Chapter 13 - We Did Not Get Married A Year Later
Friends kept asking.
Quietly.
Carefully.
“Do you think you two might eventually…”
No.
At least not then.
There was no rescheduled wedding.
No dramatic reunion at the same altar.
No old bouquet preserved in a box.
I threw the crushed flowers away before leaving the hotel.
That mattered to me.
The relationship stayed separated.
Julian and I occasionally spoke.
Then less often.
Eventually months passed between conversations.
Not because we hated each other.
Because love sometimes needs distance to become something survivable.
My wedding dress remained in storage for nearly two years.
One day I opened the box.
I expected devastation.
Instead I thought:
Beautiful dress.
Wrong day.
I donated it to a nonprofit that provided formalwear to women who otherwise couldn’t afford it.
The volunteer asked:
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
And I was.
The dress had stopped being a future.
It was fabric.
May you like
That felt wonderful.
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