I never did marry.
I never did find love, though there were relationships and could be's by the bucket load. For a while, I was that woman - the one not really trying, still clinging to odd ideas of being 'above love' and 'incapable,' ideas I should have outgrown alongside ripped jeans and rock posters.
I didn't realise I was clinging to poor Melanie till I lost her. Or rather, till her family lost her, because we weren't in touch. It was back so early in the first war that newspapers could be relied upon, and she made the front cover - 55-year old adoptive mum-of-two tortured and killed. I wept for days when I read the article, but I didn't even send one flower to her funeral.
It changed things though, because there was urgency, an urgency to find love. So I tried, I really did - blind dates and singles groups, joining organisations and clubs. Sometimes I got close, only for life and the war to intervene. Mostly I just couldn't find that click with anyone.
Excuses, Mel would have said, but she wasn't there to. So I never married. I never loved again.
I just remembered.