Disclaimer: SM owns these characters. They're just on a short field trip.

July 7, 2007

I always viewed love as something I would experience. It was never a question of if, but when. I imagined in my naivety of youth that love would be a glorious thing that would be full of romantic gestures and fairytale endings.

When I was little, I used to daydream about the man I would fall in love with. I imagined he would be tall, but not too tall, just taller than my Dad. He would be honest, loyal, and most of all, he would love me with all of his heart.

I imagined a love like my parents. My parents had what many little girls dreamed of. High school sweethearts that lasted through years of hardships and trials only to come out stronger in the end. Of course, I didn't understand those hardships until I was older and had developed a jaded view of the world.

What Disney and every fairytale out there doesn't tell you is that love doesn't always have a happy ending. Sometimes love isn't enough, and though we may try, it doesn't always last. And sometimes, love destroys you and leaves you with nothing but an empty shell.

No one tells you love is a dangerous thing with the power to inflict the most agonizing pain imaginable. That there are no fairytale endings and love doesn't always conquer all.

I never imagined that I would fall for the man that I did. I never imagined myself being where I am now, unmarried, pregnant, and alone; running away from the shambles of my former life with no hope of repair.

The clock on my dash says 3:25 pm. At about this moment, the man I fell in love with, the father of my unborn child, my childhood best friend, is saying "I do" to someone other than me. He's saying heartfelt vows; declaring his love and devotion in front of all of his friends and family to someone other than me. He's gazing adoringly and lovingly at his beautiful bride, someone other than me, and living the best day of his life, with someone other than me.

My hand rests on my still flat stomach and my vision blurs and a lump in my throat forms as I think about the last conversation we had. The one where he was paler than death and shaking his head in disbelief while muttering how this couldn't be happening to him. Not now, not to him, not to them. It took him a good 15 minutes before he shook himself out of it and hastily wrote me a check while begging me to "take care of it". Those were his exact words.

You would think that this would be the moment where I gave up all hope on the idea of us. Nope. Turns out, I'm secretly a masochist because I held out hope that he would change his mind at the last minute and decide that I was the one he wanted. That I was the one he was supposed to be with all along.

That was two months ago. For six weeks of those two months, I've held out hope; wishing and praying that I would get my happy ending. I answered every phone call and every knock at the door like it was him coming to confess his undying love and beg for forgiveness for the harsh things he said.

That never happened. At the end of those six weeks, I was forced to realize that it was never going to happen.

I can pinpoint the exact moment when any hope I had was shattered into a million little pieces along with my heart. I can't recall all the details of that moment, because they weren't significant enough to be noticed over my broken and bleeding heart. They weren't important. What was important was that I had lost all hope and realized I had to face this life changing event completely on my own. What I did notice was not only the marriage announcement in the paper in front of me but also the couple in question standing at the counter of the cupcake shop I was sitting at. They looked so happy, so intensely in love with each other that they didn't notice anything or anyone around them. Not even me, the former best friend and childhood neighbor of the groom who also happened to be the mother of his illegitimate unborn child. He didn't care that my world was forever changed and my heart was shattered beyond repair, maybe forever.

It took me two weeks, all of my life savings, and twenty six boxes to pack up what my life had amounted to.

Twenty six boxes. That's incredibly depressing. All my life could be reduced to twenty six boxes.

I allowed myself to check my phone one final time, my last allowance of hope, before I finally, finally, gave up. Nothing. No missed text messages, no missed calls, no emails. Nothing.

In resignation, I chucked that stupid phone out the window. My last shred of hope going with it.

Watching my rear view mirror, I watched it shatter, just like my heart. It gave me a weird sense of satisfaction.

I'd found that if my music was loud enough, it drowned out the sound of my thoughts. Anything to drown out the silence and thoughts of how I'm completely alone now. Well, almost.

So with the stereo turned up and the open road in front of me, I set out to meet my new life.