Alvin and Carol were planning their wedding, but he ran late the day of the event. To his surprise, he got to the church, and his fiancée was marrying another man. Years later, they reconnected and discovered the shocking truth.
Alvin ran from his car to the church steps. He had received a message that none of his relatives were coming to his wedding to Carol and lost track of time in the sadness. But he understood his relatives. His mother was sick, and most of them were too busy to fly to Florida. Hopefully, they will be able to see them after they return from their honeymoon.
Unfortunately, he was still late but hoped that Carol would forgive him. He entered through the side door, and something shocking happened. The wedding was taking place already. But how? He was the groom. Indeed, this couldn’t happen without him.
He saw Carol at the altar placing a ring on another man’s finger, and he wanted to yell. His body felt on fire, and he was sure his face was red. But before he could make a huge scene, Carol’s mother, Andrea, appeared in front of him and pushed his chest.
“I thought you had left me forever!” she wailed, and tears gathered in her eyes.
“Move now!” she commanded quietly, and Alvin was forced to do as she pleased.
“Mrs. Percy, what is going on? Why is Carol marrying another man?” he demanded to know, his anger dripping from his voice.
“Alvin, leave now. This is what’s best for Carol. She deserves a better life than what you can give her, and that man is perfect for her. Go away and never come back,” Andrea stated, gesturing with her finger for him to leave entirely.
He wanted to protest, demand an explanation from Carol, and do something. But it was futile. He had seen her place a ring on another man’s finger. She wanted this too, despite how excited they had been for the wedding. She had planned everything down to the last detail. This didn’t make any sense.
But he wasn’t going to beg for her love. “Fine. Good riddance,” he spat at his would-be mother-in-law and returned to his car.
Years later, Alvin was focused entirely on his career, never dating much for fear of being treated as Carol had done. He became an extremely successful man in Miami, and he bragged about it to his friends. He often thought that Carol had missed out, but the image of her marrying another man still burned in his brain.
Suddenly, he had the urge to find out if her life had turned out as they had initially planned all those years ago. They wanted children, a beautiful house, and tons of love. Maybe she got that with the man her parents had always wanted for her. But what if she didn’t?
A quick search on Facebook, and he found her profile. She had uploaded many pictures, and she was just as beautiful as ever. She had a daughter who looked just like her mother, and they were often smiling. Some photos included her parents, but there was no man in sight with her. Had they separated?
He decided to take a chance and write her a message, hoping they could meet and talk about some things. To his surprise, she replied quickly and agreed to the meeting, although Alvin could tell that she was just as shocked by him reaching out.
***
Alvin tapped his foot on the ground and waited impatiently for Carol to show up. They had agreed to meet at a local park near her home. She apparently lived with her parents for some reason, but he didn’t want to dwell too much on it.
Finally, he spotted her in the distance, and it was like nothing had ever changed. He realized at that moment that he still loved her dearly. He had never gotten over her. But with that realization, he also remembered why they didn’t work out, and anger rose to the surface. He breathed deeply to calm down and greeted her when she reached him.
“Hey,” she said awkwardly. He responded in kind, but neither knew what else to say or do.
“Do you want to sit down?” he finally asked, and she nodded eagerly. “Ok. I guess we should get down to brass tacks. I wanted to meet you because I wanted to find out what happened with us in the past.”
“What do you mean?” she turned to him with a frown.
“Well, when I got to the church, you were marrying someone else,” Alvin replied, looking at her weirdly. “Why did you do that?”
“You got to the church?” Carol asked in confusion.
Alvin shook his head as he was now getting confused too. “What are you talking about? Of course, I got to the church. It was our wedding. I was running a little late, but I got there, and you were exchanging rings with another man.”
Carol sat up straighter and looked around the park as if she didn’t understand anything in the universe. “You… you were there?”
“What are you saying, Carol?”
“I thought you had left me forever!” she wailed, and tears gathered in her eyes.
“What?” he said in dismay.
“My mom told me you had run away, and no one could find you. I was so angry… I couldn’t think. I was heartbroken too, and when she suggested marrying Colin…. I just jumped on it. I didn’t want to suffer the humiliation of being left at the altar,” she explained through small sobs.
“That makes no sense, Carol!” he yelled at her, anger rising once again. “Why didn’t you try to call me? I would’ve explained that I was running late because I had just gotten a message that no one in my family was coming.”
Carol stared at him with her wide watery eyes then lowered her head to her hands. She wailed in her hands, not believing what was happening. Alvin was just as shocked, and watching her crying like that brought tears to his own eyes.
They both sat on that bench, lamenting what had happened. When Carol calmed down, she explained that her marriage lasted a year, but she had a child with her husband, and her name was Veronica. She was now ten years old, and she adored her to bits.
She co-parented well with Colin who had already remarried. There was no one else on the horizon for her because she never got over Alvin and what she thought he did to her.
They ended their meeting, promising to see each other again. But that night, Carol had a massive fight with her mother and father. They finally admitted to their deceit and begged her for forgiveness. She accepted their apologies because the past was the past.
“I guess it was meant to happen because now I have Veronica, and I wouldn’t change that for the world,” she told her mother as the older woman cried and lamented her actions.
But Carol couldn’t keep living with them, so she moved out a week later. She and Alvin started talking, and eventually, they fell in love again. They decided to take things slow and Veronica learned to love her new stepfather dearly. She even helped Alvin propose to Carol and was the maid of honor at their wedding.
