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Push It Aside
“Don’t you look so pretty,” Whitney Butler said to Gillian on the second Saturday in October. “Imagine how we are going to look dressed and made up.”
“That is supposed to be my comment to you,” Gillian said to her future sister-in-law. In less than an hour her brother was marrying his high school sweetheart. They’d reconnected over a year ago and were now going to tie the knot.
Gillian had been helping raise her almost two-year-old nephew, Ben, but now that was Whitney’s duty when Trey moved out of the two-family home he’d purchased that she and her brother both lived in.
She was happy for her brother. She’d loved Whitney back when Trey and she were an item in high school and she loved her even more now.
If Gillian was sad and jealous that her brother was getting what she’d thought she’d have by now, she had to push it aside.
She’d made her choice two years ago to leave Mike and it was the right one.
Her ex hadn’t batted an eye when she’d said she was moving out.
No, that was wrong. He’d asked why. She’d told him. She’d said the same things she’d said to him for years.
He replied by saying if that was how she felt, then there was nothing he could do or say to change her mind. He wasn’t ready to get married and wasn’t sure if he ever would or not. He liked what they had and if she didn’t, she had to do what was best for her.
She’d been hurt and shouldn’t have been. She knew exactly what his reaction would be, but it cut her just the same to think she’d wasted so many years of her life on the guy.
“That color is perfect for you,” Whitney said. They were both in a chair and getting their hair done for the wedding, the dresses hanging on the walls behind them.
“You picked it out,” she said.
Kaelyn-Butler Walker, Whitney’s cousin and the second bridesmaid, laughed next to her. “Whitney is good at making sure everyone looks great. I love green.”
It was more an olive color. Maybe moss. Either way, not a color she’d normally pick for herself to wear, but she had to admit it sure was pretty on her.
“I can’t believe you and Trey are finally getting married,” Gillian said. “I guess I always thought it was inevitable years ago. Amazing what kinds of change so many years later can bring.”
“It wasn’t right for us back then,” Whitney said. “You can’t force those things.”
“Don’t I know it,” Gillian said. Her smile was forced. Two years she’d been single. She’d dated and got nowhere.
Sure, she was happier than she was living with Mike. There was no doubt there. It was the right decision. But she was still wondering when her time might come.
Maybe she put it off because she’d spent so much time caring for Ben. She missed him deeply and shouldn’t have gotten as attached as if he were her son when he wasn’t.
She’d told herself she was taking a year for herself to regroup. No dating. Not even considering it.
She’d held to that for more than a year. But when Ben was no longer the one taking up her time, her parents gently pushed her to get out there and try again.
It was hard for someone that hadn’t been in the dating pool for over ten years and she realized how much pee was floating in it.
Things sure had changed since her college days when she’d met Mike.
“You’ll find that right person,” Kaelyn said. “It’s usually when you least expect it.”
Whitney and Trey had reconnected when the fire alarms went off in Whitney’s house and Trey was the captain on duty to answer the call.
Neither of them expected it then. Gillian didn’t think she’d ever get that lucky to find love that way.
“I haven’t been expecting it for years, so what is the hold up?” she asked, grinning.
Hannah Shepard, who owned the salon, started to giggle. She was doing Whitney’s hair. “You sound like me. As you know, Cash and I met when he showed up to do landscaping work on the building. I had no expectation there at all and look at us now.”
“No more talk about my pathetic dating life,” she said. “This is a happy day for my brother. I can’t wait to see Ben in his tux. Wish he were in here with us.”
