And Tiffany Takes the Cake

Ironic, unfair, cruel. Synonyms for life, all.
Selfish, fickle, heartbroken against her will, synonyms for the fair maid on the wrong side of the glass.
How could it be that only twenty four weeks ago, five hundred and seventy six hours past, he had claimed her as the mate of his soul? For now here she stood, hidden as she watched, and tried not to whimper too loudly when she saw the sun catch the diamond meant for another through the window of that blue-box store called Tiffany's.

She didn't want a sterling silver circle on her finger just now. No, not now. But someday. She aches for it at times. Maybe when she grew up a little and lived life...maybe it could have been like her fantasy where she met him again when the time was right and her heart and head no longer warred.
But those days now seem as fleeting as that glint of blinding golden sun. Over in a flash, hopes of her future snatched away and she ponders how much he really loved her. Oh she knows she ended it. She knows that if she had stayed the course it would be her before whom he knelt on bended knee and opened that midnight-lined robin's egg. Still, she can't help but wonder if it was her he wanted or merely the white dress and tux and two-story picket-fenced house.

She knows he will invite her to the wedding but he doesn't know she'd be a walking lie, all plastic smiles and cold skin that would forever remain bereft of his touch. No, she couldn't bear to watch them laugh and cry and vow while she is an empty tomb. Her soul would die at the sight of threading nightlights catching love in their gaze. She knows that he will feel a sense of relief at her decline, although he won't recognize it as such.

It's better this way, in the end. She wouldn't be happy. She wasn't happy. That was why she said goodbye in the first place. She knows it was foolish to think he might wait for her. And she does love him even if she never fell in all the way; that's why she has to let him go and be happy and try her hardest not to let him hear the catch in her voice when she bids him a bounty of blessings.
The Universe beckons and Freedom sings and the fair maid still holds the key to her heart's cage.
That's the way she has always wanted it, after all.