Breakfast With Charming Read online

  I was in front of the restaurant where we were going to have dinner, a little French bistro owned by one of his friends of college. I smiled noticing his car already parked on the other side of the street.

  When I entered the place I could imagine myself in France, there was a string quartet playing through the speakers and the smell of freshly baked bread reminded me that ‘pain’ was only the French word for bread. All of the tiredness I had been dragging from the day was washed away by the atmosphere of the place.

  And then I saw Samuel, he was in the bar wearing a blue suit that fitted him perfectly, when he isn’t wearing shorts and flip flops, I am used to seeing him in jeans and casual t-shirts. Yet seeing him with that suit made me wonder if this going out thing could happen more often. If this is the man I am going to marry, then I got myself the lottery without even buying the ticket.

  I decided I was going to surprise him by hugging him without him seeing me, he was going to smile immediately, he was going to tell me how awesome I smelled and how much he had missed me during the day. But that didn’t happen.

  I placed myself behind him and my fingers intertwined over his abdominals. I placed my cheek on his back and absorbed the cologne smell I love so much. I kissed his shoulder over his suit only to get a response I would have never expected.

  “Lizzie? What is it now?” His voice sounded like a foreign language to me, one I couldn’t decipher. Lizzie? Who is Lizzie? Maybe I wasn’t the only one invited? I felt so stupid. I let go of him and did my best to not show how much those little questions had hurt.

  “Congrats on the house, have fun with Lizzie.” I was so mad at myself, how could I ever thought that it was going to be this easy? The only thing louder than the pulse of my blood pumping through my body was the sound of the needle of my stilettos against the floor.

  “Lizzie…sorry, Rebecca,” he stood up from the chair, took a few steps and circled my waist with his hands “don’t go. Let me explain. You are going to laugh about this, don’t walk away,” when I looked him in the eyes, I realised that it wasn’t worth it to do this when I wasn’t meant to be with him. I should just go back to were I came from and fix all the things I have lost on the way.

  I took the first taxi I found and got myself into a bus that could take me home to my home. Shaking in rage and feeling destroyed to my very core, I took my cell phone and call my mom. She picked up the phone at the second ring.

  “Hey honey! I wasn’t expecting…What happened?” My mom could read my emotions even from the silence I kept during a telephone conversation, that is something that only a mother can do.

  “I screwed it up all over again, and it hurts so bad mom. Can I go back home? I don’t want to be here anymore,” I started analysing how I didn’t have any of my things with me and that I had left everything in the house Marilyn had so gently found me.

  “Baby, you can always come back home. We’ll talk once you get here, I’ll do some hot cocoa and you try to get some sleep.”

  “Mom, it is summer, don’t you think hot cocoa is too much?”

  “Hot cocoa is never too much and if a big mug of chocolate and marshmallows can’t help at all, then there is no hope.”

  “I love you mommy, I am so sorry about everything,” when was it that I stopped paying attention to everything this amazing woman did for me? When did I started walking away from my family to found adventure and challenges? All I did with my Canadian experiment was hurting myself. Maybe I could chase my dreams somewhere else, not at my little town but maybe not here. I cried myself to sleep, silently sobbing to avoid being an annoyance to the rest of the people on the bus.

  ∞∞∞

  Sugar could be smell in the air, the humidity made the thermic sensation increase the temperature we were really at, mosquitos were everywhere and their bites where a welcoming sign from the place where I grew up, I was home.

  The old blue car my mom drove was in the parking lot and she stood beside it with her hair in a messy bun and her makeup-free face wearing a smile of concern. As I walked through the parking lot, men whistles reminded me how beautiful I looked that night and instead of upsetting me like they usually did, I found them inspiring. There were still people on their porches, sharing the jokes they told every night with their kids, and everyone could walk without fear through the streets knowing that not a person in the town was a stranger.

  I went to my mom and buried my head in her neck, the tears I thought were in controlled unleashed themselves and started flowing like a waterfall. Her sweet lavender smell brought comfort to my feelings and even though this wasn’t what I dreamt my summer would be like, this felt great.

  “Come on pretty, let’s go home so we can talk about this,” she said without letting me go of her arms. It had been so long since the last time I needed her like right now. I kissed her cheek and got myself in the passenger seat, as we drove by the streets, I could tell how nothing had changed. Not one lightbulb was replaced, not one house was painted, not one whole in the street was filled with asphalt.

  We arrived at her place and the dog came racing to us, her fluffy hair and her dripping tongue immediately made my humour a little better. She got on her two back feet and her little pasterns where touching my heart. I played with her a little, teasing her to bite me and passing my hands through her cotton soft hair before my eyes started filling with tears again.

  “Your hot cocoa with marshmallows is ready, come here, tell me what happened,” my mom sat in the kitchen table with two steamy cups of cocoa sweetening the ambiance. The lights were low, and the place I wanted so bad to escape from wasn’t monstrous anymore. There were so many things she had done for me that I had never understood until this moment. I felt so guilty about having left this place the way that I did. I should have done so many things differently.

  I asked for forgiveness and told her I shouldn’t have left the way that I did, I told her what happened with Brandon, something I wasn’t brave enough to tell her before and then I told her everything that happened with Samuel. I spoke about the walks in the park together after church and planning games for the children and having those little moments of intimacy over coffee and breakfast before taking on big projects as planning an enormous party for fundraising. I told her about how tonight was going to be about celebration but instead ended being a bad soap opera ending when he called me by another name and how I wished that it hadn’t happened to be with him eating a delicious French meal and toasting over our future success.

  “If you wish so bad it hadn’t happened, then maybe you should let that moment go. Try again, make him understand what hurt you that bad. I know I am no expert in relationships, and I am sorry if I passed onto you a bad concept of how it is supposed to work between a couple, but a relationship is commitment and hard work and understanding. Maybe the best thing you could do is try to talk to him. Let him tell you why he called you by that name and if you don’t like the answer you don’t have to go back, just don’t leave a situation where you will ask yourself what if the rest of your life,” my mom said as she mindlessly played with the remaining marshmallows on her cup. Maybe not everything was lost, maybe there was something worth saving I could fight for.

  The doorbell rang and I went to open, on the other side stood Brandon with some papers on her right hand and a smile plastered on his face.

  “Gorgeous! What are you doing here? I am so glad to see you again! How have things been lately for you?” he said before quickly kissing my lips. What is this?

  “I am fine B, what are you doing here? I thought we weren’t a thing anymore.” I said letting him enter the house.

  “I am sorry about the way that I ended it, I know it was really impersonal, but I couldn’t wait for you to come back, it would have been way harder. You do know that I love you still, right?” he said as he placed his hand on my cheek and even if I would have died to hear those words a month ago, now they didn’t have that effect on me. “I am here to talk to your mom, is she here?” I p
ointed towards the kitchen were she still drank her chocolate and he left my side, revealing someone behind him: Samuel.

  ∞∞∞

  He had taken off his suit jacket whole outfit look more casual, he had undone the first couple of buttons from his white shirt and little wrinkles had formed on the sides of the shirt as a result from driving all the way here from Ottawa. He was holding a bouquet of blue flowers. I could see his car parked besides Brandon’s pickup and while he looked better than he did a couple of hours ago, all I had done was look worse. I could feel my eyes were puffy from crying and my nose probably was even more red than Rudolph’s; my once curly and black lashes were not vibrant in this moment and I had taken my stilettos as soon as I arrived home so just seeing him implied my neck had to do the same it does than when I look to the sky.

  “We need to talk, Rebecca,” he took my hand into his and I was left speechless, I could only nod approvingly of the idea and guided him to the backyard.

  “Are you back with Brandon? Or do I stand a chance?” he said acknowledging the moment a few minutes ago when my ex-boyfriend was holding my cheek and telling me he loved me.

  “It is not what it seemed, Brandon and I are over, he came to talk with my mother. You have to believe me,” hearing myself as confident and strong was ironic given than I had been crying before he arrived. “How did you know where to find me?”

  “I asked around, you were easier to found than I thought it would be, turns out in this place every family knows each other. These flowers are for you; blue hydrangeas to apologize, blue hyacinth vowing honesty. Please let me explain what happened earlier.” He had even chosen the flowers according to their meaning, yet the first thing he saw when he arrived to the house was Brandon with me. Could this be solved? How much had he seen?

  “Of course, I am sorry if you thought that Brandon and I were together again, we are not… just for the record I fell in love with a Canadian.” I said playfully smiling at him while enjoying the fragrance of the flowers.

  “I want to do this right, so I am going to tell you every little detail of what happened before you arrived. I went to the restaurant and they show me our table, I sat, looked at the menu and a friend of Janeth appeared. Her name is Lizzie, during high school the three of us were always together and I didn’t know it until Janeth died but it turns out that Lizzie always thought we could be a thing. At Janeth’s funeral, she told me she was there for me for anything and that she knew how to comfort a man. I was weak and I wanted to feel something different from the pain I had been carrying on my heart since the moment Janeth got to the hospital, so I let myself go with the moment. When we had finished, I felt as if I had betrayed Janeth and besides pain I felt guilt and I didn’t want to feel like that. I had waited so long for the woman who I was going to marry to share that experience with her, and suddenly I had also ruined that,” he took both of my hands and kissed my knuckles. “And then everything you know about me happened. I started putting things back in order and one of the things I still had to do was talk with Lizzie and ask for forgiveness, I realised how used she probably felt because of what I had done. But it turns out that Lizzie didn’t feel like that and she told me how she had always wanted to be Janeth, how she hoped one day I would want her and she also told me that she would be waiting for me and that I could take whatever amount of time I needed to heal, that she could help me feel joy again if I only let her. It was too much information at that moment, and I disappeared again. Three years later, I was in a French restaurant, waiting for my girlfriend to appear to celebrate together and she was there; she kissed me out of nowhere and told me she was ready for us to happen, that she would do whatever I wanted. I told her I wasn’t interested and that I had a girlfriend and she started yelling about everything. I understood I had to leave so I went to the bar.”

  “And that is when I entered the place. I immediately recognised you, and I thought it would be a good idea to hug you and tell you how proud I am of you, because I am,” one tear betrayed my strong woman mask and travelled all the way down to my chin.

  “Thank you. It was going to be a night of celebration and I thought you were Lizzie because going back crying after making a big scene it’s something she would do. But then I heard your voice and I knew I had screw up big time. I want you back, I want us to work and I was going to tell you about the house and the buyer and I don’t even think that is a good idea anymore.”

  “What has the buyer to do with anything of this?” I asked confused about the change of topic.

  “I bought the house for us. I saw how much you liked it the last time we were there. You were so excited about the smallest things and you even said it was the place of your dreams. The thing is that you are the woman of my dreams and I want your dreams to come true, so I bought the place. And we could move there after getting married, I was going to ask you to marry me tonight, but things didn’t turn out as I expected, not at all. Rebecca, I love you. Tell me we can work things out.”

  “I am so sorry Sam, I shouldn’t have left without letting you explain things. I just felt so angry and hurt, I felt stupid about falling for you so quickly. Our love timeline seems so short for feeling all these things. I love you to.”

  “When you find the right one, time doesn’t work as it usually does. If you think we are rushing things we can slow down, I don’t have any problem with waiting, but I honestly feel ready to start a new chapter of my life with you.”

  “So do I. Take me back to Ottawa, please.”

  We stayed the night at my mother’s place and had dinner together, it wasn’t French cuisine but it was the best ending I could have asked for the night.

  When I woke up the house smelled amazing, Samuel had done enough hot cakes to feed the whole neighbourhood and we had breakfast together. Breakfast with charming, both of us sitting in the floor while sharing a plate of hot cakes with maple syrup and sipping our hot coffees. After saying goodbye to my mom, we drove back to Ottawa, knowing that everything that we went through had only helped us become a stronger couple and now we were ready to take on the world together.

  Only soul

  I have been counting the days for this moment. I couldn’t say the moment that I saw her that she was the one, but something after that made me realise God had given me a second chance in love, a second chance in life.

  After the mess at the French restaurant we committed to become a transparent couple, everyday after that just became better. I learned to love every little detail about her, from the way her nose wrinkled before sneezing to her daily ritual of eating a piece of dark chocolate after workout.

  When Rebecca’s internship finished the Embassy offered her a permanent position as a translator and she started the paperwork to become a permanent resident in Canada. So much time, so many places and somehow, God helped us meet each other.

  These weeks have really flew by, and Rebecca was as stressed as someone can possibly get. There was so much to get done and so little time to do everything. We had to be sure about everything, from the guest list to the wedding cake. I would have never gotten through all the paperwork and calling she has done lately without losing my sanity, and yesterday before kissing her goodnight, I realised that I wouldn’t see her until this very moment.

  I tried to absorb the atmosphere as well as I could. Rebecca had always dreamed of a white wedding, and not only because of her dress but also because of the snow. When we set the date to December I knew it would be freezing but she was so thrilled about having a Christmas honeymoon that I couldn’t say no.

  The socks she gave me to avoid cold feet had come quite handy with this weather, my mind was completely serene about this decision and my heart was going crazy about being know more than best friends, more than confidents, more than partners in prayer; we were finally going to be husband and wife.

  The choir started playing and everyone turned around to see the bridesmaids’ procession, the girls positioned themselves with their flowers and smilingly wait
ed the bride’s moment.

  The music changed to an instrumental version of “Bless the Broken Road” of Rascal Flatts and I understood why Becky had chosen that song. We both had gone through a long journey before finding each other, but each one of our experiences helped us build each other in a way that we fitted each other. I am a house flipper, but she was the one who flipped my heart. She filled me with happiness and brought light to all the corners of my life.

  She appeared in the entrance of the chapel, her dress as white as snow; I don’t have photographic memory, but I bet I will never forget the sight. Her eyes shining brighter than northern lights, her smile beaming, her hair softly falling to frame her beautiful face.

  I could feel my eyes fill with tears of emotion, why was the aisle so long? I just wished she was already standing next to me. Family and friends were guiding her to me, their faces showed their support to our decision. She finally arrived to where I was standing, the sound of the choir suddenly felt miles away and it was as if we were alone for only one second. “I love you, from now until forever,” she held my hands as tenderly as she holds my heart and I lost myself in her eyes once again.

  “Forever and a day,” her eyes shone with excitement and I knew this is what I was waiting for. This is the greater plan I knew nothing about during all the moments of struggle, and I am thankful of being patient enough.

  “I Samuel take you Rebecca to be my wife because you are the sunshine in my life, my best friend and my true love. You make me want to be a better man each day and I plan on demonstrating this every day until death do us part, bringing a piece of Heaven to our daily life. I vow to make you laugh when you feel sad and hold you until my embrace reminds you of better days, to celebrate your successes and protect your dreams. I promise to help you grow towards your better self and to evolve with you as the seasons change. Together we are the perfect team, together we are one only soul. I vow to love you without reservation and to never let your heart feel cold; forever and always, I’m yours.”