You're the One That I Want(101)

It upset me that he kept springing into my thoughts. I couldn’t understand why, when I was so happy, his face kept coming into focus to contest that.

And I was happy. I was completely happy with my life with Robert. That’s something I can’t stress enough. He was my best friend, he made me laugh every day, he challenged me physically and mentally, he was my ultimate pillar of support, always there, always loving, always giving. There was no reason for me to look elsewhere or consider the possibility that we weren’t right together. We were, I knew we were, had done since day one.

But what did Ben taking over my thoughts mean? That’s what I kept asking myself. Was it the Universe’s way of telling me to think wisely before getting married? Was it suggesting I was meant to choose Ben? Or was he simply on my mind because I’d put him there.

A couple of months before my wedding, after driving myself slightly loopy, I decided to write an email to Ben, to get all my thoughts out in the hope that he’d be able to shed some light on the matter. I’m not entirely sure what I expected from him, but it helped to sit down and just blast out all my feelings. It helped me to organize them and see things more clearly.

That email sat unsent in my drafts folder for weeks. I thought about sending it time and time again. I’d look at it and reword bits, making sure it made sense, and that it truly reflected how I felt. It did, but something stopped me from typing his name in the address bar and pressing the send button. I let it sit there for as long as I could.

The night before my wedding I was in my old bedroom trying to sleep, but wasn’t having much luck. I had too much nervous energy bubbling away inside me. It didn’t help that my gorgeous wedding gown was hanging from the door of my wardrobe, demanding my attention – doing its best to tempt me out of bed and squeeze into it ahead of schedule.

Lying in the bed from my childhood, I thought about everything that could possibly go wrong the following day – the normal bride worries – but I also thought about me and Robert, about how far we’d come since our first smile at nine years old, to our wedding day. Thinking of our future, I knew we’d have a lifetime of happiness together. I knew, for absolute certain, that it was what I wanted.

Suddenly I decided I’d waited long enough.

I needed Ben to know how I felt.

I picked up my laptop from the floor and went into the draft folder of my emails.

I typed in his email address.

I clicked send.





Ben





Twenty-six years old …





Ben,





A few years ago I was told that, in order to stop my heart from being so torn, I had to choose my love story and stick to it. The thing is, I never really felt like I had a choice. You’d got with Alice and seemed perfectly happy, you never gave me cause to think otherwise. You also never fought for me or made me think that a future with you was a viable option. If I’m honest, it made me question if you’d ever really loved me at all. As a result I invested all my love and energy into Robert. I forgave him, and ended up loving him even more than I had before, because at that point I knew what it was like to be without him. I can’t say I regret the decision or the years we’ve spent together. I’m incredibly happy and loved. As we both know, Robert is a wonderful man.





However, every now and then I think about you and what could have been. Not constantly, but it’s been tugging away at me enough to keep you in my thoughts more than perhaps you ought to have been. For a while I thought I was having doubts – that it was my heart’s way of saying it’s you I love and should be with, but I’ve come to conclude that that is not the case. I DO love you, you can be certain of that, but I don’t believe we’re meant to be together, I don’t think I’m meant to be with anyone. Instead that decision is one our hearts must make for themselves.





I know you didn’t believe it when I told you I loved you all those years ago, but I honestly did, and still do. Completely and utterly. Just thinking of you makes me smile. I don’t want to go through life without you there supporting me, and nor do I want you to be without my support and love.





Until now, I thought a part of me had been longing for you to come along and rescue me, but we both know I’m not in need of saving. Not in the slightest. There’s nothing to save me from. I’m in love with someone we both think is amazing. I’ll be full of happiness on the day of my wedding because I know that things are the way they should be.





So it’s not because I don’t love you that I’m marrying someone else, and it’s not because you didn’t love me that you stopped fighting for me or pursuing things. Instead, it’s because we both have so much love for the one man who’s been keeping us apart. He is OUR rock, OUR best friend, OUR Robert. It’s not from a lack of love that we’ll forever be apart, but too much.