Won't You Be The One I'll Always Know
Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
Kahlil Gibran, "The Vision"
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My vibrating fingers trailed vague patterns over the floating, silky fabric of my dress, their nail less tips scratching, stray stitchings tangling with my cropped skin. Lead filled the veins and blood vessels underneath the sallow skin of my bare arms, their weight pulling me towards the ground like gravity as my heart drummed a fevered, hysterical composition.
Each muscle in my chest and stomach was contracting, loosening, contracting, loosening, contracting, loosening... It was a mantra, a repeating pattern – the sensation it caused deep inside my chest, the origin, spread through my entire body, deep, to the tip of my toes.
The dress was light, floating – similar to a nightgown, even. Still in this very moment – leaning against the pale blue back door of Emily´s Volkswagen Polo parked on the roadside at First Beach – I felt trapped beneath the layers of silk, chiffon and lace.
Just like last time I had been wearing such a dream-like gown...
Memories of that day were usually rare, hidden beneath new memories, a new life. But today everything was too similar. The same kind of dress, although a lot simpler, the same rare rays of sunlight, the same nervousness which made my heart quiver the moment I woke up from very little sleep this morning. Busy hands working over my normally so neglected hair and skin, trying to force me into the dress, shaking legs. It was all so the same.
Yet, there were so many differences that it made my head spin in circles. The so naturally warm fingers in my air, the slow pace with which everything moved.
"Bella, we gotta go. They´re all waiting," Emily´s voice sounded somewhere next to me and at the same moment I felt a stinging pain in the tip of my left index finger. Only then did I realize that I had my freshly painted nails caught between my teeth once again, just like so often in these past weeks, and this time the strained skin around it had suffered as well.
I pulled my finger out of my mouth, keeping it close to my face as I eyes the damage. But before I could even really see the disrupted cut I saw a deep crimson drop of blood dropping from my finger. I did not react in time and when I lowered my head my heart stopped beating.
A crimson stain spread across the ivory fabric right above my heart.
"Bella!"
I could not hear Emily´s hysterical voice, neither was I aware of her handkerchief which she rubbed across my chest, changing nothing about the damage. I did not hear her cursing, did not realize that she was talking to me until her soft hands grabbed my shoulders and started shaking me.
"Bella?!"
Slowly, very slowly – everything returned very slowly. And then my voice returned. And my mind. And my memory...
"I can´t do this."
"What?"
"I can´t do this," I repeated and let my still vibrating hands fall to my sides as I started to focus on Emily´s shocked face. She looked so pretty today, the single salmon carnation in her mahogany hair glowing. The knee-length, soft bamboo green dress with the pale gray ribbon around her waist created a stunning contrast to her milk-chocolate skin.
"Bella, what did you say?"
"I can´t."
"Bella, you´re just nervous. This is normal. Forget that stain, we´ll find something. Just - "
"No, Emily. I can´t do this."
Her normally so soft eyes were suddenly hard, but not in a negative way. She was scared, I could see that.
"Wait here, okay?"
Before I could even answer her her warm hands slipped off my shoulders and she disappeared and a few seconds later the crunching sound of feet walking over gravel faded into silence...
I stood there alone alone at the roadside, all dressed up. It seemed to similar again. Like a runaway bride – again. Only this time I did not run away. I would never run away from Jacob.
I would never run away again, not like last time.
The nearby ocean rushed in my ears, seagulls singing above me, the sun warming my vibrating skin.
I just couldn´t do this. Last time it had been a different reason, a reason which, after all, lead me to this point in the end. A different choice.
What it was today, I could not tell. I only knew I could not do this. Not today. Not ever.
"Bella?"
The soft, husky whisper was close to my face, I could almost feel the outtake of breath on my overheated skin.
"I´m sorry," I whispered back, my eyes still focused on nothing. Fear and embarrassment prevented my body from moving even an inch.
There was silence and I was suddenly afraid that Jacob had left again, that I had sent him away unintentionally with my behavior. But then I felt his warm hand under my chin, his fingers gently pulling my head to the right until his face, the face I held so dear, was right in front of me.
"Tell me, Bella."
His voice was still the soft tone as it always was, soothing, not urgent at all. His forefinger brushed gently across my cheekbone, Jacob´s lips neutral, neither a smile nor a grimace on his face. The black suit he wore fit him just as well as Emily had told me yesterday and I felt so guilty.
It was even worse than last time.
"I´m so sorry, Jake. I just – I can´t do this.... don´t even.... why...."
My entire body started to shake now and I felt tears gather in my eyes. I closed them, trying to prevent the salty drops from spilling over before I felt two so familiar arms wrapping around my waist, pulling me against Jacob´s chest, his heartbeat dull underneath my ear. A tone I was so used to and still appreciated as if it was new to me every single day.
His left hand was in my neck, softly stroking the sensitive skin there, careful not to destroy the soft curls Emily had devoted three hours for this morning while his right hand drew soft patterns on the small of my back.
The tears immediately started to retreat, Jacob´s presence the best medicine out there for me.
"I just... it feels like last time. I´m not sure if I can... can do this."
My own hands now found their way around Jacob´s stomach and I intertwined my own fingers behind his back.
"It´s okay, Bella. There is no rush. Calm down. It´s okay if you don´t want to. Nobody is forcing you to do this. I can take you home, if you want. I´m sorry if I made you feel as if you had to do this. I love you, Bells."
His voice was so serene, so calm that it made the guilt in me only worse.
"But I want to be here. I want to be with you, right here. I know it´s right . it´s just – I don´t know if I can."
"Bells, you can do anything you want. But..."
He suddenly loosened our embrace, his voice still calm when he pushed me far enough away from him to look at my face, my eyes now opened in curiosity.
"I don´t want you to want this because I want it."
"Jake... it´s not like that. Please.... believe me. I´m just.... it feels so much like... last time."
I dropped my eyes to the ground, my bare feet so much paler and smaller than Jacob´s.
"Bells, listen to me," Jacob said now with more determination in his face and I felt his hands move from my neck and back to my cheeks, pulling my face up so we had eye-contact again.
"I remember that day so clearly, maybe better than you do. And believe me when I tell you that you are so much not like that day now. All I see when I think of that day is a lost little girl, covered in dirt and tears, screaming at me to love her, to take her back even though there was never a reason for me not to do so. You were my runaway bride. Did you look into the mirror today? I´m sure you did. And tell me – did you see any of that in the reflection? I guess not. You are my Bells now. Not someone else's girl who made some long due decision. My Bells. I think the choice you made that day was inside of you for a long time. You just allowed it to surface that day. Just in time. Spontaneously. And I´m so utterly thankful for that. But today – I think you made this choice here long ago. You just have to search for it – in here," Jacob said, his voice only a whisper and while saying the last words his right hand slipped from my cheek to my chest and rested above my heart.
"Jake..."
And then he did it.
He smiled.
My smile.
And in that second I knew which choice I had made so long ago.
Here I stood in my spilled wedding dress, at the roadside by First Beach, reddish eyes, my fiancé holding me in place while our guests were waiting for us somewhere nearby. And here was right were I belonged.
And then I did it.
I smiled.
"You wanna marry me?"
The corners of my lips pulled even higher and I chuckled a little at Jacob´s second proposal within six months.
"Yes, I do."
"Good," Jacob whispered, his smile still etched onto his face as he stroke his hand back to my cheek and leaned his head closer to me.
"Hey, did you forget?"
"What?" he asked, his eyes looking at me with sudden concern.
"You have to marry me first."
"Oh... well, I guess we should be going then," he answered with fake grief in his voice, the grin on his face betraying him.
"Yeah, I guess we should."
My voice was just a whisper again, real nervousness now blossoming inside my chest and stomach.
"Then, let´s go."
Jacob dropped his hands from my face and took my left hand in his. Just as he was about to pull me towards the trail leading to the beach where our family and friends were waiting for us I stopped.
"Wait!"
"What is it?" Jacob asked, turning around and looking at me with question in his eyes.
"I can´t go like this," I said, pointing at the crimson colored stain on my chest, just the size of a pin.
Jacobs eyes dropped to the stain and I could see him think behind his russet skin. Then he smiled. Again.
"That´s not funny. It´s blood, Jacob. I can´t -" Before I could finish my sentence Jacob put his index finger on my lips and silenced me with that gesture.
"Let me fix that."
He let go of me and I watched as he took the single crimson rose from the bottom whole of his suit and reached out for my dress. My eyes became teary again as Jake stabbed the brooch´s thin needle
through the fabric of my dress, placing the rose right above the same-colored stain.
"You never asked before. But you always did."
"What?"
"Fixing things for me. Me...."
I did not see his eyes, my gaze focused on the rose on my chest but I felt him. Felt his soft, warm lips against my forehead and then his whispered breath next to my ear.
"It´s just what I do. Come on, let´s get married."
And that we did.
Because this was where I belonged.