day 24 → whatever tickles your fancy
He watched his cousin exchange vows with his bride-to-be. The groom smiled, the bride beamed. He didn’t feel anything inside. Weddings are supposed to be happy. Full of love. All he felt was the urge to turn and leave. But he couldn’t leave her behind.
She was the plus one, the extra seat, that was tacked onto the invitation to her boyfriend of six years. Everybody in his and her family knew that they were together; they were associated as one solid human being. Anymore, it felt like that, as if somehow they had become a single unit incapable of functioning without the other. Some part of her eyed the happy couple professing their undying love for one another with a sense of hopelessness, like whatever happy dreams they were thinking were going to come true were completely frivolous.
Champagne. People thought he was going to ask her any day now. His mother said he should do it before his grandmother was dead. He choked on the bubbles a bit. He couldn’t do it, although he probably would. He felt obligated.
She stood amongst the crowd of ecstatically happy women, jumping up and down and elbowing one another for a shot of catching a bouquet, a husband. It was only with a great deal of effort she got up out of her chair to begin with, not really caring at all. The woman next to her told her she was going to catch it because she was definitely next - everybody knew how long they had been together. She didn’t want to be. She loved him, but she didn’t want him. She wondered if he was ever going to ask. Ask for what, she wasn’t sure.
How did he end up here? Didn’t he love her, at some point? Yes. He did. They sat down at dinner. Family members of both sides gave good luck speeches. He wasn’t listening. He was feeling cold. Slightly sick, perhaps nauseous. What brought this on?
“Pass the salt,” he said, looking at his plate of chicken. He couldn’t look into her eyes.
She didn’t say anything. She was feeling the same blankness, the same emptiness, and the desire to not only run away from such a happy occasion, but the desire to run away from him as well. Never to somebody else though. Nobody’s arms were quite like his.
“They will be happy,” she said, watching the couple spin on the dance floor, remembering the time he took her salsa dancing in New York. She was 19 at the time; she couldn’t imagine life without the man who showed her so much about life. She wished them the best: for their love to be passionate, zealous, and ardent. Everything hers was not.
“Mmmhm,” he said, leaning back in his collapsible chair. The sun burned in his eyes. She used to wear sexy underwear. She used to smile and ask how his day went. She used to not whine about dishes. She used to be interested in the same things as he was. She knew who he was. He knew who she was. Their love was deeply personal. It couldn’t go away.
She could leave - not just this Hallmark card of a wedding, with its white church, manicured lawns, tulips, and not a cloud in the sky - but him. The dancing solidified how old their love was; she wanted to dance, to feel like she did long ago, but she didn’t want to dance with him anymore. She didn’t have it in her.
He walked her over to the family photo album. There was a double page with him on it. Six photos. One of him as a kindergartener. One in middle school. Awkward. He had braces. Four with her.
She felt something inside her stir as she looked at the pictures. One of her stuffing cake into his mouth on his 21st birthday, laughing their heads off, him sporting a pointed hat. One when they were 23 at a New Year’s Party, his mother dangling mistletoe over their heads from the spiral staircase in her house; she was grabbing his tie and wanting him madly. She felt safe then with him, home was where he was. One was of them at his family’s annual picnic, but the glow that lit up her face was gone. The sat next to each other on a red checkered tablecloth, him picking at his tan sweater and her staring off into the distance. They could have been siblings. One was a Polaroid last Christmas. She was asleep on his shoulder, he was sipping a cocktail to ease the detachment.
He couldn’t help but love the girl in the photos.
She wishes she was still that girl.