by Hayden Hunt
I readied myself for the angry and disgusted glares I knew I would get. Even knowing to expect it, it was stressful.
I’d become accustomed to the environment in California. And it was great. I almost forgot what the judgmental stares from people in my hometown looked like. Because I never got them anymore. I hadn’t seen a dirty look like that in years.
At least, no dirty looks that were given because I was gay. I couldn’t say I hadn’t gotten a few glares during busy traffic. But, hey, it took a while to get used to this city driving thing.
To my pleasant surprise, though, I wasn’t met with any angry glares when I walked into the church with Aidan on my arm. On the contrary, I saw all smiling faces turned my way.
Some of them were strangers to me, but a lot of them were old friends that I barely recognized. Which was understandable. I hadn’t seen them since my early twenties and we were all now into our early thirties. God, time really flies.
I didn’t have time to stop and talk to any of them, though. The ceremony would soon start. I just smiled, waved, and then me and Aidan took our seats in the church pews.
As luck would have it, we just happened to sit by one of Chelsea’s old best friends.
“Oh my God,” she muttered. “Miles, is that you?”
“Lisa!” I recognized her instantly and gave her a hug. “Wow, it’s been so long. How have you been? What have you been up to lately?”
“I’ve been good! And, oh, the same thing we’ve all been up to, I guess. Getting married, having kids.” She smiled over at Aidan. “You must be Miles’ husband!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, excuse me.” I apologized for not thinking to introduce him immediately. “This is Aidan. And Aidan, this is Chelsea’s childhood best friend, Lisa.”
Aidan extended his hand. “So nice to meet you.”
“So great to meet you too! You guys are an awful cute couple.” She grinned. “And Chelsea tells me you two have kids?”
“Yep!” I smiled proudly, as I always did when someone mentioned my children. “A girl, Julia, she’s four. And a little boy, Jake, he’s only two.”
“Oh, how adorable! Did you bring them with you?”
“No, they’re at home with a sitter. We only live three hours from here, so we’ll be able to go back home tonight.”
And as happy as I was to be here, I was counting down the hours until I could go back home. This was the longest I’d ever left our kids with a sitter, and I was eager to get back to them. If we weren’t home in time for a bed time story, I was going to be extremely disappointed.
“Ugh, lucky you! The flight here was killer. But of course, I’m sure you remember how dead set Chelsea was on a destination wedding. I guess I should be glad she chose California instead of, like, Hawaii or something!”
I had forgotten Chelsea’s affinity for destination weddings, actually. But I couldn’t be happier she chose to have it here. I didn’t know what I would have done if we had to take a flight to get here, as it would have been a disaster to bring the children on a flight at this age. But I never would have been able to leave them for that long!
Honestly, if we had to fly, I probably wouldn’t have come. And that would have been disappointing because I really felt I needed to be here.
I was happy with my life, as happy as I could possibly be. I had an amazing husband and great kids, and had developed an amazing circle of friends here in California. When I thought back to all those wasted years I spent with Chelsea when I was younger, I no longer had any regrets. It was not a sore spot to reflect on my past anymore.
In fact, I was grateful for it. I learned so much and it brought me exactly to where I needed to be.
But one thing that really bothered me was the thought of Chelsea. I didn’t like thinking that I had taken so much time away from her. She got a new boyfriend about a year after we broke up, but I always wondered if she was as truly happy as I was. If things worked out best for her, too.
They must have, of course, because all these years later she was marrying the guy. But I felt I needed to see it for myself. I had to witness her happy ending to finally get the closure I desired.
“Oh, here she comes!” Aidan whispered as the wedding march began to play.
We all stood up and I eagerly peered over the heads of the people behind us to get a glimpse of her. When I saw her, my jaw dropped.
She had only grown more beautiful in her age. In a white lace gown, she looked positively stunning. I didn’t think there ever was a more beautiful bride. She was only wearing light make up but it accentuated her beauty in all the right places.
And that smile… God, that smile. I’d seen that same smile on Aidan’s face at our own wedding day. It was the smile of someone who was currently experiencing the happiest day of her life.
That was how I knew. It had all worked out for both of us. Life had guided us to the people we needed to be with. It was a long, tough road, probably a lot tougher than it had to be. But in the end, it was worth it if we were both happy.
We all sat as Chelsea reached the front of the church. She stood in front of the minister, flowers in her hair, and stared into the eyes of the man she loved.
I instinctively grabbed Aidan’s hand. He glanced over at me with a smile, gently caressing the back of my hand with his thumb.
I didn’t think I could be any happier in this moment. Or, well, I supposed I could. If my kiddos were sitting beside me, that’d probably improve the moment. But barring that, I felt pretty damn good.
It was once very hard to imagine I’d ever reach this point. It was a reminder that no matter what life throws at you, things can always improve. No matter how apathetic you feel about life, you can always find happiness again. And no matter how alone you feel, there is always someone out there who would be happy to love you. Who is waiting to love you, even. Waiting for the right circumstance to bring you into their lives.
“I love you with all my soul,” I whispered to Aidan.
“So do I, baby,” he whispered back. “So do I.”
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Very Late Blooming
13
Gabriel
Gabriel
“All right, sir, this is the last of it,” the mover told me as he set a box down.
“Fantastic, thank you so much,” I told him as I handed him a check to cover the work they did for me this morning.
“Not a problem. Enjoy your new place.” He smiled at me.
“I will,” I lied as I shut the door behind him.
When I was finally alone, I looked around at what was my new condo. It was nice. It was updated and clean—besides my boxes now strewn across the floor—and in the nicest part of town. It was a decent first property. At twenty-seven years old, I was now a homeowner and should have been proud.
But this wasn’t how I imagined life would be when I got my first place.
I sighed as I lay myself on the couch that had just been moved in. I was exhausted. The movers came at 6 am and I was packing all night long. Now I needed to unpack, but I just didn’t have the energy.
Thankfully, the movers who brought in my entertainment center had also thoughtfully placed my television back inside the center and hooked it up for me. The remote was in one of the boxes though, so I had to physically get up to turn it on and pick a channel before throwing my body back onto the couch.
As I flipped through the channels, however, I soon remembered that the cable guy wasn’t going to be here until tomorrow. Shit. I had the choice between a show in Spanish, the news, and a day time soap. I went with the news and let it play in the background as I curled up on the couch.
I glanced around at all the boxes that now sat on the dark hardwood floors and told myself I would start unpacking them in twenty minutes. Twenty minutes, that was
all I needed, then I’d get to work.
It wasn’t like me to procrastinate on this kind of thing. Normally, I was very type-A and didn’t put off anything. I liked to get things done, I liked things to feel complete.
Especially in my house. I was kind of neat freak that way. I took organization to a whole new level. So normally, lazing around on the couch while my new apartment was a mess of boxes would have made me cringe.
But today I couldn’t bring myself to care.
I had taken the week off work, so it wasn’t like I wouldn’t have time to deal with this later, anyway. But I still could feel the shift in my behavior.
I supposed that would happen when you felt like your world was falling apart.
I buried my head in the couch cushion as I overanalyzed my life. Ever since I was eighteen, I wanted to be a homeowner. I had always seen it as the ultimate measure of success.
Now I wa finally here and it felt fucking awful. I wanted to have a sense of pride when this day came. I wanted to know that I had earned it, that I deserved this, and I wanted to celebrate with the ones I loved.
As it turned out, though, I didn’t really have many loved ones. I had coworkers and I had a roommate prior to moving in here, and I wasn’t close with any of them. We spoke minimal amounts, only about the things that needed to be discussed.
I had only one person I cared about, truly cared for, and she was gone now.
I felt hollow. All the things I normally took joy in felt pointless. To be fair, though, I didn’t take joy in much. And the few things I did enjoy doing were very practical.
I loved working, for example. I was the office manager at a dental hygiene facility and I took great pride in that. It was good money, I was conventionally successful, and it was everything I had always wanted to be, really. It wasn’t exactly a hobby but I did love it immensely.
So it was weird that, right now, I was dreading having to go back to work in a week. The dentist who ran the practice was nearly slack jawed when I requested the time off, because I never had before. And now I didn’t even want to go back.
I also didn’t want to clean, which usually calmed me down. I didn’t want to organize anything. I had no desire to be productive in any way.
Was this what depression was supposed to feel like? I’d always heard that when a person was depressed, they lost all motivation to do things, even the things they used to love. Was that what was happening to me? I didn’t feel particularly sad, just… numb and empty.
Well, I wasn’t going to let myself succumb to this. I may not have had motivation, but I still had discipline. Whether I enjoyed it or not, I was going to get this apartment unpacked and organized to my liking.
I forced myself to sit up. I pulled the nearest box to me on the couch. It was labeled “books.” My book shelf was already set up in the corner so this was a nice place to start. I spread everything out on the floor and began to organize them by author’s last name before placing them in the shelf.
I went through, box by box, until it was nearly 9 pm. It wasn’t as calming as it normally was for me, but it did help me with overthinking. By doing repetitive activity after repetitive activity I was able to successfully occupy my mind.
I had to stop around 9 pm, though. I only had a few boxes to go, but I was just too tired after staying up the night before and moving all day.
I took a quick shower, got into my PJs, and curled into my bed. During my unpacking, I did some laundry with my bedsheets and clothes I’d need to wear soon. The dryer was just finishing up when I got out of the shower so the sheets were toasty when I snuggled into them.
If nothing else, at least I could get a good night’s sleep. Being surrounded by warm blankets actually was relaxing.
I closed my eyes, pulled the blankets around me, and tried to fall asleep.
However, despite my exhaustion, I soon learned this would be impossible. Whoever was on the other side of my wall was having people over. I hadn’t noticed in the living room because that wall didn’t have a direct connection to their apartment. But clearly my bedroom did.
Every time I could feel myself nodding off, I’d hear an obnoxious laugh that jolted me awake. They would talk normally for a while, which I could still hear but was less obnoxious, and then out of nowhere, someone would yell out a joke and my room became unbearably noisy.
I dealt with this for about forty-five minutes because I didn't know what else to do. This was literally my first day being moved in, and the last thing I wanted to do was start a feud with my neighbors. And it wasn’t even late; he should be allowed to have people over at 9 pm. I acknowledged that.
But the longer I stayed awake, the grumpier I became. I was god awful exhausted, all I wanted to do was sleep, and it seemed like they were never going to shut up!
I did my best to be patient, but it didn’t take long for the rage to get to me. I ripped off my bed sheets, put on a pair of slippers, and marched over to my new neighbor’s house.
I banged on the door in frustration. A part of me knew I was being incredibly rude right now, but I was way too tired to give a shit.
A man around my age came to the door, grinning; clearly he had just been laughing at someone.
“Hello, can I help you?” he said with a grin.
Somehow, his perkiness just irritated me more.
“Uh, yeah, I just moved in next door and—”
“Oh, you’re my new neighbor!!” He cut me off with a grin and reached out to shake my hand. “So nice to meet you! I thought I saw movers earlier. Do you want to come in and have a drink? I was just having some friends over—”
Oh my God. Could this asshole not talk a mile a minute?
“Yeah, I know you are,” I said bitingly. “That’s actually why I came over here. I’m trying to sleep and you’re being extraordinarily loud.”
He frowned. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “See, I’m not used to watching my noise level very much. The lady who lived next door before you was hard of hearing so me having friends over never bothered her.”
This made me cringe. He had no idea, how could he have? But still, him saying that set off another wave of anger inside me.
“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one who’d like her back,” I snapped unexpectedly.
He frowned. “No, I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant. I’m sure you’ll be a fine neighbor, I… Wait, did other neighbors tell you that they’d like her back? Because that’s incredibly rude and—”
“Can you just please keep it down?” I responded harshly. “I really need to sleep. I’ve been moving all day, I didn’t sleep last night, I still have more unpacking to do tomorrow…”
“Right, of course, no problem. We’ll keep it quiet, I promise.”
“Great,” I said, turning around and rushing back to my door.
“Uh, it was nice to meet you!” he called behind me, which only made me feel like a total asshole.
I was a total asshole in this situation, I knew it. I went off on this guy for no reason at all. Because he was too loud at 9 pm. Great. I was off to a great start in this new apartment complex.
I slammed the door behind me, anger still coursing through me. For weeks now, I hadn’t been able to feel much. Not much sadness, not anger, just numbness. It was like all the anger I had about how my life had been recently came surging back through me.
And I had nobody to take it out on except myself.
I climbed back into my bed and pulled the covers over my head. Things were quiet this time, and it would be a lot easier to fall asleep, but that only made me feel like more of a jackass.
I took advantage of the quiet, though, and willed myself to sleep despite my frustrations.
I awoke the next day to a loud knock on the door. I had overslept, and it was 10 am. But I couldn’t think of any reason that somebody was at my door. The cable guy wasn't scheduled to be here until Wednesday.
I groaned and rolled out of bed, my tired legs heavy as I walked on the cold
hardwood floor to the bright red door.
When I opened it, I was taken aback. Standing before me was a young man holding a large bouquet of flowers.
I looked at him, then glanced up and down the hallway.
“Hello!” he said cheerfully. “I have a flower delivery for you!”
“A flower delivery?” I asked, confused. I couldn’t think of a single person who would deliver flowers to me. “I’m sorry, you probably have the wrong apartment.”
He frowned then looked down and reread the address. “Nope, this is it! Number 23.” He handed over the flowers.
“Oh, okay…” I said, still hesitant. “Well, thank you.”
“Absolutely!” He grinned. “Have a fantastic day!”
“You too.” I nodded as I closed the door and carried the heavy bouquet over to my dining room table.
This just plain made no sense. Not only was it weird for me to receive flowers at all, this was clearly a very expensive bouquet. It was a giant, colorful affair with flowers that I couldn’t even recognize and quite a few that had not yet bloomed.
And instead of arriving in that cheap plastic vase that flowers usually arrived in, it was already in a large glass vase. Thankfully, because I didn’t have something to put them in. I didn’t think I’d ever gotten flowers before.
I didn’t see the card at first, as it was small and had fallen into the huge array of petals. I grabbed it, hoping for a clue about where these came from.
“My deepest apologies. I hope these make your day easier,” the card read.
It didn’t have a sender so I was left even more confused. Deepest apologies? For what?
This couldn’t possibly be related to what happened, could it? But no, I hadn’t told a single person I knew. I wasn’t even close enough to anyone to tell them.