Choosing

He looked at her. The bungalow was quiet except for the ocean outside.

-You deserve a good husband, he said.

Rosa Sharon looked at her hands. Jack was a good man. Jack would have been a good husband.

Jack had chosen her, like a centerpiece, like a future for himself.

Joseph was different.

She squeezed his hand.

-And you deserve a loving partner who chooses to stand by your side, she said.

She looked him in the eye.

-Not out of obligation, she said. But out of deep, abiding love.

-I know you love me, he said.

She leaned in closer. She rested her forehead against his.

-I am choosing you, Joseph, she whispered. Right now. In this empty house.

They stayed like that for a long time. Forehead to forehead.

-You make me feel seen, she said. Understood, accepted.

She closed her eyes. She thought about the rehearsal dinners. The seating charts. The polite smiles plastered on her face for months. The performance.

-I felt like I was suffocating, she said. -Beneath expectations I never chose.

-And now? he asked.

She opened her eyes. She looked at the man who had driven her away from the altar and into the dark.

-Now I can breathe, she said.

She inhaled deep.

The air in the bungalow smelled like dust.