Member-only story
Love, Do You Dare Be True?
#Nonficit — 1
The truth is that I can’t imagine ever wearing white.
A wedding gown, a band of gold around my ring finger, wedding cake shared in a hush of laughter — these things are so alien that I might like to throw up upon thinking of them. I have driven away all my ghosts. There is only me standing in the mirror, staring, trying to understand myself even as no one else understands me.
Love affairs are locked behind my lips. Memories cradle my mind. I lie to myself in grand delusions, and I smile at my reflection all the while whispering, “You’ll be fine alone.”
Maybe I will truly be Jane Austen, rejecting any potential suitor, all the while devoting myself to a career or my craft. Maybe that will be a full life — going from state to state, hotel room to hotel room, all the while remembering a life lived in some past life when the world was at least a little bit kinder and sweeter.
I have longed for a love, a real love, that did not make me feel empty inside. I have raged against those who have rejected me, who have told me I am lesser, who have looked at me with apathy above all else. I am a queen without a king, perhaps — or maybe better yet a knight without a patron saint to pledge myself beholden to serving.
