Open Sores

(c) 2005 by Penelope Street

"For better or for worse, in sickness and in health."

Hearing the minister say the words, I cringed, then closed my eyes while the groom repeated them. I'd promised myself I wouldn't cry, especially standing in my friend's bridal party, but I had forgotten about that particular line in the wedding vows. The realisation that no man would likely ever take me for better or worse, and certainly not in sickness and in health, found my little heart where I tried to keep it hidden and gave a nasty squeeze.

Opening my eyes, I lost that first tear. I found the attention of the guests upon the happy couple instead of me and breathed a sigh of relief. Trying to blink away the tears, I did my best to think of my friend's happiness. By the time Jessica and her husband shared their first kiss as husband and wife, I had at least composed myself enough that no one would notice I had been weeping. Or so I imagined.

The bridal party turned to face my classmate as she began her walk down the aisle on the arm of her man. I snapped my eyelids closed, as if blocking the vision before my eyes could somehow block the visions in my mind, the ones I had imagined for years, the ones where I was the bride, the ones I felt certain would now never occur.

Admitting defeat, I opened my eyes again, and found their focus in the worst possible place, the left hand of the maid of honour as she held her arm for the best man to cradle. Colleen's engagement ring was yet another reminder that no diamond adorned my hand. As if the impending wedding of my other classmate was not enough, her presence at the head of the bridal party was a pointed contrast to mine at the tail.

I should have been the maid of honour.

The thought settled into my mind before I could chase it away.

You should be thankful Jessica asked you to be in her party

, I scolded myself a moment later.

You don't even deserve that

.

I shuffled forward in something of a daze, holding my arm out to the last of the groomsmen without so much as a glance toward the man. My eyes were forward, locked on the back of the woman in front of me. Having failed to think of anything happy, I was trying to think of absolutely nothing when his whispered words reached my ears.

"It's ok to cry at weddings. I lost a few tears back there too."

My eyes bolted wide, cutting to my left in the same motion. My mouth fell open, as if some word or sound might emerge. An exaggerated breath passed instead through my parted lips before I shifted my view forward again and did my best to ignore the comment.

Yet, I couldn't.

Who does he think he is giving me permission to cry? What does he know anyway?

My eyes dropped to the feet of the young lady before me as she continued her deliberate, shuffling strides.

What's his name again? Arnold? No, something else. Harold? No. Oh, who cares! He's just a man anyway. They're all alike. Why do they even need names? We should just give them numbers. Yeah, that would be…

At that moment, the grip of his fingers tightened upon my forearm. Though nowhere near uncomfortable, the added pressure jolted my focus back to the stationary woman in front of me before I could run into her. With the procession at a stop, I dared twist my head to the left a bit, and my eyes with it.

At once, I met my escort's gaze, and his smile. Before I knew it, the ends of my own lips had curled upward, just a shade.

Oliver! That's his name.

I steered my eyes away from him, but found them straining to snap right back. I can't say there was something striking about him; if anything, it was just the opposite.

The wedding party left the small church, pausing to pose for the photographer every few steps. All the while I felt my eyes pulled to my left, as if by gravity. In the limousine, I had my first chance to turn my full attention to Oliver, and I took it at once.

His face was on the round side; cherubically cheerful, one might call it, especially wearing that grin I had yet to see him without. A pair of bright blue eyes sparkled behind conservative wire rim spectacles. His nose had a rotundness similar to his face and might have looked even bigger without the glasses. His body was, for lack of a better word, there; his figure being neither tall nor short, firm nor flabby. A short mop of sandy blond capped his all-too-innocent facade.

Even though his view was directed across the car, I could see those baby blues were streaked with a little red. My eyelids fluttered, as if to blink away my disbelief.

Men don't cry, do they? And they sure as hell don't admit it!

For no reason I could put my finger upon, I found myself staring at Oliver for more of the trip than not, in spite of my deliberate attempts to look elsewhere.

The limousine proceeded to the ruined hulk of Saint Boniface, a Victorian cathedral destroyed by a fire sometime before I was born. The location was always a popular place for wedding photos and this day was no exception; another party was in the middle of their shoot when we arrived.

Our photographer seized Jessica and her husband, taking the opportunity to go over his opinions regarding what would make the best backdrops. The rest of us loitered, watching the other newlyweds go through their poses.

A third limousine arrived while we waited. I caught my lower lip protruding. With a sigh, I turned to my left and wandered away from the crowd.

Keep control! You don't want to be crying in the pictures! It just seems like everyone's getting married today.

Eyes to the ground just before my feet, I continued to encourage myself with each step. I had just begun to heed my own advice when an upright stone slab slid into view. My head popped up. Glancing about, I realised I had wandered to the edge of the cemetery adjacent the old chapel.

I looked to the tombstone near my feet, echoing the engraving in my head.

Mary Tuttle. 1858-1931. Beloved Wife and Mother. Gone but not forgotten.

I tilted my head, mirroring the lean of the marker, wondering who might still remember Mary, now dead a year longer than she had lived. Within not quite a second, I realised the answer. I looked away, tears welling with the understanding that the same number of people would remember me in a century or so.

"Why are you so sad?"

My eyes snapped open as I turned them to meet Oliver's gaze, and his question. "What makes you think I'm sad?"

"This." His curved finger rose to catch the tear that tickled my cheek. I gasped as his flesh grazed mine. My eyes leapt to his finger, then back to his face.

"You said it was ok to cry at weddings," I countered. "They're happy tears."

"I don't believe in happy tears. People who cry at weddings, or the end of romantic movies, they're really crying for themselves, for what they don't have."

"But you cried too!"

He gave a slight nod and looked away. "You're right. I did."

I kinked my neck. "Why? Are you sad too?"

Oliver nibbled his lower lip as he looked back to me. "I was. Just a little, but I'm over it."

"Just like that?"

"Sure," he began with a nod. "I'm not even thirty yet. There's still plenty of time for me to find Miss Right."

"Miss Right, eh?" I leaned my head even more. "What's she like?"

"Ordinary."

My neck stiffened, taking my head backward a centimetre. "Ordinary?"

"Yep. Ordinary."

A grin formed upon my face. "Do tell."

"Ok. She prefers jeans to dresses, movies to plays, beer instead of wine. She knows what the blue line is. She like barbecues instead of fancy balls, and the Beatles instead of Beethoven. She wants two children, a boy and a girl. She'd rather stay home with the kids than go to work, even if it means we have a smaller house and only one car.

"She doesn't like to plan much, just takes each day as it comes and enjoys it. We could spend a happy afternoon together just lying on the lawn," he paused to nod toward the open space in front of the cathedral. "Right over there, soaking up the sun, listening to the birds chirp, and talking."

My eyes traced his gaze to the sunlit patch of green. "We could," I muttered. "That does sound nice."

The man turned his blue eyes back to me. "Yes, it does."

My head swung to meet his gaze. "Your dream girl doesn't sound ordinary; she sounds perfect."

"No," Oliver insisted. "She isn't. But then, she ..."

"Tonya! Ollie!" Our two heads pivoted in unison to see Colleen beckon with a wide sweep of her hand. "Come on!"

We started to walk back toward the ruins, but I left my mind on the lawn where I lay with my dream guy, our hands clasped while we looked up into a sky that reminded me of his eyes.

A dozen or so steps we had taken before my mind caught up with my body. In that moment my eyes flew open as I realised we were holding hands. My brain scrambled to recall how this had come to pass, then my lower jaw fell with the recognition that I was the one who had initiated the embrace of our palms. I turned my head enough to bring my eyes to Oliver's face, and found him looking back at me. As if choreographed, we each smiled and looked back to the rest of the wedding party.

The picture taking was something of a blur to me with my mind wandering back to the conversation of but minutes before, the hand-holding, Oliver's words, and my own.

One moment, however, was not a blur, the moment Oliver and I posed as a couple, the moment I allowed myself the simple delusion that I was the bride this day. I felt his hand on the small of my back. My spine arched, pulling away from the pressure, as I sensed his warmth through my dress. Beaming, I reined in my reflex and leaned into the comfort of his closeness. Sure, he had held my arm twice during the ceremony, but that was something formal, this somehow was far more personal.

Or maybe it just seems that way

, I told myself.

How long has it been since a man touched you in any way, let alone a personal one?

An answer I knew to be true, but loathed just the same, echoed within my psyche,

Too long!

Not that I didn't have offers. On the outside, I might not have been the taut teen from a few years back, but I was still a cute-as-can-be sprite of a blonde. Inside, however, I understood there was a new me, an ugly one, one that even found its way outside on occasion, one I didn't dare let anyone know about, much less see.

Later that evening, I lay awake well into the wee hours staring at a ceiling I could not see. The events of the reception seemed to play across the grey sheetrock over my head; the dinner, the toasts, the applause, and the dancing. One particular couple danced over and over across my ceiling, much in the way they had danced repeatedly at the reception. She was a pixie of a blonde who never quit smiling. He was a man so ordinary anyone could miss him- ordinary in every way except the way he made her feel special, a way she'd forgotten she could feel.

* * * * *

Morning came as mornings do, the harsh light of day leaving the bleached shells of so many dreams in its wake. I accepted my dream had gone the way of most others, into that dim limbo of never-to-be-fulfilled. One might have expected such an acknowledgement on my part to be a weight lifted from my shoulders, but instead I felt a more substantial burden crushing my spirit.

He's just an average guy,

I tried to tell myself.

There are hundreds like him. Don't make this one out to be more than he is

. I don't know that I ever would have taken my own advice, but this little voice kept chiming in, despite my wishes.

Yeah, an average guy, one you'd not have given a second look at a few years ago, yet one you pine for now. What does that tell you?

For the first time I could recall, I rued the day being Sunday instead of Monday, that I couldn't go to work and find distraction there. It was a foolish thought; when Monday did arrive, I was no less forlorn at the office than I had been at home. My depression mounted as the minutes crawled by, as if time itself sought to prolong my misery.

Tuesday was no different.

By Wednesday, I had given up pretending I could handle this alone, and sought refuge in the supreme ruler of all anti-depressants, chocolate ice cream. I found a sale, picked up three half-gallons, and determined to eat my way out of my despair in spite of a paunch I had already nicknamed 'my poofyness'.

An hour later, I rubbed my soft tummy wondering how something so cold could make me feel so warm. But I didn't feel warm for long. Eater's regret soon set in and I caught myself glancing to the fridge, wondering if I should throw the remainder of my frozen treasure down the disposal. In the back of my mind a little voice kept taunting me.

How do you expect to find any man if your poofyness gets any bigger?

All the while, my thumb found the channel button on my remote with something approaching a masculine frequency.

When the phone rang, I turned down the sound on the television so I might hear the answering machine, but the calling party declined to leave a message. A sitcom later, it rang again; with the same result.

On the third call, I looked to the clock and detected the thirty-minute interval between calls. When the pattern continued for the next hour, I tossed down the remote and stomped to the phone, determined to make the intrusive party wish they had been polite enough to leave a message.

"Hello?" I snapped.

"Hi. Tonya?"

I nodded, my brow low. "Yes. Who's this?"

"It's Oliver. Oliver Hart. We met at the wedding, remember?"

"Yes," I repeated, forgetting all about my plan to chastise the caller.

"I got your number from Jessica. I hope that was ok; you see, I really enjoyed your company and I hoped maybe we could get together again?"

My mouth fell open as if to respond, but I inhaled instead, my chest expanding as I continued to imagine how I ought reply. I could find no way to reconcile my wants with reality. My exhale was more of a sigh. "I don't think so."

"Jessica told me you'd say that."

I inhaled a gasp. "She did?"

"Yep."

"What else did she tell you?"

"What should she have told me?"

"Nothing!"

"Why not?"

"Because it's none of your business!"

"Well," the man replied, his voice as placid as ever. "I guess that explains why she didn't. But she did assure me that whatever it is, it's nothing that I needed to worry about, and that I shouldn't take no for an answer."

"Jessica said that?"

"She did."

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear."

"Neither should you," Oliver declared. "But you should believe this: I really want to see you again."

There was a second's pause, maybe two, as if he might be waiting for me to speak, before he continued, "So, I'm not taking no for an answer, not on that account alone, whatever that account is. If you don't want to see me again, I want another reason, one you can tell me about."

My mouth fell as I prepared to give him that reason, but my mind could conjure not one to move my idle tongue; none that was honest, at least. That was when I noticed the ends of my mouth had curled upward. "Ok," I began with a nod. "What did you have in mind?"

* * *

I spent more time preparing for that first date than I had for Jessica's wedding, even though we but dined on the patio of a simple cafe overlooking the river and afterward took a walk in Assiniboine Park. There we lay in the grass and watched the sun set. Much like my companion, the occasion was as marvellous as it was common. My bravery wasn't quite up to grasping Oliver's hand again that date, or the next one, when we visited a comedy club.

To dissuade him from imagining I would follow the third date rule, I picked the most unromantic place I could imagine, a bowling alley, and, once there, avoided all bodily contact. Even in that environment, Ollie proved romance could blossom; I failed to get all five pins even once- and he still found a way to let me win the last game.

As if to make a point that he could choose a far more romantic outing than me, Oliver next selected a cruise down the Red River to Lower Fort Garry. When he offered his hand to help me out of the boat, I naturally accepted, but declined to release it after I had alighted upon the dock. Our palms were joined over most of the next three hours.

Although those first three dates had been pleasant, in many ways we were just testing the waters, exploring common interests, the usual stuff. Something besides our flesh connected during that fourth date while we toured the restored fur-trading post, walking at the most leisurely of paces, discussing life in the past, hinting at our hopes for the future.

Such was the pleasure of the trip that we loitered until the last boat of the day. The melancholy that took hold of my mood during the return peaked when we again reached my apartment door and prepared to part company. For the first time, I wanted him to stay; if just to snuggle a bit on the couch, though I confess I found myself thinking of more as well. Looking back, I am sure Oliver felt something similar, because he chose that moment to say something other than good night.

"Any chance you feel comfortable enough to share your secret yet?"

At once my chest felt as if it had been struck by a hammer. My heart sank, and my gaze with it. I knew the day had to come when I would have to tell him, but I was scared, terrified even, that he would walk away and out of my life forever.

I brought my eyes back to his. "Not yet."

"It's ok," he whispered. "I know. Jessica told me everything."

My jaw fell. By the time I collected it, I had already turned and begun to stomp toward my kitchen. Wearing a scowl worthy of the theatre, I picked up the phone and pounded the buttons. Such was the focus of my rage that I did not even hear Oliver close the door and follow me.

Three rings later Jessica answered. "Hello?"

"You told Oliver?!" I snapped.

"Tonya?"

"Yes! Tonya! How could you tell Oliver?"

"Tell him what?"

"That I have herpes!"

There was a moment of silence. "I didn't tell him. Why would you..."

Jessica continued speaking, but that was the last I heard; Oliver pried the phone from my hands and put it too his ear. "Jess," he began, his blue orbs locked on my green ones. "I'm sorry. I had to know and I couldn't think of any other way to find out. I hope you can forgive me."

I stood, blinking, as the pieces fell into place within my mind.

A second later, Oliver nodded. "Thank you," he whispered before handing the phone back to me. "You owe Jessica an apology, as I do you. I'll be waiting in the living room with yours."

I accepted the phone and just stared at it a few seconds. With a sigh, I closed my eyes and brought the receiver back to my ear. "I'm sorry, Jess."

My friend let me suffer three breaths in silence before she replied, "You should be."

"I know," I admitted. "I was so stupid to think that of you. After all these years, I should know better. I don't know what I was thinking."

"You weren't thinking. That's the problem. Since you're in love, I guess I can forgive you. Love makes us all stupid."

"Love?" I think the word was off my lips before my brain had truly digested it.

I heard Jessica snicker on the other end. "Yes. Think how stupid you were last time you were in love."

A scowl and a smirk vied for my face in the same instant, the smirk winning. "Yeah," I sighed. "I guess I was."

"Remember what I told you about Trevor?"

I nodded. "Dump him before you get hurt?"

"Hey! And I didn't even think you heard me."

"I heard you. I just didn't listen."

"Are you listening this time?"

I closed my eyes and sighed. "Go ahead, say it."

"Oliver is too good for you."

My eyes bolted open at once. A dozen retorts crossed my mind, but my pursed lips remained snug.