Martha My Dear

Chapter 23

"Maybe it was stupid of me to say anything now right before your show." I scolded myself as Paul closed the dressing room door behind us to have some privacy.

"It's nothing like that." He nodded knowing the kinds of secrets I'd come to know of his.

"I'm worried you'll be upset." I fidgeted with my hands nervously feeling my heart pounding furiously against my ribcage.

"I promise you, whatever it may be, I won't." He lifted my chin up to meet his eyes with an assuring grin.

"I-I," I stuttered, my throat tightening in fear as I wiped my clammy palms on my pants.

"I was engaged." I finally managed to speak, feeling a significant weight lift from my chest although my nerves remained shot waiting for Paul's reaction.

Paul's face remained blank, trying to process what I had just told him, much like Pattie had the night before.

"You were, engaged." He repeated back to me slowly, his eyebrows furrowing in thought.

I nodded frightened by his lack of any emotion, knowing he was holding back what he wanted to say.

"W-um-What happened?" He cleared his throat with a puzzled expression. I could tell he was fighting hard to remain calm and give me a chance to explain the situation.

"I-" The room begun to spin as I was weary to tell him I'd ran out of the wedding impulsively.

The door suddenly cracked open to reveal John's face peaking out from the side of it.

"There you two are," he breathed a sigh of relief opening the door wider, "Brian wants us out there now." He looked stern, Paul giving an understanding nod.

"I'll be a second." Paul nodded to John as he closed the door again.

"You're telling me the whole story after we're done the soundcheck." Paul spoke firmly, seemingly frustrated before turning and leaving out the door.

I was left on my own in the dressing room, looking over to myself in one of the boys' vanity's. I stared at the miserable look on my face, realizing it was the same one I'd had the day of the wedding.

I walked barefoot along the beach with a cigarette hung lazily from my lips after finally having gotten a safe distance from the church, the salty taste of tears invading my tastebuds. At that point I had no longer tears to shed, knowing it was better that I hadn't married such a miserable sod of a man. I don't really know how I'd been so stupid as to agree to marry him in the first place. Now the disaster is left in my trail was beyond humiliating and irreversible.

I suddenly noticed a girl around the same age as myself, with bleached blonde hair and piercing blue eyes staring at me wide eyed. She sat down on a beach towel in her pink sundress looking up from her book, obviously seeming to realize I was in a wedding dress.

"Are you alright?" She asked concerned, scanning over the puffiness the tears had left underneath my eyes.

"Fine thanks." I laughed through a sob taking the cigarette from my mouth and placing it between my fingers, wiping a stray tear away from underneath my eye.

"You don't look fine." She tilted her head knowing better than what I said.

"He never loved me." I shook my head on the brink of breaking down with a bitter taste in my mouth merely thinking about him.

"The man you were going to marry?" The girl asked putting her book aside, leaning in closer interested in the subject.

I nodded with a small scoff.