True Confession

I’m going to tell you a story, knowing you won’t like me when you hear it. I’m telling my story now because I hope that in the telling, I won’t be haunted by it anymore. I’m not the only man who has ever done such a thing, Admittedly, the percentage is low, but I’m not alone, I assure you.

 First, let me be clear. I broke no laws. Well, technically, in some states I suppose I might have. What, exactly, did I do? I left my fiancée at the altar, literally. I panicked on our wedding day. You won’t believe me when I say I loved her, but it’s true. I still do. Granted, it’s not like I ever tried to make it right. On the other hand, nothing has really gone right for me since that day. I used to think I paid full price for my moment of panic, but as the years have gone by, even I don’t believe that.

 The cathedral was filled with family and friends. The reception for 275 people at the finest establishment in the county was already paid for by her parents. I heard later that they sent out a search party, looking for me, but they missed Big Edd’s Bar and Grille.   

 Instead of taking vows, I spent that afternoon, dressed in my tuxedo, doing what most immature men of my social standing do when they’re hiding. Right, I was actually in my tuxedo, on the way to the church in a limo paid for by her father when I spotted Big Edd’s. I drank martinis at his old neighborhood bar not five miles from the church until I could no longer stand.  Edd, the bar’s owner, a man I’d never met, took pity on me and let me sleep it off in the back room. The next day, my bags, already having been packed, I took off for the Florida Keys.

 I later learned that my fiancée took her maid of honor with her on the honeymoon trip we’d planned to Split, Croatia. The trip to Croatia was her idea. I would have been happy to spend a week in Jamaica, which I could have paid for with hotel and airline points. That wasn’t why I ran though. Not really. It’s been fourteen years now and I still don’t know why I didn’t marry her.  

 When I used to talk about it, people always wanted to know why I did it. I told them the truth. I didn’t know. But there was always a follow up question. When did you know you didn’t want to marry her? Let me tell you something. There is a wrong answer to that question. Twice I admitted that I had doubts on the day we got engaged. I could see my friends’ respect for me go to hell in a handbasket immediately. Wrong answer. The only answer that people seemed willing to accept was that I didn’t know until our wedding day. Please don’t confuse accept with understand. They didn’t, not really. I got no credit for months of hanging in there, hoping it was a case of nerves, that it would pass. In their eyes, I was a cad for not going through with it. Better to get a divorce after a couple of years, they said, if not in words then with their eyes.        

 I never went back home. I had my brother put everything in storage but my clothes. He shipped those to Florida for me. I still live in Florida, though not the Keys. I settled near Ft. Myers, content, more or less, to be a bachelor. My friends here think I’m a mysterious guy. Some say there is an unremitting sadness in my eyes.

 Thanks to the Internet, I know where she lives, that she got married and has two children. Her home was destroyed by a flood five years ago. I sent her a hundred bucks in cash, anonymously, of course. I like to imagine that somehow, she knows it was me who sent the money. I have her cell phone number too. Occasionally, especially on what would have been our anniversary, and after a few martinis, I’m tempted to call her.   

 I’ll never do it though. She’d probably ask me why I ran. Who knows? Maybe she’d tell me I owed her $75,000. I can’t cover that. Not enough travel points.