I woke up from a night of fitful sleep and reached out for Ceci. She wasn't next to me, so I got up and went downstairs to look for her. All I found was an empty condo. There was, however, a note on the counter written in the unmistakeable all caps handwriting of an architect.
S-
I NEEDED TO GET AWAY.
HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND.
I'LL BE BACK TOMORROW.
-C
Today was supposed to be our wedding day, so yeah I understood. Still, I wish she hadn't just taken off while I was sleeping. It was too much of a reminder of how strained things were between us right now. I told myself a hundred times a day that it was better than being broken up, which had been a definite possibility at first.
"I've gotta go," I said to my mum before hanging up. "Ceci...How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough to learn that you don't want to get married in three weeks," she said as she gulped back tears.
I jumped up and ran over to her but she stepped away from me. "I do want to marry you!" I insisted.
"That's not what you just said. You told whomever you were talking to that you proposed to me out of guilt!"
"I know it sounds like I was saying that was the only reason, but it wasn't! I also proposed because I love you and want to be with you for the rest of our lives. You know I feel that way!"
"I know you love me, but I now know that you're having second thoughts about the wedding," she said sadly.
I knew that what she'd overheard was damning, but I needed to try to explain how I felt.
"I was venting to my mum. Haven't you ever felt overwhelmed and then made something out to be worse than it is?"
"Even if that's true, you were exaggerating a feeling that does exist! You've never once told me that you felt rushed!"
I sighed. "I know. I was putting your happiness first and I didn't want to hurt you."
"We need...we need to call it off," she asserted.
"Can we talk about this, baby? I don't want us to make a snap decision."
She shook her head as she started to cry harder. "There's nothing to talk about. I can't marry you knowing that you've got reservations."
"We don't have to call it off completely. Can't we just postpone? What if we get married next year?" I suggested.
"Will you really feel differently then? It seems foolish to push the date back when there a very good chance your feelings won't change!"
"Then let's not pick a date right now," I said. "We're young so there's plenty of time. Let's just see how things go."
Ceci wrapped her arms around herself causing the neckline of her shirt to shift so that her scar became visible, reminding me of why I'd proposed in the first place. My stomach clenched and I felt slightly sick.
"You hurt me, Shawn. I guess it's for the best that I found out before it was too late, but that doesn't make it feel any better."
I stepped towards her again and this time she let me get close. "Ceci this has nothing to do with my love for you. It just happened too fast."
"It's a betrayal, though. One of many."
I couldn't blame her for keeping score. She was right that I'd fucked up more times than was acceptable. She had every reason to walk out the door.
"Please don't leave me," I begged.
She took the engagement ring off her finger and held it out to me. "I'm not leaving, but I can't wear this anymore. If you get to the point that you truly want to marry me, then you can give it to me again. It has to be for the right reasons, though."
I took the ring from her. Later that night, I put it with the other engagement ring that I kept tucked away inside a balled up sock in my dresser.
My mother called me around noon to see how I was doing. It was nice that someone cared, because I was in the doghouse with most of my friends and family. The Burroughs were so angry with me after Ceci told them the wedding had been canceled that I'd been a little worried that Eric would show up at the door to kick my ass. He didn't, but I'd seen some texts pop up on Ceci's phone where he referred to me by some pretty ugly terms. The worst was "skinny ratty haired idiot."
After eating some leftover pizza, I texted Ceci several hearts so that she'd know I loved her and was thinking of her. I wondered where she'd gone. Was she at her parents? I went up to our bedroom to take a nap with hopes that I could escape this terrible day by sleeping.
A few hours later, an alert popped up on my phone waking me up to remind me of our flight tomorrow. We'd cancelled the honeymoon, but I'd apparently forgotten to delete it from my calendar. I'd argued that we should still take the trip but she wouldn't even consider it. I hoped to god that Ceci didn't get the same notification.
I went downstairs to the living room and sat down on the sofa, propping my feet up on the coffee table. I felt unbelievably lonely. Looking at my phone I saw that by now we'd have been married for twenty minutes.
Why did I have to fuck everything up? Would it have been that terrible to get married to Ceci today? No. In fact, if I hadn't opened my stupid mouth to my mum, I'd probably be looking at my bride thinking that I was the luckiest man in the world. We were in this forever so what difference did a piece of paper make? And if it would have made her happy, wouldn't that have made me happy?
The sound of the front door opening startled me. I jumped up to greet Ceci who was entering the foyer holding her overnight bag.
"You're home!" I said, stating the obvious.
"Hi. I came home early so that we could talk."
"That's good, because I was just thinking about some things and I wanted to talk to you, too, honey."
She walked into the living room and sat down on one of the chairs. "I've been at a hotel all day because I wanted to be alone. I knew today would be hard on me, and I was worried that if I was here, I'd end up lashing out at you."
"I'd have deserved it if that had happened," I said.
"I had the entire day to think, and I kept coming back to the same thing. We've got problems that go much deeper than you not wanting to get married."
"But-"
She held up a hand. "I'm speaking. Please let me finish. You have this habit of betrayal. Look at what happened in 2019. There's the fact that you hid from me that you'd had that drink with Fiona before Wango Tango, which we've never even talked about. Then you proposed to me under false pretenses, and the only reason I found out you weren't happy about it was because I happened to come downstairs. You couldn't tell me, the woman you were planning on marrying, how you felt!"
I knew where this was going and I felt like I was having an out of body experience. I was watching from above as the love of my life explained to me why she was dumping my sorry ass. Again.
"No..." I whispered.
"No what?"
"Don't end things. We love each other way too much for that."
"I don't want to end things, Shawn, but I think we need some time apart. I'm going to go back into therapy and maybe you should do the same," she said.
"Wouldn't it be better if we stayed together and went to couples therapy?"
"I think that's a great idea for when you get back."
"Where am I going?" I asked in confusion.
"To Los Angeles. Our plan was to go there in ten days so you can just leave earlier. If you don't want to go there, I will."
"You really want a lot of space between us," I said sadly.
"If we're both here, I don't think we'll be able to stay apart. We're like magnets and the pull is really strong."
"Which shows how much we belong together. We've had that pull since we were kids. We can't fight it. We shouldn't fight it!"
"I know, but right now I need time alone."
"You might forget you love me while you're thinking about what a terrible boyfriend I am," I said, voicing my biggest fear.
Ceci got up and moved so that she was sitting next to me on the couch. "No, I won't. I couldn't stop loving you if I tried. You're not a terrible boyfriend, either. We just...we just have some problems."
"How long is this break?"
"I was thinking until mid December. That gives us both a month to focus on ourselves while doing some evaluation of our relationship," she said.
"Can I call you? Text?"
"I'd prefer that you didn't."
It was pretty obvious to me that I was being banished to sunny California so that she could overthink her way into breaking up with me. I considered running upstairs and getting the ring so I could propose again, but that would only make things worse. Even if I told her that less than an hour ago I'd been regretting not marrying her, she probably wouldn't believe it.