She was working bottle service at her favourite club in the city.

She partied too much and didn’t take anything or anyone seriously, but she was always plagued by the feeling that something was missing, that she could be doing so much more with her life.

All until one day, a boy invited her to a party. This boy was different to all the others, shy, awkward, yet funny and endearing. It took a lot of convincing, but she got her best friend to go to the party with her. She wasn’t sure how he would be, he seemed to be a real guys’ guy, but as soon as she got there, she saw her excitement to see him mirrored in his eyes. And the rest of the night was theirs. They talked, played beer pong, laughed and teased each other. He gave her his sweater when she got cold and she was delighted because this meant that she would have an excuse to see him again. And she was surprised at how much she wanted to see him again soon. She had to leave the party early to his dismay, but this is where it all started.

They spent the rest of the summer playing mini-putt, driving around with the windows down singing their hearts out, smoking, eating pizza, cuddling, watching movies, playing volleyball, falling deeper and deeper.

Then one day, he found a letter on her kitchen table, saying she had been accepted to a university hours away. He became frantically upset and stormed out, leaving her in tears.

He wouldn’t speak to her and as moving day approached, she hoped in vain that he would show up at a party … or at her house the morning she was packing her things into her car. She sat in the driver’s seat and stared hopelessly in the rearview mirror. But he never came.

​

Weeks later she was sat in a bar, all dressed up with one of her friends that had come to visit her. A handsome young businessman walked up to their table and asked her to dance. She pushed down the thoughts of the boy she had left behind and said yes. He whirled her around, made her laugh and feel desired. She got lost in the flurry of courtship that followed, full of romantic dates and enormous bouquets of flowers and lavish gifts delivered to her work making her the envy of all of her coworkers. One candlelit night, he asked her to marry him and it only seemed natural to say yes. But as the months progressed, she realized that she had been so entranced by how flashy and new this lifestyle was that she had failed to notice that her and her fiance had nothing in common. She sat through countless business meetings smiling politely as it dawned on her that he cared only about making money and she was basically the equivalent to a pretty watch on his arm, making him look good. They had more and more arguments as she explained that he had no interest in her thoughts or dreams, they never just relaxed and had fun or went on spontaneous roadtrips together, they hadn’t built any sort of friendship to go along with their romantic relationship. Each time he dismissed her worries, saying he had more important things to worry about.

Until all of a sudden it was their engagement party. She sat in a huge pastel blue ball gown in her changing room, staring unseeingly out the window, lost in her memories. She was thinking of the boy she had left behind, the one that could have been her best friend, her soulmate even, had they had more time together. She smiled wistfully, remembering how much fun they had had. Her smile slipped from her face as she also remembered thinking, the day she realized that they would probably never speak again, that she would never meet another like him. Her thoughts were interrupted as her fiancé’s sisters burst into the room, ushering her into the hall. She started her long walk down the hallway toward the ballroom. Everything felt as if she were underwater, in slow motion, as her mind turned to chaos thinking of how things could have been, had she done them differently. She had reached the balcony overlooking the two winding staircases that descended into the humongous ballroom. And as she looked down upon the sea of cold, unfamiliar faces, she came to a decision.

​

Miles away, in what seemed like another lifetime, the boy she left behind was searching through his closet for his volleyball. As he reached up to the top shelf, he lost his balance and bumped into the shelf causing a box to fall on his head and break open, spilling it’s contents of long lost polaroids across the bedroom floor. He knelt down to hastily stuff them back in, but froze as his gaze locked on her smile. It was a picture of the two of them, from that first party long ago, their arms wrapped about each other- her wearing his sweater- smiling giddily at the camera. He sunk to the floor and started going through each photo one by one, letting the memories of the girl that had made him feel more alive than anyone he had ever met, wash over him. And thinking for the millionth time, what a big mistake he had made.

She gazed across the ornately decorated room as the trapped feeling grew in her chest until she thought she might explode. And in one swift movement, she flew down the winding staircase, pushed through the crowds of guests, slammed open the large wooden double doors and kept running as fast as she could. As she ran, she yanked off her ridiculously uncomfortable stilettos and ripped the blue flower pins from her hair, letting her long, brown curls tumble past her shoulders.

She burst out into the courtyard and ran to the busy street where she hailed a cab that took her to the train station. Ignoring the curious stares from everyone surrounding her, she purchased a ticket for the next train home.

The hours passed in a blur, as if she were in a trance and before she knew it she was stepping out of a cab in front of a familiar little house.

His dog ran across the lawn to greet her as if no time at all had passed. Drawing in a deep breath she walked up to the front door, suddenly uncertain. She gathered her courage and knocked. She heard footsteps and then the door opened, and there he was.