September 11, 2017 | Occasus | Issue 7 | Fiction

Tomorrow
Tomorrow, everything changes.
           
It’s the first snowfall. It’s singing your favourite song in a lower key. It’s going up a shoe size. It’s the day of your 20th birthday; your teen years are now behind you, but you still feel the same. You still look the same. You still are the same. Nothing changes, and yet, everything does.
Tomorrow, I will wake up and put on a lavender satin dress. I will curl my hair and apply an excessive amount of foundation. Everything will be longer: my lashes, my dress, the size of my heels. The day itself. I will walk down an aisle with a bouquet of white flowers, and my arm will be wrapped around a man in a bow tie. He’ll ask me to dance and I will politely excuse myself to go to the washroom. I’ll return and his lips will be pressed against a tipsy woman whose breasts have nearly fallen out of her tight dress. I will then stuff my cheeks with flaky cake and plastic looking fondant. It’s always the same at every wedding.

Except I will then come home to an empty house: I will drink red wine from the bottle, I won’t bother undressing, and my eyes will suck away any remaining light as my head touches a soft surface. It is a familiar scene, one where I fill my blood with poison and await my demise. I’ll wake up from bad dreams of nails being drilled into my brain. Then I’ll realize I’m not dreaming, so I’ll pop a few Advils and move on with my day.

Tomorrow, I’ll still feel the same way. Tomorrow, I won’t smile unless pictures are being taken. Tomorrow, I won’t call myself her daughter. Tomorrow, I still won’t forgive him.

I remember the day I found out my dad had a new girlfriend. It had just been over two years since he had placed his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it gently, and saying, “we’re in this together.” I had believed him, until women with pearls, women with patterned shirts, and women with extreme dietary restrictions, kept waltzing in. They were centipedes that kept crawling on our walls and resting comfortably in our home. My dad always had options, until he met Claudia.

Claudia was one of the dolls on the shelf, but she just happened to be the lucky Pinocchio chosen to be turned into a real boy. What made her so special, I couldn’t tell you. She had a pink smile plastered on her face, and she owned about seven different baking trays. That was probably it.
           
“I have a good feeling about her,” my dad grinned one night.
           
“Uh-huh.” I forced a smile. I didn’t want a new woman in my dad’s life. Wasn’t I enough?
           
Six months later, I found myself restocking my mini fridge constantly with the essentials: alcohol and leftover pizza. But nothing could prepare me for the apocalypse that was about come.

“Alright, now that everyone’s here, I have an announcement to make.” It only took my dad’s hand to slide around her waist for me to know what was coming.
           
“We’re engaged!” Claudia shrieked as she nearly whacked my dad in the face to reveal the massive diamond glued to her finger. My stomach turned as I thought about all my college tuition money being wasted on a lifetime of happiness.
           
Months later, I found myself at a bridal shop, because according to Claudia, we needed “girl to girl bonding time.” The store itself was a winter wonderland of white fabrics, but to me, the dresses lined up looked more like a bag of cotton balls.
           
“Oh you look beautiful! Just beautiful! Doesn’t she look beautiful?” Claudia’s maid of honour, Katie, or was it Kathryn, beamed as Claudia emerged from the changing room.
           
It took me a moment to realize that she was talking to me as it was only the three of us and the saleslady in the room, so I nodded.
           
“You are going to just glide down that aisle,” the saleslady smiled, revealing her impressively white teeth.
           
Claudia gave the dress a twirl like the perfect mannequin she was.
           
“Oh I’m so relieved you girls like it. I just knew this was the one! Do you think your dad will like it, Alexa?” Her eyes were pleading an approval.
           
“He’s really not that picky.” I shifted in my seat and tugged at the loose thread on my sweater, trying to distract myself from saying what I was thinking.
           
“I just want everything to be perfect.” She let out dramatic sigh and admired herself in the full-length mirror. “You understand, right?”
           
Perfect. Everything just had to be perfect. I don’t know if it was the overwhelming smell of vanilla perfume or the few shots of vodka I took before coming here, but I suddenly couldn’t hold my composure anymore: my fingernails dug into my palms, trying to grasp onto the last bit of dignity I had in myself. I may as well have been standing in the middle of an earthquake.
           
“I don’t know.” I got up from the leather couch that felt too expensive to sit on, and made my way towards the exit. My back was facing her now. “He already had the perfect wedding. So what’s the point?”
           
The door shut behind me before she could say a word.
           
And now we’re here. It is the day before the wedding; the day before my life gets pulled under from me like a cloth from an already set dinner table. I’m sitting on the front porch, awaiting the world to explode in some dramatic manner. Instead, I hear the screen door open and then close. My dad sits next to me and hands me a mug of hot chocolate. He takes a sip of his own.
           
“Figured you might want this. It’s cold out.”
           
“Thanks.”
           
I stare down at the red mittens shielding my pale hands. My dad looks straight ahead.
           
I finally try to break the silence. “So, tomorrow, huh?”
           
“Tomorrow.”
           
“Are you ready?”
           
“Are you?”
           
More silence.

“I still love her, you know.”
           
“I know.”
           
I feel my eyes water as I think of my mother. I begin to picture her and Claudia shopping together, debating over what pair of shoes to buy. They could’ve been friends. Sometimes I wonder how similar they are.

I think about last Christmas. Claudia bought me John Butler Trio’s latest album. I remember glancing at my dad, certain that he had told her exactly what to buy me, but he just shook his head in denial.

“How do you know I like them? They aren’t very mainstream.” It was a soft dig; Claudia only ever put on the top 40 when I was around, assuming that’s what I listened to.

“You were playing one of their songs the other night.” Claudia fiddled with her hands. “I searched up the lyrics, found the band, and the rest is history.”

It surprised me how well she knew me. A part of me wanted to refuse to listen to it, but her smile was wrapped around my mind like the ribbon around that CD. I knew she was being genuine because fake smiles were my specialty, after all. So I smiled back.

My mother would want my dad to be happy. She would want me to be happy. Maybe it’s about time we were.

It all becomes clear at once, and there’s only one last thing I need to do.
           
“Are we still in this together?”

Just like a few years before, my dad places his hand on my shoulder. “Of course.”
           
We sit there, side by side, sipping our hot chocolates while waiting for stars to appear in the sky. We don’t need to say anything else.
           
Tomorrow, everything changes, but it may not be for the worst. 
MEGAN LEVINE is a second year student pursuing an Honours Specialization in Creative Writing and English Language and Literature, and a major in the School for Advanced Studies in the Arts and Humanities (SASAH).