Alone With My Daydream

Here we are. The same story told over and over, of unrequited love. You see, as I sit here among these tables, each draped in colors of white and shimmering gold, as the scent of roses and the bride’s choice of honeysuckle wraps its spindly claws around my nose, I see her. The dress drapes at her shoulders like a blanket of snow falling atop the mountains on a cool winter evening. Her auburn hair, tied up in dainty knots, interlaced with dazzling white baby’s breath, sways with her body as she dances under the stars. Yet, here I sit, a plus one to a man who has not even looked in my direction since we exited the car. 

As I expected, he is too wrapped up in trying to flirt with the woman of the hour. The entire drive to the wedding I was subject to his drunken moaning over how he, “Just couldn’t believe a dork like Matt got a girl like her!” Meanwhile, I was wondering how I was going to survive the evening. I suppose it is lucky for me that he is preoccupied with other matters. As my eyes scan the grounds, I cannot help but see all the happy couples drinking and dancing the night away. Even my unfortunate date seems to have conned the bride into at least one dance this evening. 

Yet, here I am. Alone as I have always seemed to be. Not a single person in the area has bothered to come my way. I sit with legs crossed, and arms folded, watching. Waiting. Then finally, after her dance with my date, here she comes. Her smile lights up the room as it always has. She waves at me then beckons me over to her. My heart flutters in my chest. My hands grow clammy and my breath short. This is it, my moment. I think. NO, I can’t. What would she think of me if I said it? This is her wedding; she has already married the person she loves. No... don’t say anything...Smile.  

So, I do. I nervously stumbled my way across the grassy field to the dance floor where she stood. All the while, my legs wavered under the weight of my own body. She reached out to grab my hands. Oh god, please don’t mind how sweaty they are, I think to myself as I gently pull away. I hoped she did not continue to reach for them but, much to my dismay, she grabs them anyway. 

“It's so good to see you, Isadora,” she says. “It has been too long.” 

“It has,” I responded, trying to hide the sorrow in my voice. “You look happy!” 

“I am,” she replies. “Matt is an angel. I really don’t know where I’d be without him. He has changed my whole life. You know, I didn’t want kids...Like ever! But since meeting him,” she paused. I saw her crystal blue eyes flutter over to where her new husband was. I could see them alight with love and adoration for him. I felt an overwhelming wave of jealousy boil in my stomach just at the sight of it. Why couldn’t you look at me like that, I think. 

“Well, anyway, that's enough about me,” she continued. “How have you been, my love?” 

My love. My heart skips a beat hearing those words escape her lips, just as it always has. She utters the phrase effortlessly and without a single thought as to what it may mean to me. Same as always. There used to be times growing up I hoped and wished she meant something deeper by it, but she never did. 

“I’ve been good, just working and living you know,” I say. “Nothing too crazy.” 

She nudges me with her elbow, “I see you’re with Derrek,” she says with a wink. “That’s good, maybe after all these years, he’ll stop bothering me!” 

Not likely, I think. “Eh, me and him still don’t really get along, I just needed a date. I’m kind of embarrassed to be seen with him to be honest. I mean, do you see how he dances,” I jest. 

She chuckles. “Yeah, he does kind of suck at dancing doesn’t he?” 

We both giggle together. This feels good.  

Damn it, why did I even come here, I think. 

It is as if I enjoy putting my heart in a fire and watching it burn. Hell, at times I feel I even add gasoline to help accelerate the flames. The bride whips her head around at the sound of her new husband’s voice. He is calling her over to the bar to have drinks with him and his college buddies from Harvard. 

“Oh, well I guess I’ve got to go, Izzy,” she says dimly. 

Without warning she throws her arms around my neck and holds onto me. 

“It was good to see you,” she whispers in my ear. 

I grab her waist in a soft embrace and breathe in her vanilla perfume. I hold onto her for only a couple seconds before she releases me and pushes away. 

“We need to keep in touch more. I don’t want this to be the last time I see you until I come back to town.” 

I give a half-hearted smile. “I will.” 

“You promise,” she asks as she continues away towards her husband. 

“I promise.” 

There she goes, I say to myself. I watch the wind catch her veil as she hastily walks to her husband’s side. Growing up I always imagined how beautiful she may look on her wedding day. I knew she would appear as a princess among commoners. I just always hoped it would be me beckoning her to my side, not some man she met in college. But what can I expect when a woman like her leaves a small town like this. The world outside wanted a piece of her, and they got the one piece I never did, her heart. 

Now, as I stand here in the middle of a crowded dance floor, surrounded by people but as lonely as I ever was, I hear her uttering the words, “I do,” over and over in my memory. However, from this moment on, I suppose I have missed my turn to say those words to her. Those two binding words will never come to be exchanged between us now. So, alone with my daydream, I close my eyes and imagine her before me, like I have done a thousand times before, uttering softly unto myself, an oath she will never know I made her, “I do.”