Ella thought of her friend the other day--the one she had promised to marry when they both turned 30 if they hadn't found the love of their lives yet. They had never dated, only thought of each other fondly and had known each other since middle school. Ella can remember jogging by his house in high school and playing basketball in his driveway. She remembers performing in plays and laughing and being young.
She remembers going to to same University. She remembers trading dating stories year after year. She remembers the flirtatious flicker of AOL instant messages across campus dorms.
Ella remembers the one night he kissed her. And she'd stayed at his dorm overnight in the most innocent of fashions. They'd slept in an embrace and he'd wondered aloud why they'd never done this before.
And Ella remembers her confusion and telling her dear childhood friend that they couldn't date. She saw the quick change in his eyes, the disappointment, but he said they'd always be friends in some capacity. And they were.
They'd get coffee after college ended--the year she moved home after traveling abroad. Their college kiss was long in the past, their friendship renewed. It was a strong bond that always felt like family, like a close friend who was your blanket, a friend who could always keep you warm and cozy and safe. They both moved to Chicago around the same time and would catch up once in awhile. He even drove a few of Ella's boxes still in her Michigan home up to her apartment when he did a road trip back to the suburb where they'd grown up within walking distance of each other. They'd met up a few times in Chicago, and then he moved to DC. Suddenly. For work. And just like that, he was gone.
Fast forward to 30 and 31 and 32, and neither one has married. They remind each other jokingly of the pact they made. At one point, Ella and her dear friend are both randomly back in Michigan at the same time over the holidays. He picks her up and they go to a Chinese restaurant where the owner knows him and his Mother well. He is greeted warmly as though he is family. Ella recognizes how lovely it feels to see him again after all this time. He is dear as always. He is dashing as always. He is her friend as always. But there's something different there this time and when they hug goodbye in her driveway in his car, there is a lingering moment where she thinks it would feel so natural to kiss him again, much like the kiss they both remember from a decade ago. She knows he can feel it too.
But Ella was someone else's girl. So they hugged and parted. And he drove away.
She didn't think too much about her friend in the months immediately following, as drama with her boyfriend was heating up, drama with her own health was imminent, drama with her father's health was horrid at best, and her life all around had turned upside down. That spring, over Mother's Day weekend, Ella visited her brother who lived in DC with her whole family. And Ella and her old friend made plans to get coffee on Mother's Day morning right before she went off to brunch with her family.
It was wonderful, as always, to see him. "You look beautiful," he'd told her, even though she knew she looked weary and creased from stress and worry and a broken heart. Ella and her boyfriend had ended things two months earlier, a break up that had shattered her heart and soul. Her father was ailing. And she, herself, was not doing much better. But Ella's friend defended his statement after she'd told him she looked horrible. "Maybe a little tired, a little sad, but still beautiful." Ella smiled. She always did love the way he could compliment her and make her feel like the most important and beautiful person in the room. Even though in high school he had teased her and she very vividly remembered him saying, "A moment on the lips, forever on the hips," when she had told him about eating Thai food and pizza two nights in a row. She had stabbed him with a blunt pencil in the auditorium. But teasing aside, he still got her. He understood her in a way no one else could. He found her fascinating in a way that no one else did. And he loved her. They loved each other.
And then he told Ella about his new love.
It took her aback. She had half expected him to flirt with her--try once more, jokingly, to get her to date him--but instead, he told Ella about the exotic South African woman he had met unexpectedly. Their relationship was going strong, and... he looked happy. Happier than she'd ever remembered. And though she was thrown off, she was happy for him. He deserved happiness and love. This man, whom everyone loved, strangely, was very much a loner. For having been everyone's friend, he himself had very few "friends." He was loved by all but spent much of his time alone.
Ella's heart jumped for a moment at the news. But she was happy to see him happy.
Even though it stung a bit.
They talked until she had to head over to meet her family and he drove her over to The Mayflower Hotel where she was getting Mother's Day brunch. They hugged goodbye in his car. It was the last time she would see him.
She remembers texting him a year or so later, maybe a year and a half, wondering if he and the girl were still together.
They were engaged.
And Ella cried.
Ella cried on her bathroom floor. Partially because her dear friend with whom she had made this pact so long ago no longer needed their pact; and partially because she realized her dear friend was no longer within her grasp even though she had never truly reached for him. And though this fact burned at her skin, she realized she was mostly crying because it represented her static nature. The world around her had kept moving and her exes were all married or getting married and people kept growing and loving and her friends were all finding their way and their partners... and Ella remained alone. Even though she was dating someone at the time, casually, she still cried. Because her friend was not hers anymore.
He belonged to someone else.
She told him that she was happy for him but she didn't realize she'd be so upset. And like the star he was, he'd flowered her with compliments and love and all of the beautiful things that make a person feel like they are captivating and talented and amazing. He wasn't hers at all, and yet, he still made it his mission to cheer her up and make her feel exceptional.
They texted here and there over the next year, and once, he even told her that "she was the one who got away." That his fiance would just have to understand if he came to Ella because it had been a fantasy of his since high school. Ella made a light-hearted joke back, not knowing if he was being playful or truthful. She let the comment go. In her younger years she might have considered the type of alluring response which other women hold in contempt, but she no longer had the room in her soul or desire to revisit that younger version of herself. She was no longer a woman who would humor any type of indiscretion, for Ella was sure she had paid Karma's toll with enduring
other's indiscretions toward her. She would never again tread lightly on such sacred ground. Especially since everyone was now older and more broken, and hearts had been through so much already.
A year or so went by since Ella learned of his engagement. He was no longer on social media, no longer trackable, no longer visible. So she texted him out of the blue one day, quite randomly, asking if he was married yet.
There was no response for a very long time.
So she Googled him.
And there was his internet wedding profile on theknot.com.
And Ella's dear friend was, indeed, still getting married.
The next day.
At the Mayflower Hotel.
She was in shock. At her desk at work, her heart stopped and her head spun. Despite the fact that she currently had a boyfriend she'd been dating for quite some time and had very deep feelings for, she still had a non-sensical "My Best Friend's Wedding" moment and envisioned stopping him a la' Julia-Roberts-style-backstabbing-Cameron-Diaz, telling him that she'd realized too late what his presence in his life had meant to her. Ella's heart crackled. And for all the feelings that were present in that moment, she simultaneously felt numb. Her heart was numb and frozen by this news. It was as if a clock had been ticking and all of a sudden came to a complete stop, only to start ticking again 60 seconds later, minutes lost off its heartbeat.
His pictures looked beautiful. He looked in love. His fiance looked in love. And she wanted that for him--had always wanted his happiness. Despite Ella's initial sadness, she was truly happy for him. They were a gorgeous couple. And Ella knew that his soon-to-be-wife, his wife in a little more than 24 hours, would always be treated like a princess. His princess.
She sat quietly as decades of memories washed over her.
And then she sent him a text wishing him and his fiance all the happiness in the world and that she hoped they would have a beautiful day. That she missed him and was proud of him.
And her dear friend responded and said her words meant the world to him.
She read this response and her heart laid down to breathe.
What else was she supposed to do? She would never play with heartstrings the night before someone's wedding. And she would never want someone to do that to her. And they weren't her heartstrings to strum anyway. They belonged to someone else who deserved them. His wife's hands would lovingly play the music on his heart in a way that Ella never knew how, in a way that she never knew she wanted to learn until it was too late.
But perhaps that is life.
People live and keep living and take moments for granted and sometimes realize things too late. And who is to say that Ella's blistered heart is anything more than 'wanting what you can't have,' or that Ella's mind simply feels wistful for a rendering of a relationship that never was, an imagining of a love that never will be.
All Ella knows is that this life chapter has finally been written. It is a sweeping saga that has come to an end...and much like the words in a never-ending novel that have always been there her, she is both grateful and saddened now the last page has been turned.
...They are married now.
And Ella hopes more than anything that her friend is full of joy and love and light. She hopes the day was beautiful. She hopes he will always be happy. She hopes her dear friend will have the life that he deserves.
And Ella's sweet childhood schoolmate, her neighbor, the one she always knew she loved but never knew she wanted, will always be the one who got away.
xx
