Out of Sequence

1: Wedding Night

"Hey! How are you?" He approached me under the bright lights of the ballroom, smiling faces surrounding us. He had never made an effort this big before and I wondered if he was just being friendly and saying hello because he had to or if it was because he actually liked me.

Normally we avoided each other for no reason known to either of us. But, the girl he had walked down the aisle with earlier today, well, he was ignoring her at this point and sort of just doing his own thing. He wasn't the groom, just a groomsman and, to be fair, he was too hot to not attract every woman that looked his way.

I thought back to when I had walked in, right before the groomsmen and bridesmaids entered. He'd made eye contact with me once, the thoughts unclear in his eyes, but then he didn't really look at me for the remainder of the ceremony.

I wondered if he was woman-averse. Or perhaps, didn't know how to speak to them aside from being friendly. Regardless, he hugged me and I was too stunned to feel anything. He was tall, tan, and muscular. And I was oh so desperately in love with this man since the day I'd laid eyes on him, almost six years ago.

"Hey! I'm okay! It's been so long." I said, attempting to make conversation. I could feel that his energy was off, he needed me to be the one who led this conversation. Was he nervous? I couldn't really tell. We had known each other for so long but really didn't know each other.

"It has." He said, I couldn't understand why he'd suddenly clammed up. He was suddenly silent, not asking any questions and just staring. I didn't mind it though, I could stare at him all day. He was beautiful and didn't even know it.

"I heard you were moving soon, are you excited?" I tried again. I don't know if he responded, maybe I was selectively not listening, but then again I can't really remember his response or what he said next. He didn't ask me any more questions and it made me wonder why he'd approached me in the first place.

We simply kept staring and it felt like we were the only two in a room of about a hundred people. At least, it did for me.

After I ran out of questions to ask this man who now seemed disinterested, we stepped away from one another, neither one saying goodbye. Just slowly drifted apart and into the storm of people, and I tried so hard to act like this distance didn't bother me. I wanted to ask him to dance, but I had absolutely missed my shot at this point. He wasn't saying hello to any other girls as far as I noticed, only to his old friends but he wasn't approaching anymore.

I needed to stop observing him. It would drive me crazy.

He'd been the object of my fantasies and almost all my desires for years and that interaction was all I could think about all night. I'd loved him from the moment I met him. He was comfort to me, though we didn't know too much about each other and hadn't necessarily talked all that much over the years. He was a familiar face that I had always looked forward to seeing.

That night, after leaving the wedding reception early to drive my tired parents home, I broke down in tears. I wished I had drank more and stayed all night to dance with him potentially.

Though I was a firm believer of "if it's meant to be it'll be," this was a case of, this might never be but he's not going to be completely out of my life unless he meets somebody else and marries her. I felt like he'd so quickly been the one who got away and that I had missed my chance. And after that night, I didn't speak with him for a long time.

I continued keeping to myself for the years to come, avoiding his friendship like it was the plaque. Not that I'd had to work hard to avoid him; this plaque would've been like Ebola getting contained super quickly and not spreading.

I always wondered if he ever felt that connection, but I absolutely knew he felt something toward me. If not love then apathy perhaps, which brings me back to the first time I ever met Derek.