It was September 19th, 2012. Exactly one year from the first day they had met. It had happened so fast. One second they were going out late at night, having fun, and enjoying long nights of passion with each other. Then he was proposing. How could she say no? He was the only man that had ever loved her that way. The only man who had truly cared for her. He was the only man that slipped beautifully written words of poetry into her bag before she left for work, spent long nights holding her while she cried as the guilt from her past haunted her, sang her to sleep with the lyrics that he had written about her, and made her promises that he had always kept.
“Yes, yes, yes! Of course I will!” she had cried with delight and glee, at the time.
He loved her. Her; the girl that guys had always avoided, the abnormal one. Wasn't his love supposed to be enough? Why did she feel so detached then? But, she couldn't ask for anymore. Zoella knew she had gotten the best chocolate bar from the bag. She just didn't know whether she deserved it.
And then they were getting married. Their ceremony had been held near the beach. That was one of the few places where she had always felt at home. She just couldn't stop thinking- thinking that she was a thief, because the truth was, she had stolen someone that wasn't even hers to steal in the first place. That beautiful man standing across from her, he was meant for someone else. Someone that would love him just as much as he loved her, maybe even more. It was too late, though.
The priest had said, “You may kiss the bride.”
She felt the reality looming in above her, like a bomb in the sky about to drop down on her at any time. It was too late. He had lifted the veil that had covered her face. He had slipped his fingers in under her hair and caressed her cheek with his other hand.
Noah whispered, “I will always love you Zoey.”
Then he gave her a kiss like no other before. It was definitely too late.
The only person she wanted and needed there that day was gone. If heaven existed, Zoella knew that her sister would be there now.
There had been too many people, waiting to congratulate her. Who had invited these people? None of them had meant anything to her. They had just been faces passing by in a blur, they had been hugging her, laughing, and crying. She found it kind of strange how weddings were just so emotional for some people.
“I am a stony-hearted b****,” she had thought to herself.
She realized that weddings were a goodbye of some sort. Marriage was different and she and Noah had to say goodbye to their old lives. There was no getting out of marriage easily. Dating someone had a sort of freedom, you could almost always get away. And the only thing Zoella knew how to do was get away.