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I pick up my pace.
My pulse quickens.
My hands open and close as I try to find a way to not crawl out of my skin. That’s what I want to do. I want to bolt right out of my bones and fly somewhere else. Be someone else.
The blood pulses in my ears as I walk quicker toward the exit. There’s a tightening in my ribs, restricting my ability to breathe.
I need air.
I need space.
I need a damn Valium.
I run outside, bursting through the door. There’s a group of people having a smoke. My wine sloshes as I dart to the right and head toward the back of the building and down a stone path. I’m not one to run away from a situation, but my heels click loudly on the ground as I scurry away, desperate for a moment to collect my thoughts.
It’s dark on the side of the building. The only light comes from the full moon. It’s large and bright and so close that I feel like I could touch it. I want to, so much so that there’s a tree at the end of the path at the back of the property, calling my name. It’s the kind of tree Melissa and I used to climb as kids. The kind where we’d share our dreams of the future, back when we had decades ahead of us and were excited to see what would happen.
I sprint to the tree.
Out of breath and out of my mind, I slam my hand into the bark. It’s coarse against my palm. Earthy. Cool. Reliable.
I place my glass on the ground, slide out of my shoes, and hoist myself onto the bottom branch.
I climb.
Why am I climbing a tree exactly? Like I said, I don’t always make the best decisions, and apparently, being indefinitely single at yet another romantic wedding, continuously awaiting my Prince Charming, realizing I could be the mother of a teenager, and being called a whore makes me want to climb a tree.
Limb by limb, I hoist up my dress and lift myself up, nearly slipping a time or two, until I’m as high as I can go. On a wide, sturdy branch, I settle myself against the bark and look up.
I breathe.
My breaths are long and hard, the inhales so deep that my lungs hurt. I allow myself the time to calm down up here, about fifteen feet off the ground. I rest my head against the hard trunk and wait as my heart composes to a subtle beat.
The moon appears through the leaves. I give a small wave to the moon, and it glistens back. It’s like it’s blinking hello to me, day after day, as it peers down and says,Hi, Tara. Have you found your happily ever after yet?
I shake my head.Not today, moon.
Hunter says I’m picky. I’ve heard that before, and usually, it’s from judgmental idiots who think procreating with a man because some ticking time clock is about to alarm is a reason why a woman should give up her priorities.
I don’t want any man. I want a real man.
One who values the woman in his life. Who treats her with honor and doesn’t take advantage of her weaknesses or use them against her. A man who recognizes she’s different from him and respects that. A man who I, in turn, can love, support, and above all, bust his balls to high hell because whoever ends up with me will have to have a sense of humor and a whole lot of patience.
We’ll dance in the kitchen at three in the morning, drink coffee in the afternoon while talking about celebrity gossip, and travel the world together, placing pins in our corkboard map we keep in the dining room. It’s not just the activities that will make our relationship amazing; it’s also the fact that we’ll want to do them together.
We’ll be in love.
“I know it will happen for me.” I speak into the night sky. “My fairy tale will come true. Doesn’t matter if I’m eighty years old and in the nursing home. I know I’ll meet him someday.”
A breeze whispers strongly through the leaves, and it nearly knocks me off the branch. I grip the thick wood and catch my balance. My head spins at the idea of falling.
The cheers of the bouquet and garter toss and the loud music that follows echo out of the barn. I don’t want to go inside yet, but I should get out of this tree.
My stockings make it harder to get traction on the way down. I try to hold my dress while bracing my weight as I get my foot on the next limb. The space between branches feels farther apart than they did when I was climbing up. I stretch my toes to find the next one. When I do, I lose my footing and start to slip.
“Ahh!” I yelp as I quickly grab onto the branch, catching myself and dangling from the limb.
Looking over my shoulder, I’m still about ten feet in the air. If this were a social media post, it would be captioned “Dumb Ways to Die”.
