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ANDI
My wedding veil is on the passenger seat, my poofy ass dress is trying to suffocate me in the tiny little car, and I’m officially on the lam.
That’s me. Bride on the lam. Nuptial Nomad. Hitched Houdini. Or for thriller fans, I could go with Gown Gone Girl.
I smile, aware I must look like a complete lunatic. I’ve cried through my makeup, my bare feet are filthy from my unplanned escape, and I’m pretty sure I got some forest debris in my hair.
It’s fine, though. Totally fine. Between the twigs in my hair and the ruined wedding dress, I probably look like a forest nymph. A beautiful, crazy, confused forest nymph.
Right now, I imagine my family is calling everyone I know to track me down. The police might even be involved. Am I in a high speed police chase?
I check my rearview mirror and sigh with relief. It’s just me and the open mountain road winding up toward the sleepy little town of Frosty Harbor. I’ve got the chilly winter air, the towering Vermont mountains, and the only slightly smelly interior of my old car to myself.
It’s moments like this when a girl realizes she could have made a few practical decisions during her bridal bailout. Putting on underwear, for example. Swinging by the apartment for toiletries and a few changes of clothes? Yep. Those would’ve been good ideas, but today is apparently not a day for forward thinking and good ideas.
I’m driving to Frosty Harbor because it’s where my brother was planning to spend the holidays. One of their star players is injured and lives in a cabin there, so all the starters were going to set up a home base in the small town to keep him company and cheer him up.
Is my overprotective big brother going to be happy that I’m about to show up and finally meet all his hockey friends for the first time? Nope. But where else am I supposed to go? Running away from your life sounds all fine and dandy until you realize you have to run to somewhere.
I know I should call my brother and let him know I’m not dead. He’s probably combing the forests of New York at this very moment, searching for my cold, lifeless corpse.
But I can’t bring myself to confront anyone. Not yet. Not even my brother.
I just need some more time and some more space because I’m afraid I’ll do the easy thing and agree to go back–back to a life I can now see was never meant for me.
Mortification and shame hit me as I replay my grand escape in my head. I ran away from my own wedding. I can’t even begin to run the math on how many people I upset, screwed over, and at the very least, inconvenienced. It’s a nuclear level mistake–the kind that leaves radioactive fallout no amount of cleanup efforts can actually erase.
Usually, singing loud to silly songs and dancing always cheers me up.
I’m currently mouthing the words to “WAP” as it blares over my radio while mascara-laden tears roll down my face.
“Macaroni in a pot,” I whimper, stirring at the air with my free hand as I let out a confused sob.
I do a quick internal double check and make sure I’m not crying because I think I made a mistake. Nope. I’m not crying because I’m sorry I won’t be marrying Landon Collins, heir to his father’s pharmaceutical fortune, rider of horses, and owner of a fleet of expensive collector cars. Landon wasn’t a bad guy, and there were good times between us. But reality snuck up on me right before the ceremony and smacked me across the face.
I saw all the little signs I’d been trying to drown with optimism and positivity for months. The missed dates, the cold touches, the way there wasn’t a spark anymore. I’ve always been a romantic, and I knew I would never forgive myself if I settled on anything less than true, toe-curling love. I just can’t believe I was trying to fool myself into thinking I was feeling it all this time.
So, yeah, I’m crying, blubbering, and then rapping a little when the song gets to the good parts.
The road narrows and the shoulder starts to look a little icy, but my trusty little beat-up car chugs along as to-go cups roll around the foot space of my passenger seat.
I sniffle and use my wedding veil to give my nose a very lady-like dab. I glance in the rearview and sigh. Look at me. Thirty-two years old–a practical dinosaur–a known veil vanisher, dirt poor, and thinking about starting over from scratch.
But I can already feel my trademark optimism doing its thing. Dinosaurs deserve love, too, right? And what’s crazier, dashing through the forest in a wedding dress to escape your own wedding, or marrying somebody you know you shouldn’t marry?
I mean, nice guy or not, I can see it so clearly now. Within six months, my married reality would’ve been watching my husband pulling out his phone, wincing, and telling me he just checked his calendar and noticed we haven’t copulated in several weeks. Then he’d ask if I wanted him to pencil me in. Would I be needing oral, or would penetration do for our appointment? He could schedule both, but he wasn’t sure if that would work this week.
First of all, always oral. Second of all, no. I want my husband to break down doors with his broad shoulders, carry me to bed, ruin my favorite clothes and underwear in the process of getting them off (and of course, offer to buy me new ones in a cutesy little couple’s shopping trip later) and ravage me.
No calendars. That’s right. I want to be married to a man who doesn’t need to remind himself on a calendar to sleep with me.
I just want some excitement. Spontaneity. True freaking love.
But what now? What the hell am I going to do when I get to Frosty Harbor? I have nothing but my badly torn wedding dress, a tube of chapstick, one slightly used floss pick, two quarters and a dime, and a hairpin. I don’t even have shoes. For all I know, now that I’m a missing person, Jake isn’t even going to leave New York and come to Frosty Harbor like he planned. I’ll become the weird homeless lady in a wedding dress. Kids will make up scary stories about me.
Nope. No mopies. It’s fresh start time. The mopies can come in a few weeks when I face all the problems I caused by running away and figure out how to make it up to everyone.
