‹ Prequel: Lost in the Sun
Closure
August 18th, 2018
The last words he uttered over the phone to Lula Price just three months ago kept coming back to him every single night. Every morning when he awoke and looked at his bride-to-be, it was Lula’s sixteen year old face that he saw, the one he came to know seven years ago… Now today, as he stood in the back of the Church in a suburb of Louisville, Kentucky; it was still Lula’s face that came to his mind. It was her voice that he heard say ‘I do’ in his head, it was her face that he saw when he lifted the white veil.
He had told Madi, after Lula hung up three months ago, that she was the one he’d had the summer romance with. Aidan had been far from a virgin when he met Lula Price on Lake Malone that July of 2011 and he hadn’t stopped dating after coming back to Louisville but he can say from the depths of his heart, and he told Madi this as well, “I never fell in love again after Tallulah…not until you, Madi.”
Madi was the complete opposite from Lula. But even Madi, had had a summer romance long before she and Aidan got together two years ago. Madi, a piece of her felt sorry for the three years her junior female who had once been in love…was still in love with her fiancé. But Madi knew that the past was the past and there was no going back.
Aidan however, as he stood fixing his tie, looking in the body-sized mirror in the back of the Church… he wondered what it would be like if he left now. If he left now and drove to Henderson and looked Lula up…would she question the tux? Would she realize he’d run out on his own wedding to be with her? Would Madi ever speak to him again, leaving her at the altar? What if he were to go in the next room now, seeing her in her dress was bad luck anyway—let her down easy, tell her he can’t go through with such a thing while he’s in love with another.
“I fooled myself by thinking we were through…” Aidan mumbled to himself in the peace of the back-room. He couldn’t believe that he’d been so rough with her on the telephone. It was him that never wrote. It was him that never called. It was him that broke a promise…
-x-
“Listen, Lula, it was a summer lost in the sun.” Those words, all the words that played out over their telephone conversation had played in Tallulah Price’s mind for the last three months. It was Aidan’s friend Jason who finally put Lula on the right-track as to what she should do… well, she got herself to what she was going to do… just needed Jason to tell her where the wedding was going to be and when…
Lula had decided two weeks ago, spontaneously, that she wasn’t going to ‘hold her peace forever’; no… she was going to speak now or forever hold her peace. It was now or never, she decided. If Aidan wasn’t going to come back to her, then she’d go to him. Even if it didn’t stop the wedding completely, even if Aidan told her to never come near him again, it was still the closure she’d been desperately seeking for seven years.
When Lula talked to Aidan on the phone, she hadn’t been entirely honest, or dishonest. She hadn’t dated, although she had tried. But every time she went on a date with a good looking fellow with a good personality, she kept comparing them to Aidan. Aidan would come up like word vomit and by the end of the night, every date would be ruined.
It was the date that Lula went on just a week before she decided to telephone Aidan that made her open up her eyes. The guy she had happened to go on a blind date with turned out to be a psychology major and, ended up giving her some of the best advice of her life.
“You talk about him so vividly, as if that summer was just yesterday. You’re still in love with him aren’t you?” He questioned her as their date came to a close. Lula hadn’t actually questioned at that point whether or not she was still in love with Aidan or not… she believed it to be the past, that she HAD loved him, DID love him…but he was just the past.
“Clearly that isn’t the case, Tallulah. You need some closure. You’re never going to get over him if you don’t find out what could have happened.” It’s those words that Lula was hearing right now as she drove to Louisville. It was those words that she heard as she was about to be her most reckless self…
-x-
“She’s not called you back, son, she’s not tried to make any further contact. Perhaps she took your advice, and got over you,” the Reverend said softly, helping Aidan through his pre-marital jitters. Aidan did want to marry Madi, she was a lovely girl whom he could picture spending the rest of his life with.
“But she’s not Lula, sir.” Aidan said softly to which the Reverend chuckled. “Nor is my wife, my Annabelle Lee, but you see my son, we all have Lula Price’s in our past. It’s not settling for second best, not for me at least. It’s moving forward instead of dwelling on what could have been or what could have never been.”
Aidan knew the Reverend, whom was in his sixties had lived a full life compared to himself; at only twenty-six years old, Aidan had barely begun to live compared to the Reverend. Aidan believed him, and it comforted him enough to where he walked down the aisle and waited for his bride.
Madi was the most beautiful bride he’d ever seen as she walked down the aisle, train being held up behind her by her youngest cousin of only four years old. She was given away by her Father, who had come to love Aidan like another son, not just a son-in-law. As Aidan lifted up the veil however, just as he presumed… it was not Madi’s face he saw there… it was Lula’s.
Madi could tell something just was not right with Aidan, the look in his eyes. She leant in and whispered, “Is everything alright?” Aidan shook his head somewhat and looked from her, out to the family and friends in the pew, then back to Madi.
It was as his eyes had just finished scanning the family and friends, when he saw her face…
-x-
Sitting in the back pew of the church, on the grooms’ side, to a pew all to her lonesome… Lula was watching. Lula was watching the man of her dreams get married to the woman that he truly desired… it was then that she realized, she couldn’t go through with this. Lula just couldn’t wreck Madi’s happiness with the greatest guy that probably either of them had ever known. She didn’t even know Madi, she didn’t know how good Madi was to Aidan…but if Aidan was happy, that was all that mattered.
Figuring after Aidan and Madi had taken a look out at their family and friends, that the wedding was about to officially start… Lula started to retreat towards the door, to silently slink out while no one was watching, a few tears streaming down her face. It was when her hand touched the doorknob that she heard Aidan’s voice say something she didn’t expect.
“I can’t marry you, Madeline,” Aidan said in a soft voice but in the quiet of the Church, it echoed off the walls like he’d screamed it. You could hear Madi gasp, or at least Lula could… She turned her head a little, to look back up towards the altar.
“It wouldn’t be fair, for me to marry you right here, right now… while I’m thinking of someone else, while someone else’s face is who I saw when I lifted up your veil.” Lula’s heard started to stop at those words, had he truly been thinking about her…all this time?
Lula couldn’t bring herself to look any longer…she’d just accidentally, not even on purpose, ruined Madi’s wedding to Aidan… she couldn’t live with everyone else seeing her, knowing her shame… so she walked out quickly. Within seconds though, probably about ten steps away from the door, when she heard it open and turned back with a tear stained face to see Aidan standing there, looking just like he did when he was nineteen that summer at Lake Malone.
“Aidan,” Lula’s voice was a quiver… she was a few stairs down from Aidan and he took those few stairs, to be on her level, looking down into those hazel eyes he came to have fallen in love with seven years ago.
“I fooled myself by thinking we were through, Lula. I never gave you a closure… I never gave us a fighting chance…” Aidan said quietly, stepping a little closer to Lula. She couldn’t bear to look up into his blue eyes, those blue eyes that had become a place where she could look and immediately feel safe.
“I can’t keep living without knowing what could have been, Lula. Every day since we hung up, I’ve thought of no one but you. Every night, every morning, every day; it’s your face I see, not Madi’s. It’s your voice I heard in my dreams saying I do…not hers,” he said in a softer toned voice, reaching out and taking her hand, lacing fingers with her.
Part of Lula wanted to run away, she was causing so much damage… she hadn’t seen Aidan face to face in seven years and already she had cost his fiancée her marriage. But the other half of Lula had never been so joyous over the fact…she finally had the man of her dreams. Aidan Parker had plagued her dreams every single night for seven years now… It was about time that he became more than just a figment of her imagination.
“I was going to speak up, when the Reverend said, speak now or forever hold your peace… that’s why I drove up here. I found out from Jason, where the wedding was going to be and when… don’t be angry with him…” Lula’s voice was still shaking; Aidan could tell that she was an absolute nervous wreck. This had to be, besides making love to him at such a young age, the most reckless thing she’d done in her entire life.
“Angry with him? Lula… can’t you see this is fate. I’ve had all these doubts for three months. And now here you are, you were ready to pronounce your love for me and I was ready to do the same for you. Lula, when I looked out over our family and friends and turned back to Madi, I was going to tell her I couldn’t do this anyway… it wasn’t because I saw you… but when I saw you, I did know...that I had to. I couldn’t keep living a lie with Madi.”
“It’s been seven years, though, Aidan… you said it yourself. How can we just pick up where we left off seven years ago? I’ve changed, you have. We aren’t the same people that we once were.” Lula admitted, finally looking up into those baby blue eyes, reaching up and wrapping an arm around his neck. Aidan’s fell so naturally into place around her waist, pulling her closer.
“That’s something we’ll figure out together. I’m going to give this the chance I should have given it seven years ago. I’m going to love you like I should have then. I’m never going to let you go, not until we truly know…what could have been.”
The words coming out of Aidan’s mouth, they sounded so far away to Lula…her breathing was getting shallow, the whole world seemed to…just not be there to her. The only thing that was there, was Aidan’s eyes…it was what she was focused on. This scenario had never happened in all of her dreams…but she couldn’t help but think this was one… her wildest dream yet.
That was until his lips came to press down against hers. Their eyes slipped shut and with that, shut the book on the past and opened the book of the future…
He had told Madi, after Lula hung up three months ago, that she was the one he’d had the summer romance with. Aidan had been far from a virgin when he met Lula Price on Lake Malone that July of 2011 and he hadn’t stopped dating after coming back to Louisville but he can say from the depths of his heart, and he told Madi this as well, “I never fell in love again after Tallulah…not until you, Madi.”
Madi was the complete opposite from Lula. But even Madi, had had a summer romance long before she and Aidan got together two years ago. Madi, a piece of her felt sorry for the three years her junior female who had once been in love…was still in love with her fiancé. But Madi knew that the past was the past and there was no going back.
Aidan however, as he stood fixing his tie, looking in the body-sized mirror in the back of the Church… he wondered what it would be like if he left now. If he left now and drove to Henderson and looked Lula up…would she question the tux? Would she realize he’d run out on his own wedding to be with her? Would Madi ever speak to him again, leaving her at the altar? What if he were to go in the next room now, seeing her in her dress was bad luck anyway—let her down easy, tell her he can’t go through with such a thing while he’s in love with another.
“I fooled myself by thinking we were through…” Aidan mumbled to himself in the peace of the back-room. He couldn’t believe that he’d been so rough with her on the telephone. It was him that never wrote. It was him that never called. It was him that broke a promise…
-x-
“Listen, Lula, it was a summer lost in the sun.” Those words, all the words that played out over their telephone conversation had played in Tallulah Price’s mind for the last three months. It was Aidan’s friend Jason who finally put Lula on the right-track as to what she should do… well, she got herself to what she was going to do… just needed Jason to tell her where the wedding was going to be and when…
Lula had decided two weeks ago, spontaneously, that she wasn’t going to ‘hold her peace forever’; no… she was going to speak now or forever hold her peace. It was now or never, she decided. If Aidan wasn’t going to come back to her, then she’d go to him. Even if it didn’t stop the wedding completely, even if Aidan told her to never come near him again, it was still the closure she’d been desperately seeking for seven years.
When Lula talked to Aidan on the phone, she hadn’t been entirely honest, or dishonest. She hadn’t dated, although she had tried. But every time she went on a date with a good looking fellow with a good personality, she kept comparing them to Aidan. Aidan would come up like word vomit and by the end of the night, every date would be ruined.
It was the date that Lula went on just a week before she decided to telephone Aidan that made her open up her eyes. The guy she had happened to go on a blind date with turned out to be a psychology major and, ended up giving her some of the best advice of her life.
“You talk about him so vividly, as if that summer was just yesterday. You’re still in love with him aren’t you?” He questioned her as their date came to a close. Lula hadn’t actually questioned at that point whether or not she was still in love with Aidan or not… she believed it to be the past, that she HAD loved him, DID love him…but he was just the past.
“Clearly that isn’t the case, Tallulah. You need some closure. You’re never going to get over him if you don’t find out what could have happened.” It’s those words that Lula was hearing right now as she drove to Louisville. It was those words that she heard as she was about to be her most reckless self…
-x-
“She’s not called you back, son, she’s not tried to make any further contact. Perhaps she took your advice, and got over you,” the Reverend said softly, helping Aidan through his pre-marital jitters. Aidan did want to marry Madi, she was a lovely girl whom he could picture spending the rest of his life with.
“But she’s not Lula, sir.” Aidan said softly to which the Reverend chuckled. “Nor is my wife, my Annabelle Lee, but you see my son, we all have Lula Price’s in our past. It’s not settling for second best, not for me at least. It’s moving forward instead of dwelling on what could have been or what could have never been.”
Aidan knew the Reverend, whom was in his sixties had lived a full life compared to himself; at only twenty-six years old, Aidan had barely begun to live compared to the Reverend. Aidan believed him, and it comforted him enough to where he walked down the aisle and waited for his bride.
Madi was the most beautiful bride he’d ever seen as she walked down the aisle, train being held up behind her by her youngest cousin of only four years old. She was given away by her Father, who had come to love Aidan like another son, not just a son-in-law. As Aidan lifted up the veil however, just as he presumed… it was not Madi’s face he saw there… it was Lula’s.
Madi could tell something just was not right with Aidan, the look in his eyes. She leant in and whispered, “Is everything alright?” Aidan shook his head somewhat and looked from her, out to the family and friends in the pew, then back to Madi.
It was as his eyes had just finished scanning the family and friends, when he saw her face…
-x-
Sitting in the back pew of the church, on the grooms’ side, to a pew all to her lonesome… Lula was watching. Lula was watching the man of her dreams get married to the woman that he truly desired… it was then that she realized, she couldn’t go through with this. Lula just couldn’t wreck Madi’s happiness with the greatest guy that probably either of them had ever known. She didn’t even know Madi, she didn’t know how good Madi was to Aidan…but if Aidan was happy, that was all that mattered.
Figuring after Aidan and Madi had taken a look out at their family and friends, that the wedding was about to officially start… Lula started to retreat towards the door, to silently slink out while no one was watching, a few tears streaming down her face. It was when her hand touched the doorknob that she heard Aidan’s voice say something she didn’t expect.
“I can’t marry you, Madeline,” Aidan said in a soft voice but in the quiet of the Church, it echoed off the walls like he’d screamed it. You could hear Madi gasp, or at least Lula could… She turned her head a little, to look back up towards the altar.
“It wouldn’t be fair, for me to marry you right here, right now… while I’m thinking of someone else, while someone else’s face is who I saw when I lifted up your veil.” Lula’s heard started to stop at those words, had he truly been thinking about her…all this time?
Lula couldn’t bring herself to look any longer…she’d just accidentally, not even on purpose, ruined Madi’s wedding to Aidan… she couldn’t live with everyone else seeing her, knowing her shame… so she walked out quickly. Within seconds though, probably about ten steps away from the door, when she heard it open and turned back with a tear stained face to see Aidan standing there, looking just like he did when he was nineteen that summer at Lake Malone.
“Aidan,” Lula’s voice was a quiver… she was a few stairs down from Aidan and he took those few stairs, to be on her level, looking down into those hazel eyes he came to have fallen in love with seven years ago.
“I fooled myself by thinking we were through, Lula. I never gave you a closure… I never gave us a fighting chance…” Aidan said quietly, stepping a little closer to Lula. She couldn’t bear to look up into his blue eyes, those blue eyes that had become a place where she could look and immediately feel safe.
“I can’t keep living without knowing what could have been, Lula. Every day since we hung up, I’ve thought of no one but you. Every night, every morning, every day; it’s your face I see, not Madi’s. It’s your voice I heard in my dreams saying I do…not hers,” he said in a softer toned voice, reaching out and taking her hand, lacing fingers with her.
Part of Lula wanted to run away, she was causing so much damage… she hadn’t seen Aidan face to face in seven years and already she had cost his fiancée her marriage. But the other half of Lula had never been so joyous over the fact…she finally had the man of her dreams. Aidan Parker had plagued her dreams every single night for seven years now… It was about time that he became more than just a figment of her imagination.
“I was going to speak up, when the Reverend said, speak now or forever hold your peace… that’s why I drove up here. I found out from Jason, where the wedding was going to be and when… don’t be angry with him…” Lula’s voice was still shaking; Aidan could tell that she was an absolute nervous wreck. This had to be, besides making love to him at such a young age, the most reckless thing she’d done in her entire life.
“Angry with him? Lula… can’t you see this is fate. I’ve had all these doubts for three months. And now here you are, you were ready to pronounce your love for me and I was ready to do the same for you. Lula, when I looked out over our family and friends and turned back to Madi, I was going to tell her I couldn’t do this anyway… it wasn’t because I saw you… but when I saw you, I did know...that I had to. I couldn’t keep living a lie with Madi.”
“It’s been seven years, though, Aidan… you said it yourself. How can we just pick up where we left off seven years ago? I’ve changed, you have. We aren’t the same people that we once were.” Lula admitted, finally looking up into those baby blue eyes, reaching up and wrapping an arm around his neck. Aidan’s fell so naturally into place around her waist, pulling her closer.
“That’s something we’ll figure out together. I’m going to give this the chance I should have given it seven years ago. I’m going to love you like I should have then. I’m never going to let you go, not until we truly know…what could have been.”
The words coming out of Aidan’s mouth, they sounded so far away to Lula…her breathing was getting shallow, the whole world seemed to…just not be there to her. The only thing that was there, was Aidan’s eyes…it was what she was focused on. This scenario had never happened in all of her dreams…but she couldn’t help but think this was one… her wildest dream yet.
That was until his lips came to press down against hers. Their eyes slipped shut and with that, shut the book on the past and opened the book of the future…
♠ ♠ ♠
Word Count: 2,089