Sea of Tears

“Hold still.”

“I’m trying.”

“Hold still!”

“I’m excited!” I giggled. I blinked as the last white rose was secured into my hair. 

“There. I’m done,” Melanie sighed, sitting down for the first time in two hours. “You have way too much hair, you know.”

I stared at my reflection and sighed contentedly. “I love it. Thank you so much. White roses are his favorite, you know. That’s why I picked them.”

Melanie smiled. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you.” I stood quickly. “How much time do I have before the wedding starts?”

She reached for her phone. “Twenty minutes.”

“Okay good,” I breathed. “I have to use the restroom. It’s the door in front of the beach area, right?”

She nodded. “But why don’t you use the one that’s in here?”

I gestured to the various layers of my wedding dress. “Twenty minutes.”

“Right. Probably better to be close, then.” 

I gave her a quick smile before stepping out of the hotel room and swiftly making my way downstairs. Everyone who saw me on the way down congratulated me, and my heart swelled with joy. This was the day I’d been waiting for all my life; it was the day I’d been dreaming of since I was a little girl. I felt like I was walking on air. 

The humid beach breeze greeted me as I stepped outside. I breathed it in happily, and picked up my pace again as I approached my destination. I silently hoped I could use the restroom without dropping my dress in toilet water. The thought of walking down the aisle covered in disgusting fluids did not sit well with me, and I shuddered. 

My dress bounced up and down as I walked through the concrete path, and I unconsciously reached for my hair to make sure the roses were still there. After I felt the softness of their petals, I walked into the restroom. 

My heart stopped, and I felt my face flush with embarrassment. There was a woman backed against a sink, kissing a man in a tuxedo passionately and pulling his hair with her fingers. I walked backwards, and my hand reached for the door handle instinctively, but I froze. My eyes were glued to the couple, who was so distracted that they had not noticed me come in. 

The man caught my attention the most. The way he was breathing, the way his hair sat on his head, the way his hands moved. I looked down at his black leather shoes, and my hand dropped from the handle of the door. 

“Danny?” I knew the name had slipped from my own tongue, but it sounded foreign and distant. My hands were shaking violently, and my back fell toward the door as I lost my balance. 

The man pushed the woman away quickly and turned to face me. His face confirmed my worst fears. Here was my fiancé—the man I was supposed to marry in less than twenty minutes—cheating on me in the beach bathroom. 

“Cassie?” He rushed toward me with a panicked expression. I tried to back away, but the door pressed against my bare back. It was cold. 

“Stay away from me,” I said shakily. My breathing was growing uneven, and I could barely process what was going on. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on me or I’ll scream.”

Danny’s hands fell to his side limply. “I can explain.”

“No, you can’t.” I whispered. I blinked the tears out of my eyes rapidly and reached toward my hair. I ripped out the roses one by one, and he watched them fall to the ground. 

I didn’t want to see the woman. I didn’t want to know who she was. I was terrified to see a familiar face; terrified to add to the intense pain that was building in my chest. My heart beat painfully, and my eyes burned intensely. My mind was screaming at me to look away, but my eyes moved independently in her direction. My own eyes stared back at me, but on a different face. 

“Mom?” Her eyes were filled with guilt and fear. 

My instincts took over, and I pushed against the door handle with all my strength until I stumbled outside. I spun around and ran down to the beach as quickly as I could, trying to block out the sounds of my name being called. In my desperation, I didn’t notice I had run straight down the aisle, and everyone was staring at me. All the guests, including my dad, looked at me with a mixture of surprise and worry. I gazed into my dad’s eyes desperately, and he set down the chair he had been fixing. 

“What happened?” he asked gently, walking toward me and placing his hands on my shoulders. 

I looked into my father’s eyes, and instantly saw that he didn’t know anything about what I had just seen. I became more and more aware of my painfully beating heart, and I realized I didn’t want to be the one to shatter his innocence. I wanted him to stay unaware for as long as possible, even if he had to find out eventually. Knowing that both of our hearts had been broken on the same day cut more deeply than I wanted to admit. Looking into his eyes, I didn’t just see innocence. I saw every game I had played with him when I was a child. I saw all the times he gave my mom flowers, and all the cakes he bought for her birthdays to make up for all the ones she had spent alone. I saw all the family trips we shared, all the pictures we took, all the memories we made. I saw my dad smiling and telling my mother he loved her. I saw my mother, backed against a sink, with her fingers pulling Danny’s hair. My Danny. 

I backed away from his touch. The flooding memories were too painful, and they were starting to cloud my judgement again, just as they had in the bathroom. My hand reached toward my hair, and I yanked my veil out from where Melanie had lovingly placed it less than an hour ago. Some strands got stuck and tried to pull it back, but I forced it out, not caring if I ripped my hair. I removed my shoes and threw them away from me. My dad stared at me confused, searching for an explanation in my face, but I gave him none. I turned away and started running as fast as I could. 

My dress slowed me down, but my desire to get away from it all was strong. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought if I ran fast enough, the image of my mother kissing Danny would disappear from where it had burned itself in my mind. If I ran, maybe I would wake up in a cold sweat with Danny by my side, and realize that this had all been a dream. But all that felt real were the grains of sand burning and cutting my feet, and I did not wake up. 

I don’t know how long I was running for, but when I turned back the guests seemed tiny, like ants in the distance. I stopped and fell to my knees. The tears came again, and they flowed down my cheeks like angry rivers. I frustratedly reached for the back of my dress and tried to untie it. I felt sick, contaminated, tainted. I wanted to remove this symbol of commitment, joy, and love from my body. I had given Danny the world. I was ready to give him all of me; I was ready to settle down and start a family. But here I was, hurting myself with the blistering sand on the ground, because the love of my life had been kissing my mother in a dirty bathroom. And I felt disgusting wearing the dress that I had picked for him. 

When I finally loosened the back of the dress, I pushed myself out of it and left it on the sand. I stepped forward until I felt the waves begin to crash against my feet. I took a shaky breath, and tried to rid myself of the feeling that the dress was calling to me. I jogged into the water until it came up to my stomach. As I swam, feeling the waves pushing and pulling me back and forth, I pulled the bobby pins out of my hair and dropped them into the water. Some lingered on the surface of the water, and others began to sink gently to the sea floor. 

The water washed away my sadness for an instant, and for a brief moment my tears flowed on their own, with no emotion behind them. They trickled steadily down the sides of my face, and spilled into the water. 

It became a sea of tears.