Chapter 2

Dean and I would get married in a few days. My family had put aside the grudge against old decisions and was willing to help me with the preparations. 

Penelope, my only best friend - and thank heaven, the only person absent at that moment - had been gathering each of my wishes in a special spreadsheet for the realization of my dream wedding. We were the only ones who had a sense of how important that step would be.

No one else understood how the emptiness in my chest was only filled by Dean's presence, and how I ardently wanted to seal an appointment after five years of dating. Five years were thrown into the drain by a night of fraternization when I arrived at the wrong time. One night that had everything to be the happiest of my life, if they had all followed my damn script.

Seconds of a distressing infinity later, I heard the door sucking the air behind me while it was open and resounding the soft music of the bar for the silent night. I prepared to fight the torpedo in my voice. 

“Why?“ I asked, without raising my head.

My tears bathed much of the fabric on my legs, and I had no disposition to give them the freedom to run through my baby blue suit.

An impatient whistle resonated on my back. 

“Are you so pathetic?“ replied Dean, so sharply that I jumped over the icy concrete.

“I'm tired of hearing you chatter about the crappy job you shouldn't even have. Come on, Suzy! Do you know how many people would kill each other to get to where you arrived? And besides, how did you get anywhere with an IQ so lower than an animal's? I said several times that I would never fit into your stupid little plans. I don't want to and I won't marry a frigid and dumb woman, deal with it.” 

I didn't know how to deal. I didn't know what to say. I just closed my eyes and let my body smooth by the loose tears. I lost my composure, and with it, all my pose as CEO of one of the most powerful companies in the country.

I became a little girl with frightened eyes and a tight heart, whose greatest dream was to find her prince charming to escape from the ruined castle in which she had been forced to live. The little girl looked at me through the fog of the past, squeezed a plush on her chest, and her hiccups became mine. 

I can't tell if the wind that roared against my ears was too loud, or if it was a giggle tracing a path from the door crowded with customers to the sidewalk, but something made me dry my tears in a hurry.

I knew, however, that my shame was even more public for leaving it so apparent in my sounds of despair. Not only Dean, his secretary, and our friends were most sure of my stupidity.

Unknown drunks threw their laughter in the air, echoing them by the cold of that February night. If they were for me, or a pure effect of your beer bottles in half, I will never know. 

Finally, dissatisfied with the words spit on me, the man I planned to marry crouched down and pulled my chin to raise his head, a sudden movement free of processions.

“I've never loved you, Suzane.“ He confessed in a sharp and dark tone, leveling his gaze with mine. “God takes care of the man who will have to deal with your existential crises, if he exists.” 

I've never heard him sound so sincere in my life. It never turns your eyes to shine with such evil. And the way he released my jaw - so strong that my teeth creaked - aroused in me so vivid memories of a distant past, that I had no other reaction than to stand up and make my way down the street with an open sign.

I don't remember if I lay down and look at the cars that honked and blew the offenses of their owners as I blindly dug into the poorly lit street. Maybe they expected me to answer the height of the curses, or run to the other side of the sidewalk and avoid a fatal accident. I couldn't do that either. 

My arms wrapped around me, protecting me from the sudden cold that would shake my bones, and my feet kept moving, taking me further and further away, aimless. I closed myself inside and out. I stopped being myself to become an echo.

And, even after a long ten minutes in front of one of the many subway stations still in operation in a sleeping neighborhood, my senses perish tormented by the crude visions of my memories. My stunning is so well committed that I only realize that I am blocking the way to the entrance of the station when an elderly man bumps slightly into me.

“I'm sorry, girl“ he murmurs, the cold air of the night turning his words into steam.

Fixing his hat in a greeting, he goes down the steps with all the slowness of his advanced age, leaving me behind with a sudden feeling of déjà vu. A shiver crawls through my skin, and only then do I realize that my tears have ceased. Mentally I curse myself for such despair. It's not like my life is going to end with an end of an engagement. 

Although my deplorable emotional state proves otherwise, I was never dependent on Dean's attention. We had a relationship too open for me to care about your getaways at premeditated times. Maybe it was my fault, after all.

My job has always been my highest priority, and Dean was on my list of obligations by the end of the day. Even my friend Penelope reaches a higher level of affection than my ex-future-husband. 

It is when I am using my Charlie Card to have access to the basement of the station that a shadow of a bad omen falls on my shoulders. If I just lost my fiancé, how can I continue the plans for a wedding that should take place in less than a month? 

Stupidly I look for my answer on the station screen, finding nothing but the last time for the subway that will follow from Boston to Washington. The ardor of defeat buckled my face like a whispering breeze.

I forget my self-love and I want to go back in time and be late for only twenty minutes. Enough time not to see that scene that still dances in my open eyes. Maybe that way I never knew about Dean's infidelity. I would never take a dose of his impulsiveness and listen to his hateful words, and consequently lose my way. 

But if such a fact occurred, my perfect marriage would be a lie. Every year dreaming about prince charming would no longer be a good thing to become a nightmare of that little girl trapped in my morbid memories.

No.

A woman who firmly opposes the insistent whims of men in her work cannot lower herself to the crumbs that another offers her between four walls.

This is not me. I can't be. Not anymore.