Some Day One Day

51.0

"Not on my wedding night." Ojay's words replayed over and over again in my head as I loathsomely lingered around the spacious lounge area with its antique, historic furniture-the type found in boutiques.
'Not on my wedding night...' the words rang again in my mind. I wish I could've told the rest of the intervening world that tried to keep us apart those same words the night Shawn and I decided to spend the rest of our lives together.
Standing by the large windows that overlooked the reception, taking place in the back yard, I watched the blazing sun set. The dimming day did nothing to exhaust the excitement that went on as a celebration of two separate souls becoming one. The little destruction of peace that had been Shawn and I was immediately forgotten because there was truthfully no room for such hindrances like our issues. It didn't matter either way because Ojay and Angie's love shone so bright; bright enough to blind everyone that admirably looked their way.
The bride and groom stood in the middle of the dance floor, swaying with an unhurried cadence to the soft melody that thanked time for being by its side. It was such a sight to see. My heart stirred when envy crept up within me. As she moved, Angie's wedding dress was no longer white but colored by the warm shades of the setting sun. Damn, her smile was so radiant, far more than the sun's had been all day and anyone could see that nothing in the world could ever come close to erasing it. Ojay smiled back with mirrored content...both had no other care in the world and I tried best to keep it that way...even if I only had that power for tonight.
Running off had been unfair and cowardly, but at the same time staying had been as bearable as standing on fiercely burning coals. My body was tired and my heart longed with the pain and hurt it had been harboring inside its walls, for they had just itched their way out again to its surface.

Leaning fractionally against the wall adjacent to the window, I clutched the drapes away from my sight, searched and searched for the love of my life amongst all the other participants but never came across him.
He must've left...and at that, my heart fell.
I couldn't believe we had ignored this issue for so long-as though we were too embarrassed to speak on it. Initially I had assumed that Shawn hadn't told Ojay and for a moment after I'd run into the house I wondered if he did know but was keeping it a secret. But a stronger part of me told me that even Shawn was too ashamed to reveal such a past-such a rash decision. No man wanted to admit that he had let a woman sway him into something that nearly sent him into emotional wreckage.
For the millionth time I recognized that it was my fault, but for the first time instead of brooding over it, I wanted to do something about it.
We'd finally unraveled the one thing that we'd been struggling to repress for so long and now that it had wiggled out in the open, there was nothing we could do to ignore it. The same way Ojay and Angie's love shined through with the inability to be ignored, the darkness of me and Shawn's past had finally consumed us as a whole, thus forcing us to come to terms and no longer neglect the issue.
Biting my lip after resolving what to do, I rushed up to Angie's room and searched for Shawn's car keys. Although he had fixed my car he had left me with his to use for the entire week. I'm not sure why he insisted that I used it and with my pride weak from having stood on its feet for so long, I did as I was told. Not because it was far more comfortable and with an elegance that my car didn't have, but because I knew he had been in it. His heady smell still lingered and I could've sworn I felt his spirit in there whenever I was inside of it.
I felt him.
After getting his keys, I hurried down the steps, whipped right past the lobby and scurried to the vestibule where the large opaque glass doors with their ancient decorations stood with the arrogance of a proud man.
It was unethical for me to leave their celebration but what Shawn and I needed to deal with was long overdue. As I drove out of the tall iron gates, I knew where I needed to go.
When Shawn's car wheeled into our spot and I found that he was nowhere in sight, a moment of confusion struck me. I was always certain to find him here under the Brooklyn Bridge. But he wasn't there.
For a long time I sat in the car and stared at the river that was now gold. Closing my eyes briefly as numerous thoughts crossed my mind I reopened them and reversed out of there.
Subsequently I made it to the neighborhood where his house was. The more I neared the Victorian styled house I was stunned to recognize my car parked in front of the garage. My heart had began racing vastly and I nervously wondered if he was in the house as I parked beside my pitifully run down car. The morning had been too chaotic for me to wonder how he had gotten there when I saw him arrive before the wedding, but I could've sworn I heard him telling Ojay he came with a taxi. I wasn't too sure.
Should I leave the car? Should I go back? Yes? No? What should I do? the questions reiterated over and over like a stuck recording in my mind. The house, its windows, the pavement, and the small lake by the golf course-they were all the components for a street of gold...the same gold that had greeted me here months ago on that day when I had returned.
With mustered bravery I left Shawn's car and made my way into the house in search of him. After using one of my assigned spare keys to open and close the front door, I stood still and waited for him to appear from the shadows like he always did.
No one appeared.
I searched the entire first floor, waiting to hear his voice or his movements.
Nobody made a sound.
Yet I could still feel him in that house. I still remembered all the arguments, all the tears, all the infrequent smiles.
By the time I made my way upstairs and checked all rooms including the balcony I confirmed that he was nowhere in sight. Emotionally and physically exhausted, I sat on the edge of his bed and looked towards the doorway as though my eyes would somehow summon him through it. Where could he be? Perhaps I had left the party too soon?
Beyond frustrated, I decided to check back at Angie's party. Flinging the door open with a force stemming from the anger that bubbled within me, I flung the door open, only to stop short when I saw a hunkered figure on the front steps.
My body came to a jarring stop that made my heart lunge at my throat and remain lodged there.
With his hands stashed in his pockets, Shawn leaned against a pillar on the porch, looking straight ahead at him.
He didn't flinch or react by my barging in on him, his posture languid and serene as the river under Brooklyn Bridge had been when I'd left it.
It wasn't so much just him but the entire scenario that caught my attention. The view in front of me was so familiar yet so distant...
The honeyed sun hid behind the horizon and above it were the cool blue hues of night's descent. A gibbous moon began to weasel out of its hiding place, faint against the velvet blue sky. That damned star that was always so persistent on letting its presence known was plastered right beside the moon, twinkling merrily.
For a brusque moment, I wondered if this was the image he got when he'd approached me on those hospital steps.
When he came to me, comforted me, stepped into that vacuous hole right before it consumed me utterly.
"Where were you?! I've been looking all over you." I spouted in a strangled cry before I even knew I was doing it. and watched him turn his head slightly above his shoulder. Although he didn't look at me directly, it was enough for me to know he was acknowledging my being there.
"You don't ever have to look for me." He murmured and I gnawed my teeth and fisted my hands tightly, not caring the way the one holding the keys nearly dug into my skin.
"Damn it Shawn!" I ground out frustratingly watching as he turned his head slightly above his shoulder as though to accommodate me, "Don't tell me those things! Why do you have to say such things all the time?! Yes I will look for you no matter what you-"
"You know imma always be there so what do you have to look for?" there was a snappish tone within his calmness that galled me. Snickering softly, he stared ahead of him again, speaking as though his forlorn words were pure fact, "Seems like imma always be there whether I want to or not. When you piss me the fuck off, imma be there. When you annoy the hell out of me, imma still be there." Then his voice became quieter, "So don't worry about where the hell I am."
His words quieted me down as I realized that he truly had always been there for me. From the beginning-from the moment I couldn't get a ride home up until now when I still needed a ride. It was funny yet sad at the same time.
"Thanks." I told him, my voice husky with tears as the memories rushed back to me.
At my word, Shawn turned his head slightly again and I took a deep breath before continuing.
"I don't know if I ever told you this but thank you," my smile trembled as did my vision where tears came together, "You always seemed to be there when I cried. And it's not like I was anyone special, I know you would've done that for anyone just because that's the kind of person that you are. And I didn't deserve that goodness...I still don't."
With his side profile to me, I caught his jaw bunching, but he still didn't look at me.
"I remember the time we were all at Ojay's club before it even opened. And Ojay and Angie were fighting, just like they were the very first time we actually talked to each other in highschool. Back then you'd come to me and you asked me if they were always like that-the way they argued and I remember I'd brushed you off because you made me feel really strange. And now a few months back when we were at Ojay's club helping him move things in I said," I smiled at the memory, "I said I can't believe they're still like this. And, and you told me the reason why things don't change, is because history repeats itself. And now I remember when you came to me that morning on those hospital steps, the sun was rising but it looked just like this," I paused and watched his back pensively, "And that was the first time you asked me to make a wish."
On trembling legs that could give out at any second, I made my way to stand a few feet beside him. I was afraid that he didn't want me to be so close, but even if we didn't touch, every place he had placed his hands on that night was still electrifyingly throbbing. Through his skin I had felt the conflict of whether to love me or hate me, hold me tight or let me go.
"I realize now that I never got a chance to make a wish that first time cause I never saw the star." a rueful smile quivered my lips and I swallowed hard the way I always did when that lump struck my throat.
Biting my lip to prevent the quivering, I looked at Shawn, holding on to my threatening tears.
When our eyes met and I stared into his deep brown ones, the same thing that stirred in me the first time we talked stirred within me then.
"What did you wish for when you saw it Shawn?" I asked him in a whisper to cement the intimacy of my question.
He'd never told me. I wasn't sure whether he ever would.
His gaze on me wasn't thoughtful neither was it confused. It was a certain expression that he rarely ever had.
Momentarily he faced forward again. Expectantly, I received no answer but was not harmed by it.
Shrugging lightly, he answered, "You're not supposed to tell..."
My heart fell with his words, but I wasn't surprised by them. I'm not sure how long we stood there in the quiet, but Shawn finally responded.
"You."
At that my eyes flew up to him to find that he was still staring ahead of him. Blushing against my own will, I looked away and spoke in a puny voice because I was suddenly lost of breath since my heart was beating way too rapidly.
"Ain' like it came true anyways." He muttered after a while and I winced, furling my lips, which felt this absurd tingle, they always felt whenever I was about to cry.
I could've easily just walked off the porch that night due to the overwhelming guilt he always showered me with. But I glued my feet to the wooden planks of that ground like God made them to stay there. No matter how much it hurt I was going to stay there and deal with it.
Wrapping my arms around my midriff, I stared ahead of him at the street that slowly started to imbibe a pale blue hue, with the gold still latching on to window plates and manicured lawns. As I stared out, Shawn's voice suddenly cut into my thoughts and made me look at him
"You weren't mine back then, and for a long time I never thought you would be, but I guess being beside you at that moment at the hospital was more than enough."
A sob escaped my lips at Shawn's words and I turned away from him in a shame that nearly shattered me.
Replete, I muddled a few steps down the stairs and sat heavily with my hands buried in my face. My goodness, how he had sounded like he did when we were young when he said those words! It was when he spoke in such a way that I was reminded he was unlike all the rest. And here he was saying such things.
Amidst my musings I suddenly felt something warm against the line of my back. Freezing still, I peeked through the slots in between my fingers and looked down to find his shoe planted on the step above the one where mine was. Turning my head slightly, I acknowledged that he had sat behind me. Resting his elbows on his knees, Shawn intertwined his hands in front of me.
For a long time we stayed that way with my head slightly turned towards him, him holding me with his chin on my head.
"You never told anyone about us getting married right." Shawn said rather than asked.
"Yes," I lowered my head in embarrassment, "You said that we might as well act like nothing ever happened. I couldn't though. It had always been in the back of my head. I guess I was too ashamed to mention it because I had been the cause for why we did it and the cause for why it hadn't worked."
"Why hadn't it worked?" Shawn asked immediately and suddenly my tongue was tied. I began to feel uneasy and uncomfortable, having to broach the subject about my parents and how they meddled into our lives once again.
"I always had a feeling you weren't up front with everything. Maybe I just do that to make myself feel better cause you might've meant everything you said that night but something still doesn't add up."
I shifted agitatedly with the sudden need to escape when I remembered the last time we had seen each other and everything I had said to him but to no avail. With him around me like this he had me prisoner with no means to leave.
"What if you don't believe me?" I rambled, "You haven't wanted to hear a word that I've said for all these months."
"I'm ready to now," he answered promptly and we resorted to my stunned silence before he continued, "I realized it wouldn't hurt any more than it does now."
I could've argued with that if he wasn't right. I couldn't imagine suffering anymore pain than I did right now.
Then he abruptly shifted until I felt his warm breaths rushing into my ear.
"We need to talk." His deep voice rushed into me, scattering my insides like scattered leaves from the whisper of a wind.
All over I quivered and wound my arms tightly around me as though that would somehow calm me down. In front of me his hands practiced that habit of denting one palm with another thumb.
In surrender, I let my head careen onto the length of Shawn's arm where spasms went through his muscles. I searched all the myriad ways that I could begin to talk about any of this and didn't really know how to. When I failed to present him with anything, I felt Shawn's cheek mussing my hair, his breaths caressing my sensitive skin, and his lips brushing my earlobe.
"Tell me story Beyonce." He urged delicately, making me sigh deep within because I still couldn't believe that we'd cam this far after all we'd been through.
Allowing two tears to cascade down my face, I decided to confront the one conflict that had disbanded Shawn and I.
So I started to recount everything that led to the tragic downfall of Shawn and I...