The Last Time

“And all you have to do is say yes” he says, as his fingers wind tighter around mine. I smile despite myself, and sense of peace washes over me as I imagine what it'd be like to do just that.

Yes. Yes. Who cares what anyone else thinks?

But underneath the calm, a familiar anxiety is already climbing its way up to my throat. It’s the same worry that has plagued me since we started seeing each other again three months ago.

Because we’ve been here before. I’ve heard this before. I’ve seen his green eyes dance underneath the sunset, hand in mine, worries almost - but not quite - forgotten.

Last time, I ignored the throbbing in my heart that threatened to give my doubts away, the goosebumps on my skin that tried to warn me of the hints that something wasn’t quite right. I let it all go - I let myself go - until we were only a month out from our wedding date, switching back and forth between tense arguments at night and almost-newlyweds excitement in the morning.

Back then, it all came crashing down on our heads, a public failure that even now, five years later, seems to follow me everywhere. I can see it in the eyes of my childhood friends whenever one of them gets engaged and in the eyes of my sister when someone says the name David even in passing. I can see it especially in the eyes of my mother, who was there to pick up the pieces and perform the damage control for my almost-but-not-quite fairytale wedding.

“David,” I whisper as he moves in closer but he shakes his head, like he’s reading my mind already.

“Don’t,” he says, his voice so soft that the crickets around us don’t even pause their symphony. “Don’t think about anything but this moment right now. Just you and me.”

I smile, but it wavers. “Last time-“

“This isn’t last time. We were young.”

“Not that young.”

“We were childish. And selfish.” He pauses. “I was selfish."

“So was I.”

“But we’re not who we used to be.”

I nod, trying to believe that. In my head, I run a mental checklist of all that has changed in my life since the day I left my diamond ring on his dining room table. I have a full time job now, a 401k, a workout plan and a weekly budget. I know what I want out of life now, at least most of the time, and it feels less like a wide and terrifying void and more like an ocean whose tides I’ve learned to weather.

But I still don’t make my bed most mornings. I still skip breakfast when I’m running late and bail on plans when I’m sick of socializing. I’m still too afraid of commitment to stick to a brand of toothpaste, or shampoo, or really anything, and sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I’d studied arts against my parents’ wishes.

“What if who we are now still isn’t enough?” I ask, feeling a wave of relief wash over me at finally admitting this.

“It will be,” David says. And there’s so much certainty in his voice that my other questions suddenly evaporate.

Maybe it will be. Or maybe it won’t. But with him, all I can really ever do is let go and hope the answers find us along the way. Hope that maybe this time, they’ll be the ones I wanted all along.

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