For Ray
Happy Anniversary!
Please be home, please be home, please be home, I pray while opening the front door to my condominium, keys in one hand as I precariously balance a box of “personal belongings” on my hip while kicking a second box over the threshold. Thankfully, Neil is sitting at the kitchen table.
“Thank god you’re here!” I exhale, expecting him to relieve me—both of the box I’m holding and of my horrible day. Instead, Neil stays silently rooted to his seat, staring at his phone. He’s already changed out of his work clothes, the usual button-down shirt with slacks, and into an old T-shirt and his favorite pair of jeans, making me wonder how long he’s been home and if he listened to my voicemail.
Receiving no help from my fiancé, I make my way inside with the door slamming shut behind me.
I unceremoniously drop the first box onto the kitchen table with a thunk. “You’ll never believe what happened today.” Though the boxes should be some indication.
Neil remains uncharacteristically quiet, still focused on his phone and not me—his lack of curiosity and eye contact makes me want to snatch the phone from his hand.
“Well?” I prompt him.
He swallows and finally meets my eye. “We need to talk.”
While that phrase is never good to hear, it can’t be worse than what I just endured. Our wedding is only a month away; so, lately, that sentence, when uttered, means that something has gone wrong with one of our bookings or our parents or our surprisingly demanding guests.
“Sure. Okay,” I say, wiping some dots of perspiration from my forehead with my now free hand. “But can I go first? It’s been a horrible day, and I can’t deal with wedding stuff right now.” This is an understatement.
I walk over and deposit myself onto the sofa, kick off my shoes, and throw my arm over my eyes. I wait a couple seconds for Neil to come sit next to me. He doesn’t, so I just start talking. “Ugh. Where to begin?”
Finally, I hear the kitchen chair scrape back and Neil’s footsteps. With my eyes still covered, I feel him standing over me. “No, Allison. I really need to talk to you first. This is important.”
I sigh and give in. My news will have to wait.
“Fine. Okay. What’s so important?” I say, removing my arm from my eyes and prepping myself for the latest wedding disaster. Since I’ve been the one dealing with the vendors, it must be a guest issue.
“I can’t marry you,” he says, his voice sounding oddly strangled.
I peer up at him. “Excuse me?”
Neil clears his throat and, with more determination in his voice this time, repeats, “Allison, I can’t marry you.”
“What do you mean, you can’t marry me?” I enunciate each word. What in the world is going on, now?
“I can’t go through with the wedding.”
Oh. It’s not much of an elaboration.
Not this again, I think but do not say. These last few months, Neil has been stressed out by everything wedding-related—the cost of the invitations, whether we really needed a photographer and a videographer, or why I hired a band when his green-haired, multiple-pierced, eighteen-year-old cousin was an amateur DJ—when, really, all he has to do at this stage is show up wearing his suit at the appointed time on the appointed date. All my friends assured me though that this was normal guy-getting-married behavior and to not let it freak me out as well.
I pat the side of the sofa next to me. “Neil, honey, sit down.”
When he remains standing, I take a deep breath and say, “I know the wedding planning has been stressful. Trust me, there’ve been times I’ve wanted to call it off, too. But it’s almost over. In a month we’ll be at the finish line saying our ‘I do’s.’”
“No. It’s not the wedding planning.” Neil shakes his head and takes a step back from the sofa. “I can’t marry you because I’m in love with someone else.”
And for the second time today—
The.
World.
Just.
Stops.
I open my mouth a couple times, but nothing comes out. Since I can’t seem to form words, I instead end up staring at him for several silent seconds while my heart beats wildly against my chest, and I wonder if today is simply a bad dream or a massive practical joke.
Surely, I couldn’t have heard him correctly, but do I ask him to repeat the horrible words that I think I just heard? Turns out, I don’t have to.
“I’m so sorry, Allison.” His eyes, bloodshot and drooping with contrition, remind me of my old Basset hound, Barry, when he was caught doing something he shouldn’t.
He must feel safe that this news has rendered me immobile because he finally sits down next to me. “I’m so, so sorry.”
My throat is tight and I’m not sure I can breathe. I search his eyes for confirmation of what is happening and manage to say in a small voice, “You’re calling off the wedding?”
“Yes.”
“There’s someone else?” I ask in an even smaller voice.
He nods.
“Oh.” I look away and stare into space at some point above his head.
Quickly and nervously, he starts to explain—as if his explanation will soften the blow. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. It just did. I didn’t do it to hurt you. I would never want to hurt you.” Funny, I think, because you’re doing a good job of it now. “But it would be worse to continue our relationship and lead you on. It’s better to break up sooner rather than later with the wedding coming up and before everything becomes more complicated.”
His words sound like a speech he has practiced, probably with the “someone else.”
I still don’t have any words.
“Allison,” he pleads, trying to evoke a response from me, but I refuse to look at him. “Al, please say something.”
His mind is made up enough to call off our wedding and break my heart. I’m not sure what to say to that. How can you beg someone to stay with you once they’ve said they’re in love with someone else? It seems to be the definition of game over.
Finally finding my voice, I manage to whisper, “Who are you in love with?”
Neil is silent. My eyes drift back to his and I notice his eyes have grown wide. Fear.
“Who are you in love with?” I ask again, a little louder this time.
Neil stands up. With words so rushed they sound like one, he says, “I’m in love with Stacey.” And with that declaration, he backs up and grabs a bag that has been sitting in the hallway all this time and that I am just now noticing.
Stacey. My maid of honor. Of course.
“I’m sorry, Allison. I wish things weren’t ending like this.”
His eyes meet mine for a heartbreaking second, and I believe him. Until, coward that he is, he breaks eye contact and then turns and hurries out the door—our door—before I can even tell him my big news.
Once the door clicks behind him, I say aloud to no one, “I got fired today.” And, with that, the tears I’ve held in all afternoon come rushing out.
I WAKE UP in the morning puffy-eyed and exhausted and hoping that yesterday was all a bad dream. I look over to where I’ve expected to see Neil the last five years. But his side of the bed is empty, and there are no head indentations on the pillow, or any indications that he slept there and simply woke up before me.