The Graceful Truth: Part II

My first break up was ungodly horrible. I know it's typical and every girl goes through it, but I swear I thought I was going to die. I did that thing where I would hide in the bathroom and cry until my face hurt. I would look in the mirror and criticize myself for being so ugly while crying. My mascara running down my face, my eyes so red and puffy it looked like I had been attacked by a dust ball the size of my house. It was absurd, I know everyone is hideous when they cry. Except Charlize Theron, I think she would look beautiful even if she was pooping shards of glass.

Even though I thought that first breakup would likely kill me, I survived just like my mother told me I would. "Every break up hurts honey, but fix your make up girl and start acting like a lady." My mother was stern but loving. She picked me up when I fell and dusted off my back side with a sharp, "Get over it darling," mixing the sweetness with a pang of zest. It helped me move on from a lot of dumb things in my life, but nothing could have prepared me for the damage he would cause. There was just no getting over him. And it was my fault that it happened, my fault that it fell to pieces, and my fault that is was never fixed.

Who is him? Well I detest saying his name to be honest, but it's difficult to explain this turd of a story unless you know all the details. Perhaps this is my way to purge, to tell you the full truth because Lord knows there were many times I didn't. But now I want to set it all straight, and lucky you, you get to hear all the gory details.

His name is Kellan, which of course is a nick name. His actual name is Charles Kellan Castell, but no one in their right mind would want to be called Charlie. Especially after watching All Dogs Go to Heaven. Anyways, everyone calls him Kellan or Kell. Sometimes I called him Kelly, which he absolutely hated, so I did it anyways just to see his nostrils flare with annoyance.

I met Kellan on my first day of college and I'll be honest it wasn't sparks and cupid arrows zooming all over the place. He had such a pompous face. I thought he was a spoiled brat, but that didn't mean I could keep my eyes from looking at him. I would watch him from afar as he prepped his paper for the class, lined out the guides for a new piece of illustration, and clicked away through Photoshop as we formulated a new digital piece. Our first class was a breeze to get through and half the time it was a joke, but still I enjoyed it because I enjoyed watching him. 

I'm pretty sure he noticed by day two because he sat right next to me that afternoon with a smile on his face that read, "I caught you!" Coincidentally that was the day my teacher decided we needed a seating chart because we are in college and seating charts seem like all the rage. I was stuck sitting next to him for 8 straight weeks without choice. Those first weeks few weeks turned into a solid year and 3 months sitting side by side, five days a weeks, four hours a day. To say it wasn't obvious that something was happening would be ridiculous, I'm pretty sure everyone around us but us knew what was happening.

Looking up at Kellan now standing at the end of the aisle watching the Bride glide toward him he doesn't resemble an ounce of the man I knew seven years ago. Of course he looks the same, has the same smile and overly perfect teeth which always pissed me off because I suffered through too many years of braces. His hair was now cut shorter for the special event but still seemed wild and carefree, he was never one to be held down by the strict guards of society. He ran his own path, or at least he did. Today he was everything but rebellious.

First he was in a wedding, to which I distinctly remember arguing with him about how everyone will have a wedding one day and his argument was always, "Weddings are dumb, I wouldn't be caught dead even going to one." He never technically lied to me, but he lied to himself all the time. Second, he was the owner of his own VFX company in the breezy beautiful beach city of Santa Monica. He promised he would never be a stiff shirt, a man at the beck and call of a client. He wanted to be a forever vagabond, a runaway on the edge of life. But I guess things change, and we all grow up and out of our fantasies. I wanted to be his wife and run a company alongside him, but we can't all get what we want now can we?