Emphasis

This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. 

Isn’t it funny how, when you put emphasis on certain words, it can change the meaning of the sentence entirely? 

This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives, meaning that out of all days in their (whoever they may be) lives, this one particular day was destined to be the happiest. 

This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. You could take that one in the way of something happened to make it the opposite of happy; something irrevocable and unwonted. Then again, it could be proving someone right, too. It could be following the description of people twirling in fields with daisy chains, not a care in the world. That would be a rather happy interpretation of the sentence, right? 

This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. 

There. That one. It’s the kicker. Hits you right below the rib cage and leaves you leaning on your bedpost, sinking to the soft carpet and curling into your heated blanket. Because your dream day has turned to a nightmare, blurry with falling ash instead of blooming roses. Because the happiest day of your life, the day when everything finally clicked together, is now the day when everything falls apart. 

This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives; that one makes me think of a ruined wedding day, of broken vows, of someone proposing to their own partner in the middle of your reserved courtyard, of flying cake and no one knocking before they open the door. A stolen day. What was supposed to be for them now taken or, maybe, given to them. 

Really, the emphasis changes everything. 

What’ll this story be, though? A chosen happy day out of many others, or a day proven to be the best/worst? A day gone horribly wrong or a day gone well for the wrong people? 

None of the above. 

All of the above. 

It was different things for different people, as most things tend to be, and the beginning went like this: 

“Good morning!” 

A girl in a bright red jumpsuit greeted the people below, standing on her balcony and waving. Her dark hair was pulled back with a yellow ribbon and to one person on the streets, her outfit appeared to be a perfect ad for McDonald’s. He waved up to her and smiled, returning the hellos. 

“How are you today, Evangeline?” He knew he wasn’t supposed to talk to her until five o’clock, but it was easy to confuse the lines of what he could and couldn’t do all the time. He let things slip, now and then, and he had to hope that in the end it wouldn't mess him up. Evangeline smiled back and turned around to go back inside because she, unlike Sebastian, was much more careful in her ways. 

Things had to go well, you see, because this was the day when they would finally run off together. They had planned for months that seemed like years, every hour bleeding into centuries apart from each other. Silly, yeah, but also… what was there to fight for if not for love? Nothing was worth giving up the fireworks, the butterflies, the long walks and silent, not saying anything at all talks. 

To Sebastian, Evangeline was the only time he wanted to follow. 

To Evangeline, Sebastian was the clock ticking to match her own heartbeats. 

They’d been planning this, okay? 

This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. 

On the other side of town, however, in a coffee shop by the littered ocean shore, the beginning went like this: 

She misses the way he used to be 

He misses the way she used to smile

They aren’t sure what’s broken

But maybe it’s been that way for a while.

The shock of it all is messy 

Has them spinning circles in the sand

Where do you go in the dark

With no one to hold your hand? 

Staring at the clouds 

Making shapes when nothing’s there 

Take the soft light away 

Love looks different when stripped bare. 

Pink smiles hide blue days 

Close hands hide far minds

And the cars on the street 

Keep crossing blurred lines. 

She misses the way he used to be

Gave her baskets full of flowers 

He misses the way she used to smile 

To know they had more hours 

To sit together, do nothing at all 

To be the world and to see it 

To have a universe together 

Then to watch it burn and have to admit 

That it wasn’t a one side arson 

You helped to set it aflame 

He knows this and she hates the fact 

That though they’ve played it well

It was all a game. 

It’s not fair 

How they ended up 

An empty bowl

From filling cups. 

She misses the way he used to be

He misses the way she used to smile 

Neither of them can see the door

So I guess they’ll be here for a while. 

This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives, and instead it seemed like they didn’t know why they were still having a day in their collective lives at all. 

Afternoon, back at the balcony apartment, Evangeline was getting ready to leave with Sebastian because unlike the couple at the coffee shop, she was so drawn into the idea of their future together that she couldn’t wait to leave. It was a ribbing curiosity, a marvelous and warm enchantment of body and mind. Evangeline knew in the back of her mind that she was essentially throwing one life down the toilet, but what did that matter when the new one was wild and free and brighter just because of one person? Who knew, she thought to herself as she pulled on her left boot, if Sebastian was such an influence in her reeducation could there be more lessons to be learned, taught by others along the road? 

She wanted out of:

 the house she’d grown up in. 

Off the:

 balcony that she had looked down off of, like a princess stuck in a castle, for too long. 

To be part of:

something bigger than herself. 

It was all close, too, closer than she had ever dreamed it would be. All the nights she spent staring at the posters in her room of people in her fairytale books were now rolled up, much like the posters themselves, and tucked away in memory lane. After all, what use was memory lane when soon enough she’d be skipping next to Sebastian down Making History Avenue? 

Evangeline pulled the suitcase out from under the dresser. It was full of clothes and notebooks and snacks she had taken from the kitchen because as much as she loved Sebastian, he wasn’t clothes or food or shelter, which was what she found in her writing. 

“To-day my prince will come,” she sang, “To-day we’ll meet again,” she picked up her bag and threw it gently onto her bed, “And away to his castle-” she stopped herself. “No, away to our castle, we’ll go.” 

“Evangeline!” There the prince was now! She grabbed the bag, draping the straps around her shoulders and pulling them tight. The balcony door squeaked as she opened it, her red and yellow outfit traded for a darker, more cohesive look. She was wanting to blend it with the shadows, not become one with the light. 

“Shh,” she began to slide through the bars of the balcony, “My aunts will hear you.” That was dumb because it was only five o’clock, not midnight, and everyone could hear everyone. For the sake of drama in a sleepy town, though, the neighbors feigned oblivion to the flight of Evangeline, lovebird extraordinaire. 

While one girl flew, the other fell. 

She was slipping and no one was there to catch her because in another world, not this one but another one, Sebastian had never come to meet Evangeline. He’d been smashed to smithereens by a semi truck and killed instantly, without a sound but a wordless scream escaping, vacuum-like, from his lastly parted lips. Evangeline had received the news from her Aunt Helen, one of the three sisters she lived with, who had swept upstairs and said, “That bloke you liked is dead, Leena. A big ole semi truck done come and whacked his head clear off. The paramedics called your phone, said you were the boy’s emergency contact or whatnot.” 

And Evangeline didn’t believe her aunt, in this other world. 

And Evangeline heard Sebastian’s voice calling her from outside the window, in this other world. 

And Evangeline was waiting for someone to catch her, in this other world. 

Only no one was there, and she met the sidewalk with a bone chilling kiss. 

It was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. 

In this same world, mind you, this wild other dimension we know little and too much about, the coffee shop couple were not arguing. They were sleeping underneath the big tree down in the park, picnic blanket wrapped up around their shoulders like a cocoon. It was a happy day. Some might even call it the happiest because in this parallel place, they weren’t drifting apart, but instead realizing that the best kind of love was not always going to be fireworks. It could be the soft flickering of a home’s chimney, all lit up and beaming for the winter holidays. They realized love was not always going to be butterflies, either. It could be the way you look at someone while they do something simple, like watching the clouds or chopping up an onion. 

In this world, it was the happiest day of their lives. 

What’s the moral of this story, if you can call it that? Is it a testament to a scientific theory of multiple universes all bouncing around in the same heaven ordered chocolate box? Is it a warning, a history? 

No. 

It’s just a reminder that emphasis, 

Makes all the difference. 

One way, the story ended with a beginning, and the in the other: 

It was too late.