Marriage is something a person should be one hundred percent sure they want. And if it’s not, even on their wedding day, they shouldn’t do it. If he hated me, well, so be it. I wasn’t ready to let go of David yet, and until I was, it was better for everyone if I stayed single. My friends wouldn’t understand, they hadn’t understood when I’d tried to explain it these past few months. They all knew what was “best for me” and none of them could ever understand the empty space inside me where David once was. How could I expect them to understand that no one could ever fill that?
I’d just have to be okay with them hating me for the decision I made.
With a steady hand, I pushed off the bark of the tree, and when the rock came into view—the black one we used to sit by—my heart jumped in my chest. That rock was once a place I could look to and see David, either leaning against the base, the rug laid out under him, or sitting atop it with my guitar. He wasn’t there anymore, but the memory lingered as if he were.
The wind brushed softly over my wet dress, chilling my skin beneath, and I suddenly felt so small and alone in the vast wilderness. I rubbed away the tiny goose bumps then lifted my skirt over my hips as I climbed onto the rock, almost as if I were climbing back into David’s arms. And alone, finally here where I never thought I’d return, the open sky and the thunder gave more weight to the decision I just made. I traced my thumb over the empty place where my engagement ring had been only a few hours ago.
Poor Mike.
He’d be beside himself. No one knew where to find me, but they’d be searching. Concerned.
I didn’t want them to search. I wanted them to leave me alone, like we would if Vicki or Dad, or anyone else, had to take off for a few hours to clear their head. But since the kidnapping, they all watched me so closely, waiting for that moment I might need them to protect me. They argued about what I ate, how thin I was, how often I slept. Going to Perth was the only way to escape that, and Mike was my only link to it. Except, I no longer had a home to go to in his arms, which meant I no longer had a home to go to in Australia.
I looked up at the trees, like I had done a thousand times before, and when I looked back down at my own hands, I half expected to see my vampire under them. It seemed oddly empty without him here. If only I could go back to this morning and tell him how much my heart was breaking. Tell him the truth about what I really felt. Tell him that, without him here, I had no one to turn to, no one who understood me. Mom and Dad would be so mad at me for running away, and without Mike around to babysit me all the time, they’d watch me closer than ever before, just waiting for me to break.
I rested my cheek to my knee and let a tear trickle out over the wet silk of my wedding dress, praying quietly to my mom in the hopes that she might descend from Heaven and tell me what to do. But no one answered. The only help I had from her now was a small inheritance. Dad called it a safety net—a chance to get my life started—and as those words rang in my head, an idea sparked.
I sat taller as the thought became a brighter, more formed one in my head. A safety net: the last helping hand I would get from her. I could use it to get away—buy my own house—away from Dad, Vicki, away from school and friends and… love. I could start my life over, stop searching for somewhere I belong, and make a place for myself in the world. Make something right, for once. I couldn’t take back what I did to Mike, and I wasn’t sure I could ever face him again either. I was wrong to say I’d marry him. I let the fear of losing him, of feeling insecure and abandoned, force me to make a silly, impulsive decision, and for that he’d be in pain for a really long time. But it would be worse if I pretended to be happy with him. He could have a chance now to find real love and have a girl love him back just as much. He deserved that. He was a great guy. Just not the one for me.
While I sat, the leaves that were green in the sunlight became shadows resting on the backdrop of the descending night. I was just coming up from my thoughts, wondering how I was going to get home, when I heard something.
The birds had stopped chattering, the crickets no longer played their sunset ensemble, and the breeze retreated with the storm, leaving everything way too quiet.
“Ara?”
An invisible rock landed on my shoulders.
“Ara-Rose?” he called again.
A minute passed before I heard footsteps trudging through the muddy ground just near the tree line.
“Ara?” his voice echoed, as if he were calling through cupped hands.
I sighed heavily. “Mike?”
“Ara?”
“I’m over here, Mike.”
Nothing but a bulky silhouette appeared near the trail, the dark making him look menacing and creepy. He sighed heavily, staying where he stood, lit suddenly by the soft light of a phone beside his cheek. “Greg. I got her,” he said. “Yes… she’s okay. I’ll bring her home with me. No—thanks, Greg.”
I turned away when the light withdrew as he dumped his phone in his pocket and looked at me.
“Ara?” The word came out in a long sigh.
“I’m sorry, Mike.” I hugged my knees closer.
He hoisted himself onto the rock, shaking his head. But then he just sat quietly and watched the lake with me until the sunlight in the distance disappeared completely.
“You look damn beautiful, girl.”
I said nothing.
“Just tell me why. Ara, why did you wait until you made it to the altar?”
A rise of guilt shook my insides. “I don’t know.”
“Do you still want to marry me—ever?”
“Mike,” I whispered. “I just… I want you to be happy. I’ll never be that girl: the one that loves you and only you.”
“I was okay with that, Ar. The heart takes time to heal, I—”
“No.” I held his gaze, his eyes sparkling in what little light reflected off his tears. “When I kiss you, I should only see your face. And I… I’m not her, Mike. I fell in love, but he’s gone now, and I can’t move on.”
“Ar—”
“No. I want better for you. You deserve better.”
“Don’t you think that’s a decision I should get to make?” An unusual amount of agitation filled his voice, making him seem more fragile in the darkness. “Ara, I was happy with you. I know you’ll never be over him. But it was enough for me.”
“Only because you’ve never had that kind of love before. You don’t know any better.”
“Says she who declares others don’t know her heart, yet here you are making assumptions about mine.”
“I’m sorry, Mike.” My voice was so small it was barely audible. “I wish I didn’t feel this way. I really do.” And that was true.
Mike nodded thoughtfully. “I think you’re making a mistake.”
“I probably am.” I shrugged one shoulder slowly.
More silence followed.
Once the moon rose fully over the lake, painting the water with a silvery line, Mike placed his arm around me and softly said, “I have a plane to catch.”
“You’re going back?” I asked, knowing already that he would. Of course he would.
“There’s not much reason for me to stay right now. I think we both need time to think.”
I nodded, but I had no strength to compose myself. It all came to a head in that breath, how real it was that I abandoned him, threw everything we were away and left him at the altar in front of everyone we know. This wasn’t just a bad dream, and even if I wanted to, there was no fixing this.
I pressed the back of my wrist to the crease between my brows and let myself sob for a minute, while Mike just sat, breathing jaggedly and looking out at the darkness.
“I’m so sorry, Mike,” I whispered, but he didn’t respond.
* * *
The airport had a different feel for me as I walked between Dad and Mike. The clouded blur you get for what stays behind when you’re about to take a journey someplace else was no longer mine. I’d been prepared for weeks to come here, board that pl
ane, and never look back. Now, I was on the other side: instead of folding this part of my life into a memory, I would wave, then turn around and walk back into the air and energy of the place I was never going to return.
I didn’t even try to be strong. I pulled tissue after tissue from the pocket of my jeans and wiped my face, dumping them in random bins as we passed.
Mike’s head turned an inch to look at me, and though he clearly saw the plea for forgiveness in my eyes, he just looked away. He wouldn’t say he was hurt. He wouldn’t show it with tears. He wouldn’t yell at me and say I was a bitch. He hadn’t said anything.
“Please, Mike?” I sobbed, while Dad waited at security to have his shoes scanned. “Please say something.”
He sighed, dropping his bag to the ground. “Ara—”
“Final boarding call for flight two-oh-three to Sydney.”
Mike looked up at the speaker box. “I have to go,” he said, and I cried harder then.
“Greg.” Mike shook Dad’s hand when he came back over to us. “Thank you—for everything.”
Dad broke the handshake and hugged Mike, patting him on the back several times and saying something I didn’t hear.
“Yes, sir.” Mike nodded and then looked at me for a second.
My chest shook, squeezing my heart up my throat as he backed away one step at a time, throwing his bag over his shoulder and turning away—without a hug, without a word, without anything. I shouldn’t have expected anything, but it still hurt.
When he paused at the gate and handed his boarding pass to the lady, I could almost feel myself running after him. But I didn’t move.
“I don’t want him to go, Dad.”
Dad cleared his throat. “Bit late for that, honey.”
“I know.” My face crumpled. “But what if I’m making a mistake? What if we are meant to be together?”
“Then you better run after him.”
I watched with tear-filled eyes as the lady placed the boarding pass in Mike’s hand, and he lowered his head, looking at it for a moment.
“Mike?” I called.
He looked up, eyes glassy with imprisoned tears. He was trying to be strong, but I was supposed to be with him—going home. We should’ve been laughing, holding hands, kissing each other and telling everyone we were just married. This should’ve been the happiest day of our lives. He waited for me to say something, but my call had gone out in vain, because I had nothing else to add. I couldn’t run into his arms, couldn’t change it—any of it. It had to be what it was. I had to watch, had to see his hope break again as he nodded to himself, knowing I was going to let him walk away.
As he headed through the doors, he glanced back once, giving a quick wave before turning away and disappearing down the corridor, and a piece of me fell away inside. I couldn’t move. Everyone around me was still smiling and talking, continuing with their lives. But mine just stopped.
Everything stopped.
He came here to say goodbye all those months ago, and now he was leaving with exactly what he thought he was coming here for: a broken heart.
“Come on, honey.” Dad turned my shoulders, steering me away from the devastating emptiness of farewell. “Let’s get you home.”
“Dad,” I said, fighting to look back. “Did you see that—did you see the way he looked at me?”
He drew a very long breath through his teeth, scratching the back of his neck. “Yes. I saw it.” And despite his obvious disappointment, he still hugged me before I climbed into the car and told me everything would be okay. But I knew what he really wanted to say.
The red rose from Dad’s buttonhole sat scrunched-up, abandoned in the tray under the dash, while the words my dad had said to the driver echoed in my mind: You’re a real life saver … life saver … life…
That driver may never know exactly how many lives he saved by saving me from myself. I would never destroy another man’s heart by believing I could love him—ever again. It was time to live, as living was intended. But I knew now that I had to do it alone.
2
“Emily, do you have that box with the coffee pot in it?”
“Right here,” she called in through the front door, bounding around the corner a moment later with a box in her arms labeled ‘Parental Escape Collection.’ “You gonna make coffee, Ara?”
“I was thinking about it.”
“How exciting,” she said, dumping the box on the counter. “First coffee in our new house.”
“I’ll be more excited to have my first sleep.” I laughed, taking a knife to the tape on the box. Even though our kitchen wasn’t small, with all the boxes having been shifted to the middle of the space to make way for the fridge, there wasn’t a lot of room for Emily to squeeze past and get the milk.
“I really do love this house.” Emily stood in the cool air of the fridge, glancing behind her at the dining area and the possible music room beyond that. “It’s very you, you know. All those pale colors and the airy space.”
“Yeah.” I found the coffee pot and wriggled it out past the other bits and pieces Em had collected. “My mom would’ve loved it.”
She patted my shoulder, leaving the milk on the counter. “I know.”
“Hello?” A high voice filled the house, bringing the last vestiges of a setting sun through the front door with it.
I set the lip of the pot under the faucet and ran the water. “Hi, Vicki. We’re in the kitchen.”
“You must have known we were on our way,” Dad said, nodding at my task as he came through the archway.
“My Spidey senses were tingling,” I said lightly.
“Hello, Mr. Thompson.” Emily retied her headscarf, flicking her blonde hair away from her chin as she smiled up at my dad.
“Emily.” He nodded. “Nice to see you again.”
“You too, Mr. Thompson.”
“You can call me Greg now. You’re not one of my students anymore.”
“Old habits die hard.” She shrugged and walked over to me. “I’ll get the coffee, Ara. You go show your parents around.”
“Is that an offer or an order?”
Emily plugged the coffee machine in near the stove. “Considering how bad you are at making coffee? It’s an order.”
Dad laughed.
Vicki came wandering in slowly behind Dad then, her mouth open in awe. “Ara.” She reached out and gave me a one-armed hug. “This house is perfect for you.”
“I know.” I smiled back at Emily. “We were just saying the same thing.”
“It has so many windows,” Vicki added.
“Yeah,” I said dismissively. In the description I’d read from the realtor before I even looked at the place, she’d written that this section of the house was ‘a square sitting room with French-paned windows overlooking a small yard, carpeted, clean lines, tiled kitchen, dining, and shopper’s entry’, and when I first stepped in, the morning light was coming in through the left side of the house—through the glass sliding door and one of the windows in the music room—making a checkered shadow on the bare wall. The other part of the description said ‘Four bed. Two bath. Perfect family home’, but the realtor quickly sidestepped any questions about family when I mentioned I’d run out on my own wedding and was buying the house with my inheritance.
“So, when does the dining table we bought you arrive?” Vicki asked.
“Seven o’clock, and they’re bringing a lounge to go in that room as well.”
“Just a lounge?” she asked. I nodded. “That’s a big room, dear, you’ll need more than a—”
“That’ll be the music room,” I said quickly, before I could get an hour of interior design advice. “Once I can afford a piano.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, placing her handbag on the small dividing wall between the dining and music rooms. “And this would be a great place for a nice vase or flower arrangement.”
“Nah.” I shrugged. “I’ll just use it as a junk storage area, I think.”
Emily groane
d from the kitchen. “Good thing we at least have a dishwasher.”
“Are you saying I’m untidy, Emily Pierce?”
“Would I say that?” she said, flashing a cheeky grin as she poured hot water into the mugs.
“Well, I’m sure you can work out the chores between you,” Dad said. “You’ll just have to draw up a roster.”
“Nah, Emily’ll be at college mostly. It’ll just be me here during the day.”
Dad nodded. He didn’t approve of my decision not to go to college, but he understood it. For now.
“So, which room is yours, Emily?” Vicki asked, changing the subject.
“Oh, I took the first bedroom down the hall, right next to the bathroom.”
“So you’re in the master bedroom, Ara?” Dad asked.
“Yep. I’ll show you.” I linked arms with Dad and Vicki and led them back the way they came.
“Oh, now that’s exactly where I would’ve put that couch.” Vicki, forced by the pull of my finished lounge room, wandered off toward the open space on the right.
“Yeah, I figure it’ll be great with a book in hand, coffee on the table, and the golden sunlight that comes through here in the afternoon.”
“Gets bright, though,” Dad said, holding his hand as a visor above his eyes. “That lake’s a bit reflective, isn’t it?”
“I know.” I looked out at the grassy picnic spot across the road. “But that view is the reason I chose this place, so I don’t mind a bit of blinding every now and then.”
“It’s lovely.” Vicki nodded, then her eyes widened as she turned around and looked into my bedroom. “Wow, it’s light in here too, and very open.”
“Where will you put your bed?” Dad asked.
“Right where you’re standing.”
He looked down at his feet, drew his hands from his pockets and skipped away from that spot as though he’d been standing on the bed itself.
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