The edges of the pink dress were a dead giveaway that I'd finally found her.
I'd stealthily entered into the bride's room at Hatley Park. This enormous castle in Victoria was home to the one who'd led me on so many times before, and now it was about to be home to the one who deserved this ending. I swig from a small flask of whiskey in my tuxedo pocket. No ushers had even stopped me, everything was a big celebration in this ritzy castle, a big show for the girl who'd dreamed of this wedding since she was 8. Who'd included me in her wedding plans all those times before, when we'd talked about it.
She wasn't going to get rid of me that easily.
"Daddy, is that you? Did you see about the fire?"
The doorway was obscured in a small hall away from the main part of the room. I locked the door behind me, steadied myself, and took another swig to combat everything that was wrong with this. The sweetness, the kindness that I'd always showed towards women, screaming at me to just walk away and let it be. My actual fiancΓ©, who, God bless her, was actually worth my time and who'd probably become a nervous wreck if she'd ever found out that I harbored current thoughts about this.
Then I drew on the flashes that'd given me this strength in the first place. The ones that put me on the plane while my fiancΓ© was away taking care of her recovering grandmother. The ones that were going to win this mental tug-of-war.
The way she'd come on to me so strong the very first night I'd talked to her, dumping her boyfriend in advance for someone who lived a thousand miles away. The drunken cheating and her refusal to stand accountable for it. The frigidness of her eyes in our arguments. When she'd called me "awkward and weird" on the phone. Her canceling on detailed arrangements to meet up with me twice at the last minute. The tears. The weekends of tears. The effort I'd given to set everything up, to move around my life to accommodate her. The trust I'd allowed her. The love that I'd imagined to be mutual. All thrown away so she could feed her self-esteem and go into a cycle of self-inflicted wounds. Push me away, beg for me back.
Well, here I am.
"Daddy? Is it okay?"
Breathe. Breathe. Walk. It was time.
I motion over behind her, to her right, so that I was visible in the mirror.
"You really better hurry up. There should be about 30 minutes before the guests start arri--," her mouth stood open as she saw me. As she turned around and make overly dramatic eye-rubs with her pink gloves. She was just as gorgeous as I remembered her. Blonde hair, green eyes, lips arranged as if she was permanently pouting. Her tight pink wedding dress showing off the well-endowed chest that she was so sensitive about that I'd never seen it bare. That pristine hourglass figure hidden underneath the many folds of her dress. If she'd had a crown on her head instead of a veil, she could've passed for Princess Peach. And she would've liked it that way.