missing fiction | #1
The preparation for the wedding was coming to a close, as the event drew nearer and nearer. Being a wedding planner had its perks, as I was able to organize everything to my liking, everything under my control leaving no worry or anxiety. My controlling nature was finally at ease as I had it all in my own hands. My fiancé had input, of course, but luckily we had come to so many agreements as well as compromises. If I wanted the cake to be vanilla, while he wanted chocolate, we settled on a mix; if I wanted the colors to be grey and mint, and he preferred navy and gold, we decided on a combination of mint, navy, and gold to weave our wants together; if I wanted a smaller, more intimate wedding and he desired a large, extravagant one, we sat down to carefully hand-pick the guests. It was a constant battle, one with occasional bickering, but it was a learning process. Over the last year and a half or so of dating I had learned a lot about him, and planning the wedding brought out even more than I had yet to learn.
Alex and I met unexpectedly, as it wasn’t a meaningless hookup to spark the beginning of it, it wasn’t simply bumping into each other at a coffee shop, it wasn’t through mutual friends- instead, he walked right up to me. Casually, cooly, with all the confidence I wished I could possess, as I very previously did. I was at a wedding (foreshadowing, I now realize) talking to some guests, a glass of glittering champagne in one hand, the other picking at the hem of my dress, so eager to get out of there, toss off this uncomfortable dress, kick off the blistering shoes, and bury myself under a mountain of sherpa blankets. My job had begun to upset me in the littlest ways, not that it didn’t ever stimulate some sort of sadness before. But suddenly I was catching myself staring at the bowtie the groom would anxiously straighten, watching the bride’s train float down the aisle, or looking on intently from a corner as the bride and groom (or brides, and grooms) took that first cut into a cake made up of several tiers and I would feel a stab of pain, right in my heart, traveling upward balling itself into a lump in my throat. I began to envy these couples, for reasons I was not one-hundred percent certain about. I just knew that whatever they had, I wanted deep, deep down. I’d never admitted it to anyone else, I’d never speak about it, or even write about it in the journal I began keeping under the recommendation of a new therapist, but after witnessing true love for so long, I wanted it.
I didn’t know where this newfound intense lust for love had come from, but I wanted it to go away.
I was on edge for every wedding, ready to leave the second it had begun. Staying afterward for the receptions often got cut short for me. I’d soak up as many brides-to-be and hand them my business cards before claiming I had work early in the morning (usually a lie), and exiting with a kiss on the cheek to the bride and groom and basking in their praise for my hard work.
But at this wedding in particular, I didn’t bail early. I figured the food was good, the people weren’t too boring to talk to, and the venue was beautiful. I may as well soak it in while I can, I thought quietly. It wasn’t until I was all alone that Alex came up to me. He introduced himself right away, and cut to the chase quickly. According to him, I was “beautiful” and he supposedly knew he had to talk to me once I caught his eye. I thought it was total bullshit, it was the same cheesy dialogue normally found in Hallmark movies, but something about his charm kept me hanging on. I talked to him with a coy smile until finally, the dancing began and not surprisingly, he asked me to dance. I wasn’t a dancer, after so many weddings I usually opted out before that point, but I took a deep breath and grabbed his hand.
His body moved perfectly in sync to mine. He dipped me back, he made me laugh, I even allowed a slow dance. From anyone else’s perspective, we probably looked very much like a couple, despite only meeting a few hours prior.
After the dance and the conclusion of the party, we walked down the venue’s marble steps slowly, walked to the parking lot even slower, and by the time I reached my car I was disappointed. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to leave a wedding.
We exchanged numbers and he promptly asked me out on a breakfast date, to which I said yes. He smiled and waved good-bye to me before walking to his own car across the lot, and I stepped into my car overwhelmed with the emotions that had accumulated over the course of the night.
I had let my guard down just one night, and it led me to a boyfriend, which then led me to a fiancé.
Who would have thought something like this could happen, from just one, innocent night?
Initially, I found my mind gravitating to Thiago. Every action Alex made, I reciprocated an internal comparison. I couldn’t help it, considering I had no other meaningful relationship to compare this to. I used my former relationship with Thiago almost as a fact-checker, attempting to keep my feelings in place, measuring them in magnitude.
As time went on, my mind drifted further away from Thiago, and suddenly, he was almost gone entirely. There were still those occasional occurrences when I’d see his lush head of curls somewhere in public and had to force myself to look away, but I imagined he had moved on just as I had. It had been over a year, it had been so long for us. I was finally over him and in full acceptance of our downfall. I was on an uphill rise currently, with a new boyfriend who was crazy about me, and I was crazy about in return.
My feelings terrified the hell out of me, but Alex made it feel safe, he made it feel secure. He thawed out the ice surrounding my idea of love, and I began to feel fully, without the cold numbness.
I learned what love could be like after such a heartbreak, and I learned how not to let fear get the best of me.
He proposed, in a simple way, in private to avoid any sort of anxiety I experience in public situations. My initial hesitations dissipated and I said yes immediately. We hugged, we kissed, we touched, we fucked- we celebrated in all of the ways there was to celebrate. We wanted a wedding quickly, and luckily, I knew how to make that happen. It only took me about two months to get everything in order. I wanted everything done and over with, I wanted to be married, I wanted to close the chapter of dating and begin writing the new one focused on married life. I wanted to full abolish my promiscuous ways, fully forget my sexual history. I was ready to be a grown-up for the first time in my life, and tying the knot with the man who could technically be considered my true love, seemed like the right way to do it.
Hand-in-hand Alex and I walked up the marble steps and into the elaborate reception venue, the same one in which we first met. The high columns greeted us as my high heels announced our arrival. Quickly we met with the manager of the venue, who showed us around once more, walked us through the settings until finally, we sat down to taste-test the food from the caterer, an old friend whom I recommended to everyone. The food came and went, the cake we specially ordered was served, but by the end of all the hustling and bustling, my nerves were shot. Despite holding the reigns for this whole production, there was a small part of me nervous for walking down the aisle in front of all of these people; partially nervous for the chance of judgment from those who know me too well, partially nervous for myself and the huge commitment I was walking into, quite literally. I wanted the wedding to be here and gone, wanted it all to be over with as quickly and painlessly as possible, I wanted the love to overtake any ounce of doubt or insecurity I was feeling.
While Alex and one of the workers strike up some conversation, I excuse myself to head to the bar. All of this time, all of this food, and my lips had yet to touch an alcoholic beverage, something I was deemed as necessary right now. I saunter up to the bar, all while glancing around the grandeur room, until I sit down at the little bar stool and await the bartender at the far end to turn around. Finally, he comes over while I’m picking at my nails, thinking about how badly I must get them redone before the wedding.
The second I look up I’m grateful I didn’t have a drink in my hand; because the glass would have dropped and shattered into a million pieces.
Thiago was standing there, the bartender, clearly as in shock as I was. We did nothing but stare at each other, absorbing all of the information we could gather from this scenario. I could see him calculating, putting two and two together as he glanced past me at Alex and the worker, then back at me, then back at the centerpieces coming in, as he quickly figured out that the wedding he would be serving was, in fact, mine.
I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do at that moment. I tried to smile but it came out weak.
“Long time,” he breaks the ice and shoots a winning smile, his so unlike mine. “A lot has changed, hasn’t it?”
I nod, “As you can see,” I gesture around me, “they have. Things must have changed for you, too, if you’re here.”
He chuckles, “I guess life has been an unexpected change for both of us, then, right?”
“It has… but a good change… right?” I search his face for something, anything, some kind of sign.
“It’s been a good change for me.”
My stomach was caving in just then, my brain was pounding to the pulse of my heart processing all of this information. My absence in his life had been a good change, he’s been doing fine without me.
I had thought I was doing fine without him until right now.
“Yeah, me too,” I say, rather quietly.
“How long have you two been together?”
“About a year and a half,” I beam. “How is your love life treating you? Good, I hope?”
He shrugs, “Some good nights, some not-so-good nights,”
Just like that he and I had traded places. He had become my former self, just as I morphed into the person I told myself I would never be. Roles reversed and an unlikely plot twist, one we were both clearly aware of. I could feel it, not tension, but just an acknowledgment of what was now compared to what was then. Remembering that we were two completely different people now, with completely different lives; there was no “us” anymore. Just Nala and Thiago, separate not collective.
“I hope you have some more good nights,” I say to him, simply because I don’t know what else to say. I begin to remember the nights we spent together, the good nights we had. The nights that were more than just sex and love, the nights that were dancing in the living room and laughing happily while drinking wine straight out of the bottle, or sleeping curled up on my patio furniture after looking up at the stars, I was always eager to point out constellations and he was more than willing to listen and bask in the stars’ glory. I would look at the stars, he would look up at them too before looking back at me, and I would realize that I loved him a little bit more at that moment.
He would later tell me that he felt the same way.
He nods his head, his curls shaking, “I sure hope so too,” he laughs rather nervously.
Then there’s this moment- we have a moment.
It’s silent, it’s just us then. There’s nothing going on behind me, there’s nothing going on except for us and this energy and this connection, this thread I had previously cut off reattaching itself. It weaves its way into my mind, right into my feelings, constricting my heart, almost bringing up a lump in my throat.
We have this eye contact and I’m left to analyze every color in his iris, staring into the black of his pupil searching for an ounce of hope I could grab onto. I get so lost in his eyes, I never want to return.
Alex comes up behind me, wrapping an arm around my waist, breaking the moment he didn’t even know was there, “Ready to go?”
Thiago smiles at Alex, before smiling a little wider at me, “It was nice to see you, Nala. I’ll see you soon,” he goes to leave, then turning around, “Oh and congratulations.”
Alex doesn’t question any of it, doesn’t ask me how I know Thiago, doesn’t ask why I never even received a drink, he doesn’t notice any of it.
There’s a shift within me, there’s a noticeable difference to myself.
I walked away from all of this today having only gained the quiet confirmation that Alex was not the one I wanted to marry.
Alex and I met unexpectedly, as it wasn’t a meaningless hookup to spark the beginning of it, it wasn’t simply bumping into each other at a coffee shop, it wasn’t through mutual friends- instead, he walked right up to me. Casually, cooly, with all the confidence I wished I could possess, as I very previously did. I was at a wedding (foreshadowing, I now realize) talking to some guests, a glass of glittering champagne in one hand, the other picking at the hem of my dress, so eager to get out of there, toss off this uncomfortable dress, kick off the blistering shoes, and bury myself under a mountain of sherpa blankets. My job had begun to upset me in the littlest ways, not that it didn’t ever stimulate some sort of sadness before. But suddenly I was catching myself staring at the bowtie the groom would anxiously straighten, watching the bride’s train float down the aisle, or looking on intently from a corner as the bride and groom (or brides, and grooms) took that first cut into a cake made up of several tiers and I would feel a stab of pain, right in my heart, traveling upward balling itself into a lump in my throat. I began to envy these couples, for reasons I was not one-hundred percent certain about. I just knew that whatever they had, I wanted deep, deep down. I’d never admitted it to anyone else, I’d never speak about it, or even write about it in the journal I began keeping under the recommendation of a new therapist, but after witnessing true love for so long, I wanted it.
I didn’t know where this newfound intense lust for love had come from, but I wanted it to go away.
I was on edge for every wedding, ready to leave the second it had begun. Staying afterward for the receptions often got cut short for me. I’d soak up as many brides-to-be and hand them my business cards before claiming I had work early in the morning (usually a lie), and exiting with a kiss on the cheek to the bride and groom and basking in their praise for my hard work.
But at this wedding in particular, I didn’t bail early. I figured the food was good, the people weren’t too boring to talk to, and the venue was beautiful. I may as well soak it in while I can, I thought quietly. It wasn’t until I was all alone that Alex came up to me. He introduced himself right away, and cut to the chase quickly. According to him, I was “beautiful” and he supposedly knew he had to talk to me once I caught his eye. I thought it was total bullshit, it was the same cheesy dialogue normally found in Hallmark movies, but something about his charm kept me hanging on. I talked to him with a coy smile until finally, the dancing began and not surprisingly, he asked me to dance. I wasn’t a dancer, after so many weddings I usually opted out before that point, but I took a deep breath and grabbed his hand.
His body moved perfectly in sync to mine. He dipped me back, he made me laugh, I even allowed a slow dance. From anyone else’s perspective, we probably looked very much like a couple, despite only meeting a few hours prior.
After the dance and the conclusion of the party, we walked down the venue’s marble steps slowly, walked to the parking lot even slower, and by the time I reached my car I was disappointed. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to leave a wedding.
We exchanged numbers and he promptly asked me out on a breakfast date, to which I said yes. He smiled and waved good-bye to me before walking to his own car across the lot, and I stepped into my car overwhelmed with the emotions that had accumulated over the course of the night.
I had let my guard down just one night, and it led me to a boyfriend, which then led me to a fiancé.
Who would have thought something like this could happen, from just one, innocent night?
Initially, I found my mind gravitating to Thiago. Every action Alex made, I reciprocated an internal comparison. I couldn’t help it, considering I had no other meaningful relationship to compare this to. I used my former relationship with Thiago almost as a fact-checker, attempting to keep my feelings in place, measuring them in magnitude.
As time went on, my mind drifted further away from Thiago, and suddenly, he was almost gone entirely. There were still those occasional occurrences when I’d see his lush head of curls somewhere in public and had to force myself to look away, but I imagined he had moved on just as I had. It had been over a year, it had been so long for us. I was finally over him and in full acceptance of our downfall. I was on an uphill rise currently, with a new boyfriend who was crazy about me, and I was crazy about in return.
My feelings terrified the hell out of me, but Alex made it feel safe, he made it feel secure. He thawed out the ice surrounding my idea of love, and I began to feel fully, without the cold numbness.
I learned what love could be like after such a heartbreak, and I learned how not to let fear get the best of me.
He proposed, in a simple way, in private to avoid any sort of anxiety I experience in public situations. My initial hesitations dissipated and I said yes immediately. We hugged, we kissed, we touched, we fucked- we celebrated in all of the ways there was to celebrate. We wanted a wedding quickly, and luckily, I knew how to make that happen. It only took me about two months to get everything in order. I wanted everything done and over with, I wanted to be married, I wanted to close the chapter of dating and begin writing the new one focused on married life. I wanted to full abolish my promiscuous ways, fully forget my sexual history. I was ready to be a grown-up for the first time in my life, and tying the knot with the man who could technically be considered my true love, seemed like the right way to do it.
Hand-in-hand Alex and I walked up the marble steps and into the elaborate reception venue, the same one in which we first met. The high columns greeted us as my high heels announced our arrival. Quickly we met with the manager of the venue, who showed us around once more, walked us through the settings until finally, we sat down to taste-test the food from the caterer, an old friend whom I recommended to everyone. The food came and went, the cake we specially ordered was served, but by the end of all the hustling and bustling, my nerves were shot. Despite holding the reigns for this whole production, there was a small part of me nervous for walking down the aisle in front of all of these people; partially nervous for the chance of judgment from those who know me too well, partially nervous for myself and the huge commitment I was walking into, quite literally. I wanted the wedding to be here and gone, wanted it all to be over with as quickly and painlessly as possible, I wanted the love to overtake any ounce of doubt or insecurity I was feeling.
While Alex and one of the workers strike up some conversation, I excuse myself to head to the bar. All of this time, all of this food, and my lips had yet to touch an alcoholic beverage, something I was deemed as necessary right now. I saunter up to the bar, all while glancing around the grandeur room, until I sit down at the little bar stool and await the bartender at the far end to turn around. Finally, he comes over while I’m picking at my nails, thinking about how badly I must get them redone before the wedding.
The second I look up I’m grateful I didn’t have a drink in my hand; because the glass would have dropped and shattered into a million pieces.
Thiago was standing there, the bartender, clearly as in shock as I was. We did nothing but stare at each other, absorbing all of the information we could gather from this scenario. I could see him calculating, putting two and two together as he glanced past me at Alex and the worker, then back at me, then back at the centerpieces coming in, as he quickly figured out that the wedding he would be serving was, in fact, mine.
I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do at that moment. I tried to smile but it came out weak.
“Long time,” he breaks the ice and shoots a winning smile, his so unlike mine. “A lot has changed, hasn’t it?”
I nod, “As you can see,” I gesture around me, “they have. Things must have changed for you, too, if you’re here.”
He chuckles, “I guess life has been an unexpected change for both of us, then, right?”
“It has… but a good change… right?” I search his face for something, anything, some kind of sign.
“It’s been a good change for me.”
My stomach was caving in just then, my brain was pounding to the pulse of my heart processing all of this information. My absence in his life had been a good change, he’s been doing fine without me.
I had thought I was doing fine without him until right now.
“Yeah, me too,” I say, rather quietly.
“How long have you two been together?”
“About a year and a half,” I beam. “How is your love life treating you? Good, I hope?”
He shrugs, “Some good nights, some not-so-good nights,”
Just like that he and I had traded places. He had become my former self, just as I morphed into the person I told myself I would never be. Roles reversed and an unlikely plot twist, one we were both clearly aware of. I could feel it, not tension, but just an acknowledgment of what was now compared to what was then. Remembering that we were two completely different people now, with completely different lives; there was no “us” anymore. Just Nala and Thiago, separate not collective.
“I hope you have some more good nights,” I say to him, simply because I don’t know what else to say. I begin to remember the nights we spent together, the good nights we had. The nights that were more than just sex and love, the nights that were dancing in the living room and laughing happily while drinking wine straight out of the bottle, or sleeping curled up on my patio furniture after looking up at the stars, I was always eager to point out constellations and he was more than willing to listen and bask in the stars’ glory. I would look at the stars, he would look up at them too before looking back at me, and I would realize that I loved him a little bit more at that moment.
He would later tell me that he felt the same way.
He nods his head, his curls shaking, “I sure hope so too,” he laughs rather nervously.
Then there’s this moment- we have a moment.
It’s silent, it’s just us then. There’s nothing going on behind me, there’s nothing going on except for us and this energy and this connection, this thread I had previously cut off reattaching itself. It weaves its way into my mind, right into my feelings, constricting my heart, almost bringing up a lump in my throat.
We have this eye contact and I’m left to analyze every color in his iris, staring into the black of his pupil searching for an ounce of hope I could grab onto. I get so lost in his eyes, I never want to return.
Alex comes up behind me, wrapping an arm around my waist, breaking the moment he didn’t even know was there, “Ready to go?”
Thiago smiles at Alex, before smiling a little wider at me, “It was nice to see you, Nala. I’ll see you soon,” he goes to leave, then turning around, “Oh and congratulations.”
Alex doesn’t question any of it, doesn’t ask me how I know Thiago, doesn’t ask why I never even received a drink, he doesn’t notice any of it.
There’s a shift within me, there’s a noticeable difference to myself.
I walked away from all of this today having only gained the quiet confirmation that Alex was not the one I wanted to marry.
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