Jamie breathed in deeply. The air was practically water, the essence of live oak and swamp and everything Lowcountry South Carolina. His shirt stuck to his back under his suit jacket, and he shifted from foot to foot.
David leaned over. “The waiting’s the hardest part, right?”
Jamie looked over the assembled guests, programs fanning like so many butterfly wings.
“Yeah,” he said. Butterflies, he thought. She wanted butterflies.
The first time she’d brought him here, they’d come at night with a blanket and a bottle of wine, looking up through the missing ceiling to the stars. “I love the symbolism of this place,” she said. “It can’t be destroyed.”
Jamie disagreed. “It looks like somebody did one hell of a number on it to me.”
“Oh, no,” she said, turning to face him. “This place is magic. It’s strength itself. The British burned it during the Revolution.”
“Ahh.”
“And then it was rebuilt. And burned again by Sherman. But look around. Listen.”
He drank deeply from his glass and listened to the cicadas.
“See, the altar is still there. All these columns are still there. It’s living, Jamie.”
“Maybe you’ve had enough wine.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s like the ideal marriage. You can torch it, burn it, but it’s going to stand up, even to Sherman himself. It’s beautiful.”
She paused, interwove her fingers with his. “I want to get married here.”
“Nicole, it’s a ruin.”
“It’s a symbol. I want to get married here and have all the guests release butterflies at the end of the ceremony.”
“I like my churches intact, personally,” he said, then kissed her, twining his hands through her hair.
It felt right, whole, smooth as glass, even when he asked her to dance with him there in the dark, barefoot on the grass.
Jamie had come to love Old Sheldon Church as much as Nicole. He could feel the strength of the round brick columns supporting him as he stood, waiting for the day Nicole would walk down the grass of the aisle to him.
She appeared at the end of the aisle now, and he felt it in his gut. Just as strongly as when he’d first kissed her. It was winter on the waterfront, in front of the Beaufort river; she’d tasted of beer and salt and smoke from the oyster pit.
Clutching her father’s arm, she took slow, careful steps toward the altar. He recognized the dress. Her mother’s. She’d tried it on in the attic of her parent’s house one afternoon. He suggested they go right down to the courthouse and find a justice of the peace, but she laughed.
“No, when I wear this dress, it won’t be to a courthouse.” She twined herself around him and nuzzled his neck. “You know where I want to wear this dress.”
She’d added a green sash at the waist.
“Hey, in case I forget to tell you later?” David whispered, not taking his eyes from Nicole, “You’ve been an awesome best man.”
This is a fiction piece for the online writers’ workshop Write on Edge. This week’s prompt was to write a piece inspired by the French phrase “La Douleur Exquise” (the heart-wrenching pain of wanting someone you can’t have), and a photograph of Bancroft Tower in Worcester, MA. The combination somehow took me to Beaufort, SC, to the ruins of Old Sheldon Church.
And there went my heart, straight through my throat. Beautifully done, Angie, every detail is perfectly developed and the end is amazing. Now that I’ve recovered I want to go how they got from Jamie-Nicole to Dave-Nicole
Thank you! I’d like to explore how they got from Jamie-Nicole to David-Nicole, too. Maybe I’ll try my hand at serial fiction. Maybe. The problem with that is that I never seem to begin at the beginning…
Sucker punch.
Thick, atmospheric sucker punch.
How he hell do you do THAT?
That’s what I was going for. I wanted the reader to feel it in the gut just like Jamie did.
Thanks, Cam!
“She wanted butterflies.”
I love that line.
Why oh why couldn’t he give her what she wanted, or needed…so gut wrenching-and then being the best man, too. I want to know the whole story…
I just bought a copy of Precipice vol. 1 and I loved your work! Great writing!!
I wondered if anyone would notice that line. I thought maybe I’d been too subtle with it.
Thank you for grabbing a copy of Precipice, and thank you even more for your kind words, Valerie!
I love it. This sounds like the end to a beautiful story.
And I totally missed the catch until I reread it.
Oh twists! I love twists! Don’t leave us hanging…I hope you write about these characters more because I want to know what happened!
I think I might. I ended up more invested in Jamie than I thought!
Ah, the heartbreak. So beautifully done!
Thanks, Shell!
I had to read it twice – sorry – but for a moment I thought for sure I had read the end wrong…but no, poor Jamie. Great detail and visual imagery.
You’re not the first person who’s told me that! It’s hard to find a balance between bashing your reader over the head with a twist vs. hiding it so they end up confused. Sometimes I have trouble finding that line!
This was simply lovely. Romantic from the man’s point of view is somehow more intense for me…not sure why.
The man’s POV is so weird to try to write. I’ve been challenging myself to try it more, but honestly, what really goes on inside their heads?
Oh, how sweet! And I love how much that second sentence does to set the scene all by itself; I could smell and practically taste the air. Great work.
Oh! That was so amazingly, poignantly painful. It hit me in the gut, that last line. Because the love was so obvious. You could feel it build, so sweetly delicious and perfect and then, you let the ground drop.
Oh. So good.
Wow, girl. Love!!
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