You can imagine, then, I'm sure, the sheer shock she experienced when, one spring morning, she realized that despite her willingness to hell-dive (among other things), he would not do the same for her. In fact, he would not even deign to appear.
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It was a chilly late morning -- the sort that causes you to turn in on yourself and immediately regret all your past decisions, most recent of them being your outfit -- and the dogs did not bark. She noticed something odd in the air, or perhaps a lack, more specifically. But she refused to be deterred. Today was a day of days! One to remember! One to cherish!
She headed to a local coffee shop, their favorite. She knew what today would hold. A shiny something in a small velvet box doesn't just reveal itself for nothing. Today would be the culmination of all her dreams. Her fella would show up soon, nonchalant, and sit across from her, like it was nothing.
"Hey."
"Hey."
Small talk would ensue.
"So. Work."
She would smile and giggle, because she knew herself to be the bright side of the relationship. You see, to her knowledge, every relationship had a bright and a not-so-bright side. The bright side is chirrupy, perpetually excited and happy, bloated with the great knowledge that yes, indeed, this world is good. The not-so-bright side, as she had learned in the course of this relationship, did not smile quite as much. The world appeared to have dealt them a hand that caused them to lose control of their already poor poker face, and their silence simply left room for her to fill the void with sheer glee. It was a perfect balance, she believed, and her relationship absolutely sang with the symmetry of it.
After a period of talk and one-sided giggling, the conversation would move quietly in another direction.
"So. The future."
"Yes?" she would inquire. "What about it, darling?"
"Wanna?" he would ask, sliding the box, still shut, across the table.
"Oh, more than anything!" she would cry, opening the box and placing the ring on her own finger.
For an hour she sat, envisioning the perfection of her scenario. All at once she realized that their date had passed, that had he shown up he would already have to be back at work. Heaving a sigh, she gathered her things and returned to their quaint apartment. The place still seemed primarily hers, and perhaps it was, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that his toothbrush by the sink meant something much more than a desire for early morning hygiene. The recently-placed toothbrush was a sort of memento to her, and whenever she felt particularly lonely on those long nights awaiting his return from a work meeting, she would stand in the doorway of the bathroom and stare happily at the toothbrush. It was blue, which clashed perfectly with her own purple one.
This afternoon, however, when she returned to her -- oh! their -- apartment, the item she chose to wax nostalgic upon was the shiny little something in the small velvet box in the corner of her apartment that she rarely had reason to examine.
But it was gone.
Perhaps she had misread the time of their coffee date?
She flipped through her day planner, though she knew she never misread the time of any appointment.
In her panic, she flew to the bathroom to see the one piece of comfort she had, the blue toothbrush propped next to her purple one.
It, too, was gone.
The next day, as she perused the internet looking for hide or hair of him amidst a pile of chick flicks and Ben & Jerry's, she came across photographs of the very ring she had seen in her apartment, on the hand of some blonde.
"So happy I picked the right one!" his caption touted.
A text chirped on her phone.
"Sry it took so long. Ur just not it. Thought you wud flip if I didn't bring the damn toothbrush. C u maybe. Prob not. Bye."
She swore on that day to never even consider sinking as low as trying sushi for any man ever again. Bright side, my ass.
