The One That Got Away

Present | Luhan

Present | LUHAN

February 2019

Chances are, you don’t always get to meet your one great love twice. What more with a third time?

I didn’t think it was possible to see her again.  But behind those huge double doors was her, I could positively tell you. And this wasn’t just the second but third time I’m probably seeing her again after some time.

It wasn’t that long since the last time and yet I was still nervous of meeting her. It had always been that way since the very beginning. Now wasn’t any different. It was like just the first time we met in high school and she made me feel those tiny butterflies, hand jitters, and palpitations at second glance. Yes, you’re probably thinking, so she wasn’t the first? Clearly. She wasn’t the first girl that became so important to me. But I know that she was the greatest girl I ever had.

And probably my biggest regret as well: that I let her get away for the first and second time.

And now was the third. She wasn’t going to get away again.

The music floated in the air inside the church—a wedding march, notes floating to my ears like a promise, not anymore directionless. It circled every column and bounced off at every walls in soft sweet echoes. My heart swelled in happiness and nostalgia, not a word could escape my lips at the very thought of this moment. Tears were prickling the back of my eyes and I just wanted to find an excuse to cry. Maybe having her stand so close to me would be a reason. But it would look all wrong, unforgivably backwards.

So, I tucked my heart under my sleeve when the huge wooden double doors opened. It creaked under the hinges and made her entrance more enthralling, vivid. Light danced on the glimmering marbled flooring until it reached every hidden crannies and until it reached me. People marched in and I gulped in anxiousness while waiting for her. I couldn’t even pay attention that I was already wringing my hands together in a death grip, skin white as sheet.

Then I heard my best friend chuckling beside me, his humor directed to my anxious form, that he tore his gaze away from the procession and turn to me, saying, “why it looks like you’re more nervous now than I am?”

I cleared my throat and nudged him instead to look straight ahead and focus on the ceremony. He was always too perceptive that I wondered whether he had noticed. That I was too obvious.

Standing next to him suddenly made me all the more conscious of myself. We were both going to see her, meet her at the end of the aisle, but the hand she was going to take was only one of ours. The other was going to be left supporting the other, and I wondered if I was just okay with that. Maybe not. But it wasn’t like anything would be different if I opposed the very idea of it. Besides, I always thought this was all hell stupid, cheesy and ridiculous, but when it came to her, her happiness was what always mattered the most to me.

So I waited, patiently, like the first time I told her and remembered that hopeful glimmer in her eyes that seemed to light up my world for a moment until I remembered everything that I said to her when we reached the end of our first meeting, ‘I’m sorry’, and it was all I could think of while waiting for her, jitters still positively present.

Would it have still ended this way if I hadn’t let her go once? Maybe not. But it wasn’t like I was sorry of the outcome. I was regretful of my own decisions. Not her. Never her. She had always been my muse and even until now she still was, right at this moment.

That as the music intensified and the anticipation for her entrance rose, I stood at the other end eyes glued at the direction of where she was coming from. The procession thinned after some time and when the music changed to a different melody: a sweet canon, I couldn’t help but wipe my hands on my tux. It was finally her turn. I was finally going to see her again. For the third and last time.

Clearly, I was more nervous now and curious as to how she looked like. She had not changed so much over the years. But a day like this, I know, would make me fall in love even more with her.

And when I finally saw her, at the distance, it was like I had been hit.

That was what many people would say. But I couldn’t agree anymore how true those words were. Seeing her made me feel this shock: a slow, hesitant wave of current that penetrated my veins and left a massive blow to my heart that had shaken my whole being. She was everything that I wanted all my life. My beauty. And she was walking towards where me and my best friend was waiting for her.

She really looked lovely in her pristine white gown but all the more with the sweet smile on her lips that seemed a permanent thing on her now. I was glad, almost relieved to see that smile. That she wasn’t crying too since she was a definite crybaby. Somehow I found myself a little less regretful at the thought.

Maybe, meeting her like this was the best thing I ever gave her after all.

Being married, that is, to the love she deserves.

And that alone was enough. That she turned my way as she approached us, too, and directed her smile towards me was pure bliss. It made everything in my life twist and tumble, make more sense and become more meaningful more than I thought before.

She completed me. That the last time wasn’t a regret.