Splash of Color

It was a quarter to two in the morning but I couldn’t sleep. Shadows covered the house except for what the starlight could highlight on this lonely night. I breathed in deeply swirling the glass of scotch in my hands, as I leaned against the banister of the balcony. Roses and Hydrangeas hung from the vines curling around the sides of the house. The wind played with the waves of my blonde hair as it blew their intoxicating scent to my nostrils. I was all alone with my thoughts the night before my big wedding. No doubt my make-up artist would swear at me later today for drinking and not sleeping, but it was my life. My life. I hated it. I glanced at my glass. It was empty. I threw and watched it twinkle down, before hearing the tinkle of glass breaking. It was a satisfying sound and was the near-twin, to the sound of my own heartbeat. If I even had one anymore. I crouched down as I remembered the day it all went to hell.

I had come home from studying abroad. I had just graduated and decided to study more in the fine arts. My parents did not like this. My only love was the arts but they thought I was gallivanting with men on my sojourn outside their strict rules and structures. I had learned much in my time away. Including a new way to look at God and the Bible and to question all, I had been taught and reared by. My parents did not like this, calling it heresy, and slowly banning my privileges from going out into the world. Still, I had saved some money and managed to find a good fine arts school close to home. I had thought everything was settled. It wasn’t.

“Eome, you are past marrying age. We have various suitors for you,” had spoken my mother and I had known then that my freedom was over. My parents would choose men that were indoctrinated in the faith like them. I wouldn’t get a chance to search for real love.

I glared at the stars above for never making my dreams come true, then I stared at the broken pieces of glass on the driveway. I was like that glass. So beautiful but broken into tiny fragments and I prayed that I could find someone who could remake me anew. Standing I flounced my hair and slid the glass partition open then closed like my heart would be tomorrow and every day after.