September 12 was supposed to have been Rose's lucky day. Not just because it would have been her wedding day. She had been given reason to believe that the date was not just an ordinary date. That it actually held a special significance to her. A few months into dating Rex, Rose had taken him with her to her home town. Vasilio was not very big, but it was beautiful and the people friendly. While there she had taken Rex to the market, and the two of them had gotten separated. In her search for him, Rose had come across an old woman. Hair long gone white, no traces of the colour it used to be, her skin wrinkled.
"What a lucky girl you are," She had said, just as Rose had been about to pass her by, and Rose had stopped. Shuffling back until she was standing in front of the woman's stall.
"Not many in this life get to meet their soul mate, but it seems you are one of the lucky few," Lili was always telling her she was too gullible, but Rose had looked into the woman's cloudy white eyes, and she had been sold.
"Are you sure?" Rose had asked, drawing closer. The old woman's wrinkled hand gripping Rose's soft one. She had tilted her head, calloused finger running over Rose's palms.
She had nodded, a bright smile that shaved years off her face gracing her features.
"Your aura says it all,"
"September 12, that is when the two of you will be united as one," She'd said, and Rose, already hearing wedding bells had squealed.
The old woman had given her a plant pot already filled with soil.
"There is a seed in here, it represents your love,"
"Water it, care for it, and as it grows, so too will your love," Rex had found her soon after. Bur Rose, wary of him laughing at her, had not told him of the encounter, simply telling she would use the pot for her flowers. She had not told anyone, but she had been watering the pot for months, with not even the slightest hint of a shoot breaking the earth.
Now that the wedding was off, with September 12 days away, Rose felt like throwing the plant pot away, but she could not bring herself to. It had been a gift after all, even if the old lady had clearly been crazy and Rose a fool who had believed her, a gift was still a gift.
But she could not stand to look at it, so she left it at the back with plants that did not need constant care, adding it to her small automatic watering system. Job done Rose locked up and left, headed out to the city center to handle errands she could no longer put off.
The first thing she did was return the wedding dress. The very same shop attendant who had spent hours helping Rose pick the garment, being the one to take it back. The woman did not meet Rose's eyes the entire time. Flitting between stilted conversation and being too professional. By the time Rose left the shop, she felt as though calling off the wedding had been an unforgivable act.
Next came the wedding cake, all three tiers of it, had already been made . It could not return it. She had the baker donate it to a shelter for the needy. Even if she could not enjoy it, there were people who would be grateful to have it. The food caterers only wanted her to pay a cancellation fee, and Rose did so with a sinking realization. Though he had been the one to ask her to marry him, Rex had clearly not wanted the marriage. Every single item for the celebration had been under her name, paid for with her money. All he had offered was the promise that his savings would be used to buy a new house for them, their future home. And she had fallen for it hook, line and sinker. How could she have missed such an obvious sign?
Still lamenting the stupidity of her past self, she decided to finish off the task that she had been dreading all day…telling the rest of the world. One simple message was all it took, and with a single click, every single contact on her phone, with the exception of her mother and best friend was aware of the disaster Rose's happily ever after had become.
The wedding was no longer happening. The one thing she had spent most of her life obsessing over had come within reach and then vanished like smoke.
It didn't take long, within seconds of the message going out, her phone was vibrating like it was getting paid. Calls and messages flooding the tiny device. Some of the people meant well, truly worried about her. But the rest could have cared less and it showed. Their false pity easy to see through. One in particular, Chloe, Rose's least favourite cousin even did a video call. The vindictive glee in her eyes hard to miss, even as she wished Rose well. The other woman ended the call with a barely suppressed smile, the grin having been there since she had learned that Rose had been cheated on. More of the same followed afterwards, and by the time her phone stopped ringing, Rose was both mentally and emotionally drained.
If she ever got up the courage to date again, she would be keeping it to herself. No more of the girl who had treated her relationship like a beauty pageant, the less people knew, the less explaining she would have to do if things did not work out. For now, with her dirty laundry out for the world to see, she just had one more thing to do. On the twelfth, she would have to go and cancel the marriage registration.
She found herself thinking of the other guy, Melanie's mysterious man… was he having the same problems as her? Probably not, but it was nice to imagine that she was not carrying her burden alone. Approaching a nearby food vendor to buy herself a pick me up snack, she didn't see the car that passed behind her. The very man she had been thinking of, sitting in the back seat. He too moving on without recognizing her.