Fatal Last Kiss

You never forget your first love. Or at least, your first high school sweetheart whom you’d later get engaged to a decade after graduation – a surprise that took everyone off guard. Ohmygod he was gorgeous! Thick black hair, dancing playful eyes, muscular build. He was the high school jock, the football star, but mostly, he was just loved by everyone. Of course, the small-town drunken girls threw themselves at him, laughing stupidly. Not the kind of girls you take home, if you know what I mean. At least not to your mama's.

Cole was absolutely perfect in my eyes. He was sweet, funny, and adored the hell outta me. What was not to love? It was mutual. I remember I was so smitten with this beautiful gentle soul that I had his school photo with me sitting on my desk during class. We were absolutely sickingly crazy over each other!

I was a good girl, a straight A student. He was a rough, tough jock whom no one messed with but he kissed a dumb drunk girl at a party so of course, I said goodbye. I adored him, but we parted ways, and I went on to meet another high school partner whom I’d end up with for the next seven rocky years.

After graduation, I moved far away to another state to pursue a new life away from small town claustrophobia with my partner. I was miles away from home, old friends…..and Cole. We lost touch. He went his way, working his ass off at work. Eventually my other relationship ended after much heartbreak, and I moved halfway closer to home. I couldn’t quite bring myself to go exactly back there. Too many grey clouds for me.

Cole and I met at his best friend’s wedding about ten years after graduation, and 11-12 years after we last dated. Sparks flew. That kind of attraction you cannot fake EVER especially when you’ve both been civil and polite for all those years gone by. He looked so sharp in his best man’s tux!

He and I ended up talking all night. He drew me back in with his sweet innocent small town ways. This boy was such a romantic because he was so damn honest. I was wary after my last relationship, but he caught my attention again for sure.

The highly independent sassy hardworking city girl now, I even returned any gifts, jewelry, or plane tickets he sent me! I was eight hours away! No way this could work out! I would NEVER return to that horrible, gossipy town again, even for him!

The few times he did drive the eight hours to see me, his hands would be shaking terribly from the big city traffic. The drivers definitely were aggressive in the city where I lived. Here, it was dog eat dog, and you needed to fight if you wanted to get anywhere. Literally. Or else you’d miss your turn off and then you’d really be pissed! Add another hour to your estimated arrival time.

Eventually Cole won me over with his beautiful smile, and especially genuine heart. He was still the sweetheart I remembered from high school! It did take some time and convincing but after less than a year of seeing each other long distance, he proposed. I accepted. The poem he wrote while on his knee during that damn cold January…who could say no? The horse and carriage he booked didn’t even show up, it was so cold! I said goodbye to my friends, coworkers, roommate, and life that I had carefully created the past five years and decided to move back to my hometown to be with Cole, my now fiancé. He even bought a house for us outside the small town so we could start fresh!

Except -

All of those in the small town just ended up at our house every weekend. He’d throw hot tub parties and all-nighters with his boys. This lasted over eight months, every weekend. We never made plans for the wedding. No plans about our future or kids.

I had enough of the partying bachelor lifestyle and moved out while going to university full time. I was devastated!

FLASH FORWARD 8-9 YEARS

I met someone else, so did he. I graduated with honors from university and started work in a government position that I fought hard for. Finally, after a couple of years, I decided I wanted to move back to the place I had moved from before meeting Cole. School was done, the job was not the forever job I thought it would be, even with the cushy pension and great wages. I was not fulfilled inside. So, I moved back.

Eventually I did meet someone else I had known forever, and he and I moved in together. It would be three years down the road, but we eventually got engaged and talked about finally starting a family. He wanted the wedding to be a rush, less than six months after he proposed. I did my best and stressed myself out planning an international wedding that was beyond stunning. The handmade invitations were out, the romantic website of details was up, bridesmaid dresses arrived…now just for my beautiful champagne dress to come in a week! We were 90% there.

Then my world not only turned upside down…again. It did backflips and headstands until I was definitely nauseous, begging for it to slow down even just a little so I could get a foothold on WTF just happened.

My fiancé had a weirdly close relationship with his mother that made me very uncomfortable. She meddled so much that she had a key to our house and walked in whenever she wanted, even when he wasn’t home, and I was in the tub. It was mandatory that we visit her every second Saturday even though she was barely kind to me. I begged my fiancé to go by himself. “Stay the whole day! Stay overnight, the weekend! I don’t care! I have so much to do!” I’d cry.

During the planning of our wedding which was coming up in a few weeks, I asked if I could just visit my future monster-in-law only once a month just until the wedding was over. I had so many details left to take care of! Plus, I was writing a book and helping my family prepare to travel to another country for the celebration.

“That’s not what a marriage is!” he snapped at me.

Soon his mother called an emergency meeting – without me – to tell my fiancé that he could do better. She did not like how I was standing up to her lately! For three years, I did the mandatory visits, tolerated her dropping by unannounced every week - even when she was contagious with a horrible brutal virus.

How ironic that I was in the midst of filling out some marital documents when he burst through the doors and said his mom told him we needed to put the wedding on pause.

Silence.

“Um. You’re 41. Do you not have a voice in this?” I asked. He mumbled, avoided my eyes, close to crying himself, and looked so pathetically lost. “I just need to put things on hold to think. My mom doesn’t think you’re the right one for me.”

The flashbacks I had of him when we first dated three years ago, how he looked like a lost little kid while pretending to be the big affluent man came rushing back to me. I could see very clearly why he carried that energy. I just wish I had listened closer to my own inner voice. I always seemed to attract broken boys in men’s bodies who desperately wanted and needed saving. It was exhausting.

I moved out. He ran away to another country to drown his sorrows and would reach out months later, saying he had counselling and realized how his mother had destroyed our relationship.

It was much, much too late. I had sold the wedding dress, ring, trying to recoup the thousands of dollars spent, and hours of love and tears I had put into every single poem that I had written for our hundred guests. I did miss him, of course but I’m so very proud of myself for not meeting him that night he reached out.

It was here that I met up again with Cole.

That handsome sexy devil! Older, but so was I. That electric chemistry was still there between us.

After the breakup with the last ex, my fierce independent streak grew even stronger, and my career was finally taking off. I was asked to do some sexy photo shoots wearing all kinds of clothes I wouldn’t normally wear, including a lot of black leather, skintight latex, and thigh high boots. Not my usual style but hey! I was newly single and determined not to wallow in my heartache.

It was 1 day before what was supposed to be my wedding night that September, less than 2 months since the huge split. My siblings and I travelled 8 hours to go to my mom’s surprise birthday party. This would be the first time in years I had gone back home to where Cole lived, where my old friends and rest of my family still lived. Fighting back tears and memories of the recently cancelled gorgeous fairy tale wedding, I held my head up, put on a sexy tight black leather skirt, cute shirt, stilettos, and called a few of my closest friends to see if they were up for dancing all night after my mom’s surprise party ended. I was NOT ready to go home at 9 pm and watch movies and be sad all night! No way! This was supposed to be the night I had been planning for in detail the past five months. It was all I breathed!

I sent a quick post out on social media while in town and just said, “Hey! In town for 2 nights only! Going dancing with my girls at this club and hope to see you there!”

Little did I know that not only would Cole show up at the bar that night, looking cute as ever…but so would another ex who had smashed my heart years earlier after cheating on me with a friend of mine. Why I still had him on my social media page, I have no idea. Probably trying to show him I didn’t give a f***…and it was true, I actually didn’t, anymore.

It’s comical how both he and Cole sat down at the same table, neither knowing each was an ex of mine. I was in a girls-night, dancing ALL night mood so I barely even sat down at the table. They were both forced to come out dancing on the dance floor if they wanted to talk to me! And they weren’t dancers! It was hilarious.

At the end of the night, what still makes me laugh, is that the mean cheater (although gorgeous, I won’t lie) wanted me to go home with him. I can still see his face when I said with confidence, “Actually, I’m going home with Cole.”

The look on his face was priceless. This was a guy who not only was addicted to women, and had women falling over him all the time, but had never been told no before. I was not, and am not, a one-night stand kind of girl. But with every inch in my power, I was NOT going to go home alone to be sad, and cry and wallow because this was supposed to be my wedding weekend!

Cole. Bless his beautiful kind gentle heart. He was just as surprised as the other ex to hear that I chose to go home with HIM, and not the other guy who was every bit the stereotypical player cliche, with his big muscles, tattoos, and macho behavior. I was over him. But beautiful kind souls like Cole’s…yes, I had space for him in my heart. Even if just for the night.

Once at his home, we were two high school lovers, once engaged to each other almost a decade ago, with a magnetic attraction that felt like it would never die. It was as hot and passionate as the first time we connected in our true innocence and open heartedness all those years ago. And yes, I happened to have a sexy outfit I was asked to wear for a future photo shoot, having picked it up while I was there that weekend, which only added to the memory.

The next morning, Cole was on the couch, watching football, when I wandered out in his t-shirt to give him a good morning kiss. It was at the point the limo driver who was hired four months ago called me to pick me up from the hotel on the resort to take my bridesmaids and I to where the wedding vows were to take place on the lakeshore.

“Uhhh….I cancelled this limo like 5 weeks ago! I’m sorry but the wedding was cancelled. I told your wife. Did you not get the message?” He was lovely. Older, thick accent, and a retired driver who worked with his wife driving a limo on a beautiful resort to make some extra money. “Oh, I’m sorry!” he apologized profusely. “But I have all this champagne in the limo. What should I do with it?” It had been charged to my ex-fiancé’s credit card all those months ago. “Keep it!” I said, with a somewhat sad smile. How on EARTH could this be happening when I’m trying to forget that damn disaster? Today of all days! What would have been my wedding day! “Take it home to your lovely wife!” I said and hung up the phone. I cuddled in next to Cole on the couch and all was right with the world, at least for now.

The day was spent just the way you see in the movies. We sat in his outdoor hot tub with a few drinks and colored lights in the dark, me on his lap. We could not keep our hands off each other, just like it had always been. I met his neighbors; we made an incredible supper and were as comfortable as two childhood best friends for those two entire days. He asked me if I’d consider moving back AGAIN to see if we could make it work out.

“Cole! I did that once before already for you! I left my life to be with you and it went downhill! I don’t know if I could do that again!” Even now, the rumors in the town had been merciless, petty, and high schoolish with his ex-girlfriends writing my name saying “She’s in town! They are together right now!”

Such tiresome bullshit. How the bullies bored me.

But I knew it would never stop. EVER.

The next morning, I was sitting in my Honda, saying goodbye to this beautiful man. He was at my driver’s side window pleading for me to stay. “Are you SURE you won’t move back here? Are you SURE???” His piercing blue eyes had always melted me straight to my heart. I did love that boy. I’m not sure if I really stopped.

Fierce independent warrior and survivor that I was, I firmly said “Yes. I’m sure. I’m NEVER coming back here to live again.”

He leaned in through the window and we both held back tears, not knowing when we’d see each other again. He looked so adorable with his glasses, messy hair, plaid pajama bottoms, and easy-going manner. I hated seeing the sadness in his face.

His soft lips met mine and we whispered while still kissing how we miss each other already, love each other so much. I could only have said goodbye to this man and driven away because I assumed we’d see each other again. If I would have known that was the last time that I’d see his beautiful blue eyes and disarming smile, I’d have turned that damn car around and ran right back into his arms.

We spoke for a few more months over the phone once I was back home, and he always asked the same question, “Are you sure?”

“Yes!” I had been there before and he had let me down so badly….I couldn’t bring myself to trust him with my entire life and future – again.

It wouldn’t be much longer until he met someone that he told me about from a club he had joined because he had felt so deserted by his closest friends and even family, yes, even in his own hometown. No one knows the stories he told me about them during that weekend I was there. People he loved the most had let him down too.

He eventually married the girl he told me about but just before it got really serious with them, he asked me quietly one last time, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, honey. You’d have to come here.”

Within a few months, I got the call that he had passed away doing something he loved more than anything in the world. He was playing out in the snow, on the mountains with his boys, snowmobiling. I believe other factors were at play, and was told so by a healer, years later.

I have spoken with him in the afterlife through a highly regarded medium. We’ve chatted a few times and I know he’s watching over me. He shows himself holding a baseball bat towards anyone who wants to hurt me, and I laugh because that was so him. One last thing the medium told me that he said was that he would always be waiting for me…that we could make it work again if we wanted to, on the other side.

And that’s all my heart can bare to share about that Fatal Last Kiss. RIP Cole.