I remembered the first time we met. Two years ago, when I’d been dragged along by my friend, Irene to some top-level fundraiser. Even though she’d warned me it would be boring, and I’d only gone out of solidarity, I’d been seriously regretting my decision. So, when some halfway cute finance bro started hitting on me, I decided I might as well just go along with it for fun.

I expected it to be a very short romance. My reaction to finding him inside our friend is proof if I ever needed it… that I was never really into him. What happened was my mother basically slammed the accelerator on our relationship when she found out about his family and his job. I just went along with it because I had nothing better in my life. All my friends had boyfriends and husbands, so to be honest, it seemed more worthwhile cooking for two than one. Plus, I liked the idea of having someone to take me to parties and bring me home afterward. The sex was never all that. He seemed to be having way more fun with Bella. Which, I had to admit hurt far more than his deception.

Hmmm….was it me? Was I no good at sex?

When he proposed, I remember hesitating for a split second. The part of me which I did my best to clamp down on, reared its head. It howled at me to stop and think about what I was getting myself into. Then, I saw the ring glinting in its box, his face full of anticipation, the whole restaurant holding its breath as everyone waited for my reply.

A million thoughts raced through my head.

He really shouldn’t have asked me in such a public place. It limited my responses. An answer like ‘maybe in the future’ would have been fine in our living room, bit it was out of the question in front of that hopeful audience. Obviously, if I said no, I would be back at square one. No boyfriend. I could hear my mother saying, “I can’t believe you let a good man like that go. What on earth are you waiting for? A prince on a white horse?”

To spare them all the embarrassment, I agreed.

People came up to congratulate us and I started to think I had made the right decision. Not everybody can fall head over heels with someone. Some people, people like me, had to compromise and settle for less. Well, not less exactly. Mark was definitely a catch, but he was also the practical choice. Yes, I gave up on fantasy and made the right choice.

Then, before I knew it, I found myself lost in planning for the big society wedding that my mother wanted. But at night, alone, when he was out of town, I would doubt the man I was getting married to. Then, I’d find myself searching for ways out, but have you ever tried to cut off a marriage when things were already in motion?

I was scared shitless about the money, time, and effort everyone had wasted on my behalf. I just couldn’t be the bitch who let everyone down. I could already envision the sadness on my dad’s face along with the disappointment and censure on my mom’s. So I would get out of bed, gulp down a very large glass of wine, and tell myself I was one of the lucky ones. I had a good man. A man who loved me. A man who wanted to marry me and take care of me. He’d even begun to build a house for us. I’d be an ungrateful fool if I ever gave him up.

I would fall asleep telling myself over and over again, that I’d made the right decision.

But now, that the good man had cheated on me…with one of my friends, well, ex-friends, I had a get out of jail card. And I intended to use it.

I drove and drove, my brain racing, memories flooding my head, until I realized my stomach was growling. There was a diner up the road and I decided to pull over. I’d always loved the idea of stopping for waffles and maybe a milkshake at crappy roadside diners to break up the trip, but whenever I took Mark back to my hometown, he would always insist that we wait until we were at my parents’ place before we ate.

Guess what? He wasn’t here to stop me.

I could do whatever the hell I wanted!

I pulled the car over, looked at myself in the mirror, and tried to connect with my reflection. I reminded myself that I was her, this woman who had just dumped her fiancé, and cut town without so much as a glance back. I grinned and winked at her. She grinned and winked back at me. I was on a roll. I reached for my phone.

I took a while drafting the text, wanting to wring as much of my vitriol out on to him as I could. I hovered my fingers over the keys, thinking about all the ways I could tear him a new one. I wanted his stomach to drop out of his ass when he got this text, as it sunk into him just how little he had hurt me, and that required the perfect balance of anger, superiority, and a bye-bitch-titude. I spent a while crafting the perfect message, then I sat back and read it one more time before I hit send.

Hey Dick Head,

Since I just walked in on you fucking Bella, I just wanted to let you know the wedding’s off. Hope you had a good time. Apartment’s all yours. Rent is paid until the end of the month so I’ll come around and pick up my stuff before then. Oh, also I planned a surprise birthday party for you tonight. Booze has been ordered from Hall and Greek, but hasn’t been paid for yet. Please pick it up before 5pm and get back to the apartment before 8pm. Tip: might be a good idea to act surprised because your boss will be there too. Good luck with explaining to all our friends why I’m not there.

I hit send and leaned back. Closing my eyes, I let the air escape from my lungs slowly. Wow, but it felt good to hit him with that. There it was… code red, my whole life blown up over the course of one message. There was no way I could go back now, and I was fine with that.

Fuck him.

Fuck Bella.

Fuck me for ever thinking I should have stuck it out with him.

A knock on my window jerked me out of my internal world. I opened my eyes and a man was asking me if I was all right. I pulled the biggest grin my face would stretch to and gave him the thumbs up sign.

He smiled back, nodded and walked away.

Right. Time to start over. First things first. I blocked Mark’s number. Then I got out of the car and stretched. The bright sun beamed down on me as I walked to the diner. I felt strangely light and free. Inside, I ordered waffles and a milkshake; then got a piece of pie to finish up.

If Mark had been here, he would have been pulling faces about me gaining weight, about not wanting a fat bride to walk down the aisle, but he could blow me. I was eating all the damn pie I wanted, because I wasn’t going to be a fat bride. I wasn’t going to be any kind of bride.

I thought back to the dresses, to all the outfits I had tried on in the hopes that I would find something that didn’t feel completely wrong for me. Now, looking back it was so obvious that the problem was the man, not the dress. Nothing felt right because he wasn’t right. But now he was gone, and I had a feeling everything was going to make a lot more sense.

I still had a few questions, of course. How long had it been going on? How many times had Bella looked me in the eye and laughed uproariously at my jokes as if it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard in her whole life while she was fucking my fiancé behind my back?

But right now, I felt happy just letting those niggling issues go unanswered and concentrated on how I would handle the backlash; the questions from my family about what had happened. I was going to be blunt as hell and hope that got the point across. “Sorry that I wasted your time and money, but I’m not going to marry the man I caught in bed with one of our friends.”

Damn, my mother would go crazy when she found out.

I finished up my food and got back in the car. It was such a beautiful day, I put the convertible top down and turned on the radio. Bruce Springsteen’s raspy voice filled the air. Born in the USA was one of my old favorites so I turned the volume up to the maximum. It’d been a long time since I’d done this. I bounced in my seat while singing along with Springsteen as I hit the highway. Life was for living and that was exactly what I intended to do.

Some people might have been nervous, heading to one of their most competitive friend’s wedding straight after they called off their own, but I felt no such worries. It felt like something had been set on fire within me. A cleansing flame, one that burned out everything which had been bringing me down all this time. I focused on the wind blowing through my hair and let the rays of the sun filter through the trees either side of me and warm my skin, as a smile spread across my face once more. Yes, this was good. Great. Perfect, just—

And that’s when the car spluttered, started to cough and slow down.