Page 6 of A Complicated Bride

Chapter 3

Lily

Itried walking up the stairs in a dignified way with heart hammering and my eyes tearing up. How could I possibly be excited and sad at the same time? Julie carried me with her strength of will down the hall toward the bedroom that had been hers growing up to the familiar four poster bed and the white eyelet trimmings.

Not bothering to wait for her to close the door or invite me to make myself at home, I threw myself onto the bed and rolled into a half ball, hugging a furry pink pillow to my chest and stared at the ceiling, willing my tears to recede.

Willing my life to be okay, to be anything, but not to be the way it was—except I wanted all the people to be there still. I loved my family and friends and co-workers and my stupid boring fiancée. But I didn’t want to lead the same life they led. Not now anyway.

Maybe this was temporary. I let that thought sit while Julie stared at me, concern in her creased brow and disbelief around the edges of her half open mouth.

“Let me guess—you broke it off with Theodore—“

A moan came from inside me without my permission, sounding loud and clear like a pathetic wounded animal. I sat up. This was enough. This was not who I was. I was an independent woman, someone who could forge her own path and I needed to act like it.

With no idea how to “act like it”, I nodded my head at Julie and tossed the pink pillow aside. I wasn’t the same foolish little girl who spent summer nights in this bedroom with my cousin dreaming and plotting about our wedding days and how we would be each other’s maid of honor and wondering who would go first and who would be the matron of honor.

Or was I the same after all, dreaming and fantasizing, living in a fantasy world?

No. Those were Teddy’s words. Or Theodore’s words. I only called him Teddy because I refused to acquiesce to that one thing among the millions of others that I’d given in to. I called him Teddy in spite of his wishes because I wanted him to be Teddy, or more Teddy and less Theodore.

But that hadn’t been fair, had it?

“It’s better this way.” I finally spoke and my voice had no quaver. I cleared my throat to be sure then spoke with bigger strength, as if I were on stage and projecting to the last row.

“I broke it off in a note—which I’m not proud of—and left it with mother and father. Then I ran away. To here. Because I couldn’t think where else to go. I hadn’t planned things out but that was part of the purpose.”

“Part of what purpose?” Julie asked with a gentle caress in her voice and sat on my bed—her bed—with me, reaching out to touch my hand once it stopped flying around using up all the bottled up angst that finally escaped me.

“The purpose was spontanaiety. I’ve been starved for it. Too much has been planned for me for too long. I’m breaking out of my gilded jail.” I took a breath. “Does that sound too melodramatic?”

She giggle-chuckled, one of those signature unlady-like July sounds that endeared her to everyone, especially me.

“If it didn’t sound melodramatic it wouldn’t be you—not the you I remember most. The young girl, the way we were back in the day just before we reached womanhood.”

“When everything changed? When everything went to hell I should say in full honest to God’s shameless truth.”

“I get it, honey. I can see why you might have second thoughts—“

The vigor of my head-shaking denial would give me a headache if I didn’t stop myself after a second and after Julie squeezed my hand in a signal I recognized as “stop it you crazy person”.

“Not second thoughts—“

“I see.”

“It’s final. It’s over. I should have done things more…” the only word that I could muster that bore resemblance to the truth was difficult for me to admit, but I had to. “More sanely.”

“You’re not the only girl who’s come to a sudden realization that they want out of their engagement. Plenty of young ladies before you have ditched men at the alter or not too long before when their feet finally got cold enough that they might fall off all together if they didn’t run.”

I laughed. Then I threw myself into her, hugging my arms around her and blessedly not crying, but sighing deeply and releasing guilty tension among other assorted tangles of emotion.

She released me—or made me release her after giving me some warm strokes on my back that brought to mind the intimate comforting caress of a baby. Followed quickly by the thought that this woman had twins. Eeek. And here I was taking up her mothering instincts with my juvenile neediness when Julie, dear loving Julie, had more pressing motherliness to attend to.

I sat straight and tried popping to my feet though the edge of the cushy bed was far away and high off the polished floor. I managed to land and straightened myself up, adjusting the skirt and my attitude. If I had any Pollyana left in me this was the time to dredge it up and bring it out into play. Or maybe I should try for Scarlett O’Hara.

“Julie, what about your babies—I don’t mean to keep you from them. You must want—“

She stood with the grace of a tall lithe supermodel—the one that she’d been or could have been and I squashed the squirt of envy and longing that jumped in my chest. Reminding myself I had panache of my own and the creative spirit and need to express myself. I didn’t need to be a Hollywood star. If I were honest, the notion frightened me into panic. But I did love throwing myself into fantasy worlds the way one could on a stage, like the stage of a local community theater.