Meet Me In The Hallway

Rough Landing

Milo took one look at my broken doll visage and his face, that face that all brides dream of, awe mixed with love and bits of tears, crumbled. His gaze shifted behind me to where I knew his mum was sitting, and he put a hand up like a school crossing guard. The music stopped and I felt like the tilt-a-wheel inside my gut slowed to a breathable pace.

"Melody?" Milo whispered and reached with his stop hand to grasp my trembling palm around my bouquet.

I still had no words. How were there so many jumbled in my head and none seemed to exit my god-forsaken mouth when I needed them to?  I shook my head. A keen, cousin to a sob, escaped my mouth. Milo looked bewildered for just a moment before his face changed into droopy eyes and downturned lips and then settled into grim determination. With my downcast eyes I could see my mum holding my dad back. He wanted to rescue me, his little girl. He shouldn't have, I'd done this. I'd been rescued too many times and had turned from damsel into villain for it.

Peripherally, I caught that Milo was whispering to the officiant.

I looked up at his face again finally when I felt him turn and tugged more than saw it. He led me off to the side and I could hear the man in the suit who was supposed to be in charge talking to the congregants. People had come from far and wider away to see me break a heart. To watch me break my own, again.

Milo led me to the small rooms off to the side of the chapel and once again I was looking at a man's feet while we decided our fate. No, that wouldn't do. My problem, I'd come to realize and ignore, was that I didn't face things. Literally, I turned tail and ran. And I didn't talk, I most certainly didn't communicate. I lifted my face to him and Milo looked kind, but broken, like a much older man.

"Milo—" I started, but didn't know where to go from there.

"Melody....I know." He tried to let me off the hook. If I had a talent, it seems it is for picking excellent men, who were exceedingly kind and understanding of me. I should have started a service, where I pick the best men for other more deserving women. I would have made a mint. It was a talent and a curse; It seemed to have let me get away with entirely too much. I had to say this.

"No, no, don't, don't give me any breaks!" I yelled, at myself. Then caught that my volume was directed in his innocent direction.  "Sorry! I can't, I can't marry you!  I should, you are everything a woman could ever want. But, but, I'm not for you. I thought I was, when I said yes. But, but, I've been trying to figure out what I wanted since then. Or how to tell you." I ran out of breath when I looked at his perfect face. "I don't, I don't know how I let it get this far!"

"No, no, Corazon." That cut. "I know, I've fucking known for months. I think I knew when you didn't want to wear the ring at first. It seems likes most brides-to-be can't wait to show off their ring. But, I think you maybe would still not be wearing it if you could, no?" He pulled my hand up then and caught the peace ring right next to his offering. He fingered it. "And when you told me you found you had feelings for your ex, I should have listened to what you were really saying, not what I wanted to hear. This his?" He looked down, and I took his other hand.

I nodded. The ring was Harry's, as I was too. Though I had no pretensions that he was still mine. I breathed, I could only solve one riddle at a time. I had to face this flaming bridge before I could move onto trying to rebuild my other ruins. Milo deserved my full attention while I runaway-brided him.

"I'm so sorry! I love you and you are a better man than anyone I've ever known. Harry..." That name hurt to say out loud. I hadn't since the day he left my parents house. "Included." I forced it out. "But the truth is, he and I aren't finished. Well I'm not finished, and as much as I want to give you my heart and my hand, I don't seem to have them to give. I thought I could, when we met. I really did. And I'm a fool, I know I am, for not choosing you. I've been trying to." I wanted to shrug, but the gesture was to relaxed for the situation. Though, for a break up, the only one I'd ever had in real time, it was going well, especially considering our attire and the venue.