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I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I had lost weight, the skin under my eyes dark from lack of rest. My olive complexion lost what little colour it had, my hair hung limply, my lips were dry and chapped from biting them. In short, I looked terrible, and the pain twisting my guts never relented.
Exactly like the last time.
“You need to move on,” I murmured to my reflection.
A single tear escaped to roll down my cheek. I watched its path until it dripped off my jaw and fell on my breast. I rubbed it into my skin and promised myself that would be the last tear I would ever shed over Vander Vitalis.
It was time to accept some hard truths. Although Vander was very real, he wasn’t real for me. He was a dream, a fantasy, one that I could never hope to attain or hold onto. Our lives were too complicated, our individual issues working together to keep us apart, and I wasn’t important enough for him to make me a priority.
The weekend we had together revealed strong feelings on both our sides, but in the end, he walked away just as quickly as he had the first time. I guessed he loved me in whatever way he was capable of loving, but I deserved a man who couldn’t walk away from me.
No matter what.
Unconsciously, I’d held out for Vander for ten years. I didn’t waste those years. I expanded my safe zone to a thirty-kilometre radius. I worked at Spuds to support myself and my family. I earned my degree online, and years of therapy enabled me to leave the house, most of the time, by myself.
Life moved on. It had moved on for him. It had moved on for me. It had moved on for Amber as well.
In the past ten years Amber earned her PhD, met the love of her life, opened her practice, got pregnant, and now she was getting married. I needed to put my dead dreams aside and focus on celebrating Amber’s big day.
Standing beside my sister at the altar, I held back all my tears save one. I told myself that one was a happy tear for Amber. I watched as the priest crowned Amber and Angus king and queen of their home. I watched as he blessed their rings and the best man slid them onto their fingers. I carefully held her train as they took their first steps as a married couple, and I hoped that I’d one day stand where she stood, at the front of the church, our friends and family witness to what God joined together.
I wanted it to be with Vander.
If it couldn’t be him, did I still want it? I considered the possibility that I did.
After the church, I threw myself into reveling in my sister’s joy. I toasted the bride and only cried a little. I ate until I nearly burst out of my dress. I laughed and joked with Amber, Angus, and Angus’s best man, Drew, all through dinner.
At the end of the meal, Yiayia stood beside me while I delivered her speech for her, the one she wrote in place of the father-of-the-bride speech. My tears flowed, and Amber bawled like a baby, until finally Angus moved her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her tightly.
Near the end of her speech, at Yiayia’s beautiful words, I had to take a break. Yiayia rubbed my back and scolded me. “Ela, poulaki mou! Fagame to gaidaro, mas emeine I oura.”
Our Greek guests laughed, and there were several cheers of “Yiayia!”
I leaned into the mic to translate for the sake of Angus’s side of the family. “My grandmother just scolded me. She said, ‘we ate the donkey, only the tail is left’ so I’ll wrap this up.” I looked back to Yiayia’s speech and delivered her final words. “This last part is in English. I am proud. I am proud to be your yiayia. I am proud to call you my child twice over. I am proud of who you have become, and I am proud of the man you chose. God has blessed me. I pray He blesses you, too. Go make babies. Start tonight.” I chortled into the microphone as the room disrupted into laughter, and renewed cheers for Yiayia rang through the room.
I hugged Yiayia tightly. She would be ecstatic when she learned that Amber was well into her third month. I looked over her shoulder to see Angus wagging his eyebrows at Amber while he wiped the tears from her cheeks. I watched as my sister pulled herself together and laughed at his antics. Angus pulled her face into his neck. The look of tenderness and concern on his face robbed me of my breath.
“Will be you one day, poulaki mou. Don’t lose the hope.”
I hadn’t realized that Yiayia had pulled away and peered intently into my face. “I’m okay, Yiayia.” I pulled in a shuddering breath and offered her a tremulous smile.
“You will be, poulaki mou.”
When the Greek dancing started, I danced in circles with wild abandon, whirling around faster and faster. I laughed aloud when my sister grabbed me and placed me between her and Angus. I danced with the best man. I danced with Yiayia. I danced with my aunts and uncles and all the cousins who were not really cousins, but that’s what we called them because when you are Greek everyone is family even when they are not.
The night passed in a blur of music, family, food, dancing, and far too much drinking as I steeled myself against the pain of my broken heart and determined to propel myself forward.
I may have overshot a little.
