short stories

the hidden truth between us

"Are you almost ready?", Sarah says as she enters the room with the biggest smile on her face. I turn around from looking at myself in the mirror to Sarah and plant the same expression on my face.

"Of course I am. I've been waiting for this day since I was a little girl." She walks over and takes my hands in hers while a fall of silence falls between us. "Do I look okay or fine or whatever?"

"You look absolutely beautiful, Emma. When Derrick sees you he wont believe his own two eyes and what's standing right in front of him.", Sarah let's go of my hands as she softly dances around the room.

Today I'm getting married to the love of my life in only 10 minutes. But the thoughts in my mind has me second guessing. What if I'm gonna regret it in the future? What if I think Derrick is "the love of my life" but isn't? What if-

"Hello?" Snap, snap. "Emma, we gotta start heading downstairs now! Come on!" She gets her stuff and starts heading out the room.

"I'll be there in a sec!" I check myself out one last time in the mirror, fixing stuff that needs fixing, like my hair, veil, make up and dress. With one deep breathe I go and leave the room, making my way down the stairs. Sarah is at the bottom of the stairs and in front of the door, that leads outside of the lawn where I will be walking down to my soon-to-be husband. Ok, Emma there is no turning back now.

"Come here. Stand here.", she places me right in front of the door as she adjusts my dress for me. "Hey, it's gonna be perfect you don't have to worry. It's gonna go exactly how you always imagined it. Just breathe." Sarah begins to breath in and out with me. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep breath-

"Hey, can I talk to the bride? Emma-", I hear him say from behind me. I turn around and see... Matt. The boy, well now man, that I shared almost every waking moment of my life with. My bestest friend. My childhood and teenage crush.

"Nope, nope. Get out of here, Matt! You're not even supposed to be here, you idiot. You're supposed to be with the other groomsmen at the altar!", Sarah whisper yells at her older brother.

"I know I know but just let me talk to Emma.", Matt stands there while his greenish eye wondering up and down my body.

"Fine, go talk but make it quick." She stands with her arms crossed, not moving from her position.

"Without you, Sarah.", he tells her while she leaves the room while rolling her eyes. With his hands in his suit pants pockets, Matt walks step by step closer to me.

"You-you look absolutely, incredibly like a literal gift from God amazing, Em."

He eyes me again with a hint of sadness on his face. I look up to him like always but this time- this time feels different like I don't want to look away from him.

"Thank you, Matty. You don't look too bad yourself." I jokingly stated while lifting my hands up to fix his tie. As i finished the tie, I leave my right hand on his chest, right above his heart. A voice in my head tells me to stop but for some reason... I simply can't.

I lift my head up and make eye contact with him. I feel his cool minty breath when he is inhaling and exhaling, and notice how beautiful his eyes glisten in the light just right above us. We just stand their for a few seconds until he breaks the silence. "Please don't do that, Em. Please."

"What did I do? Did I do something wrong, Matt?" I slowly pull my hands away from him with a confused look.

He steps back, looks down at the floor and shakes his head slowly. "Don't touch me like you want me. Don't look at me like you love me. Because if you do then I can never ever let you go."

I can hear the pain in his voice. I never wanted to be the one who caused him pain. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean, Em." Matty looks up at me and starts coming closer again. "I love you. And I finally fucking realized that it's now too late and that I shouldn't be doing this because the man that's waiting for you down that isle right now loves you too but I" He points at himself, "I love you much more than this whole world, galaxy, and solar system can handle but I just love you. And I really can't hold it in anymore and me saying this right now on your wedding day is a mistake. I know I should've told you this way before but,"

He shakes his head with tears forming in his eyes. I feel tears on my own face fall slowly down, ruining my make up, and falling onto my dress. But for some reason I haven't told Matt to stop.

"you have looked so so happy with him, way more than you have ever with me. And I realized that-that you should know that I love you because even though it's selfish of me to be doing this right here right now that it's the right thing to do. To let you know how I feel and why I feel this because you-you Emma Davidson are the light to my darkness, the smile on my face and the way my heart pounds when you are near."

He is now in front of me with tears rolling down his cheeks. "I, Matthew Browne, love you, Emma. I always had and I tried to tell you the last day of summer before our first day of college but you interrupted me and told me you started dating Caylub Alvarez. And I just love you."

He touches my cheek with his cold hand and smiles through his tears. After all this time. After all these years the man that I promised I would always love just told me he loves me back. What do I say now? I don't know what to say. But what do I do-

"So, what do you have to say? It's fine if you don't feel the same I completely understand since you love him and you probably-"

I kiss him. I pull him into me and show him that I love him too, that I've always have and been loving him. Our lips lock for a few more seconds until we both pull away.

"I love you, Matt. I always have and this timing is bad but I don't care because I love you."

We just stand in front of each other while smiling and wiping our tears away with glassy eyes.

"What do I do now?", I whisper. Im going to be walking down the isle in only a few minutes. There's multiple things I could do right now. A) Proceed to marry Derrick. B) Run away with Matt and never look back. Or C) Talk to Derrick about it.

"I don't know, Em. I'm sorry for telling you since it's a bad time but at the same time I'm not.", he searches my eyes. "I know this is selfish and bad and whatever but please for the sake of both of us don't marry him." I've made up my mind.

"I won't marry him, Matt. But I am going to talk to him about this because it's not fair for all of us. It's not fair that Derrick is marrying me when I love you, more than him and for you that you have never had the chance to tell me that after all these years you have always loved me. And me, it wouldn't be fair to me either because I'm marrying the wrong man. Derrick was the man I've always tried to convinced myself that I love more than you but I tried to but it never worked."

I'm out of breath and happy. "Ok. We'll do this together, Em." Matt leans down to touch his forehead to mine. "I'm sorry that I love you too much that I ruined this day."

"I love you too but you didn't, Matty. You just told the truth that we were both hiding deep inside."