortly reached the edges of her dress. The blood seeped in and grew like cancer until she was almost entirely soaked.
It wasn’t very long until they came looking for her, and the kitchen was the last place they’d look. Tuck discovered her first while wandering into the kitchen for a quick snack. Of course, she wasn’t very hard to miss. But most of all, he couldn’t help but notice, that the cake was marble.