They were going to make a day of it.
Get some fresh air.
“It would do you good,” she’d said. “You’ve been cooped in for far too long.”
And he had. And he didn’t really care if he stayed cocooned indoors for a few more weeks. Or months. Or years. Or till life’s end.
But he also didn’t want to upset her, and she’d been putting up with him, moody silences and pacing through the nights and appetites that came and went in both extremes and often not for what she’d taken the time to prepare.
So he agreed. And washed. And dressed in something less wrinkled than what he’d been living in. And they went.
The air did do him good.
The open space. The light. The breeze. The views.
Until.
She’d seen them first and tried to shield him, but his mother has never been very good at hiding her distress, and he read through it and looked in the direction she was clearly hoping he would not.
His ex. The girl who’d left him at the altar, who abandoned him to do all the explaining and pay all the bills and mollify all the aunties and absorb all the pitying looks and lose face and his dignity and eventually his job.
There she was. Pressed into another man.
His blood rushed into his ears as he remembered: he had the same photo taken. With her. Wearing the same smitten look.
And he wondered if someone had stared at them, too, at the time, and considered him the next man she’d rob.
(Note: This story is fiction. I don’t know anyone in this photo and no real connection between the photo prompt and the content is intended.)
Na'ama Yehuda 
Wow! Love this one. I had to re-read your note, that it’s fiction. It’s also one of my very favorite places. Stopped by to invite you to join me again this year. Check out my new post; I loved your list from 2018. Time to acknowledge 2019. Happy New Year, Na’ama!
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Happy New Year, Dawn! I’m between clients so only have a moment but will check your post later this evening. Be glad to!
So glad you liked this post! I thought it was only fair to put in the disclaimer because I’d hate for anyone who misinterpret the intention or integrity of the actual people in the photo. 🙂
Here’s to the freedom of imagination and the responsibility to do no harm! 🙂
Na’ama
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Amen!
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Liked the slow reveal, most effective. And a rotten situation for anyone, bride or groom, yet somehow I sense a man is less equipped to deal with it.
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I’m glad you liked it, Crispina! I’m not sure whether the management of such betrayal is better handled by women in general, or men in general, but I think that there is truth in the reality of betrayal by a woman often being seen as a deeper wounding to a man’s ego (and prowess or whatever) than society might see a man’s betrayal of a woman, which may be excused as ‘men will be men’ and ‘straying’ and the woman being ‘too needy’ or ‘too this’ or ‘too that’ or … Granted, this is absolutely not always the case, but as a whole, men after often let off the hook easier than women are about such things. And … yeah, in this story, which may well not be the whole story … the situation is pretty rotten …
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There’s also that the woman is better able to express the emotions raised. Men tend to bottle theirs. And they haven’t the same support network women have. Generally.
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Generally, again, yes, true. Individually I’ve seen different, but as groups (and archetypes that society feeds into, I agree).
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Yes there are indiviuals, but how tiresome if we had to name each one; our conversations would never be done 🙂
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🙂 Only about 8,000,000,000 or so humans. No biggie. … 😉
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A very long conversation that would be … 🙂
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Yeah! T’would! 🙂
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Terrific extrapolation from the image, Na’ama.
I only just spotted the man’s clenched fist – I only used the couple and the man seated on the bench as framing. I would have preferred the man on the bench to be facing the other way to aid my composition, but didn’t have he nerve to ask.
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Thank you, Keith! Yeah, that clenched fist, eh? A part of it appeared to me like “I got her! Yeah!” and a part of it was a bit incongruous to me … which perhaps sparked the story, even if ‘the man with the raised fist’ is not the man who is telling the story (and of course, none of it is based on any of the real people in the photo, whom I don’t know). 🙂
Na’ama
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