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Not strange and sad. This heavy reminder of the ways in which life can take unexpected turns.
She suddenly felt outside of the festivities. Being the sober one probably didn’t help.
“Next game,” she said.
She moved quickly into explaining the rules of the card game that had them matching up certain phrases with other phrases, creating the most outrageous combination that they could.
It quickly had everyone dissolving into fits of laughter, and she had beauty queen sashes with dubious honors printed on them to pass around to the women she deemed winners.
It was going on one in the morning, and they had music pumping, and everyone started dancing.
And Shelby couldn’t escape that feeling that she was just... Standing outside, looking in. Participating, yes, but not really there also.
She could remember so keenly the night before her wedding.
Young and so filled with hope for the future.
And then... And then they’d been married. And it had been good. But there had been hardship. Figuring out how to pay bills in this small town, how to get enough work to cover it all, while knowing that they were lucky they had the house on her parents’ property to fall back on.
The fact they hadn’t been able to get pregnant, and didn’t have health insurance so they hadn’t had the luxury of going to a doctor and finding out why. They just kept hoping it would work.
It was supposed to. They were young, and they were healthy. And hell, they’d spent their teenage years trying desperately not to get pregnant, doubling up on all manner of contraception to make sure that it didn’t happen before they were ready, and dammit, why couldn’t it happen when they were?
They’d been happy still. It was just... She was ready. For that next part of her life.
They’d been saving. Saving enough money to go and get answers. To figure out what they needed to do. And then the accident had happened and...
She blinked, suddenly coming back to the moment.
It was like she had been watching a movie of her own life. From the night of that party to tonight. And it was... Jarring. To come back to this. Her sister was just starting down that road now. And Shelby had already walked on it.
She hoped it was better for Juniper in ten years. She really did.
But she suddenly just felt old, and like she really wasn’t part of this for a reason.
There were no more structured games happening, people were just dancing, and she had a feeling they were all going to get sleepy soon.
She melted into the background of the room, and then slipped quietly out the back door. It was warm outside, not as hot and sticky as it had been inside, but pleasant, with a cool breeze blowing over the field.
She closed her eyes and let it wash over her as she walked off the porch down into the grass.
She felt tears slip down her face, and she didn’t bother to wipe them away.
It was just a moment by herself. Just a moment to let all of this wash over her. Wash through her.
Just a moment.
And when she opened her eyes, she saw a figure, dark on the velvet blue horizon. And she knew immediately who it was, standing one hundred paces from her, with the bachelor pad to his back.
She didn’t say anything. She just stood there, regarding him. He knew it was her. She didn’t need to ask.
They had both left their respective parties.
She wondered why he had. Wondered why tonight was too much for him.
She took a step toward him, at the same time he took one toward her.
Until they had closed almost all the distance between them.
