#LyricalFictionFriday: One Way

I’m not running from him.

I know what it looks like. A one-way ticket to Bora Bora two days after his wedding. But it’s not what you think…

…Maybe it is….

Who am I kidding?

He texted me that night. When he should’ve been consummating the vows he made to Justine. Probably snuck out onto the balcony of their honeymoon suite afterward with his phone, while she was in the bathroom freshening up.

“Why do I feel like I just made the biggest mistake of my life?”

It felt oddly like deja vu. Maybe because it was almost verbatim to what I had said when I called things off with Sean, expecting him to come running. We had been going round and round with the lovers and friend charade for years. We were never available for each other, except on late, lonely nights, when the people we loved weren’t enough. Finally, I took the risk, dove head first from the highest plank into the deep end, assuming he would catch me,  but he asked Justine to marry him instead.

“We’ve been together for so long. And she’s been talking about it a lot, and about kids. I just couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t–”

He didn’t have to finish his sentence for me. I know what it’s like for a woman to invest her whole life into a relationship, only to have it crumble at her feet, and try to pretend like it doesn’t kill her inside.

Just like it’s killing me to send this text two days later while sitting at the window seat of a Boeing 777 taxing from the terminal gate as I type.

It makes no sense to be falling…you’ve got her, I’ve got him, shouldn’t even be calling…

I turn off my phone before his reply has a chance to come through. If I’m lucky, I was premature in hitting the power button and the message never even sent. Then I won’t have to worry about seeing a response that might convince me to stay, or come back.

But in twelve hours, none of it will matter. There’s no need for a phone. I won’t have service where I’m going. I drop the phone in the seat pocket in front of me, behind the Sky Jet magazines and onboard menus, to be forgotten.

The pilot’s muffled voice comes over the speakers—we’ve been cleared for take-off. The engines underneath me rise, the plane jolts forward, my stomach lifts as the ground below slowly disappears.

I close the window shade to the sunset outside, and then my eyes, hoping that the next time I open them, I’ll wake to a beautiful sunrise, a new life, and maybe, just maybe, a new love too.