Ace of Hearts

Truth: Someday, some boy will come and ask me for your hand

Tears painted my cheeks with rediscovered disillusionment as I listened to the song my dad had chosen for our Father-Daughter dance at my future wedding.  An innocent onlooker, upon seeing me, might have smiled and wistfully sighed at the sight of my tears, mistaking them for tears of joy, but that couldn't have been farther from the truth: each word pierced my skin like the corners of my oversized diamond, reopening wounds and creating scars I was trying to ignore but could never forget.  

Lie: But I won't say "yes" to him unless I know

As my first serious boyfriend, when he proposed five months into our relationship and a month before my eighteenth birthday, I thought he was the fairytale ending I'd wanted my entire life.  When I called my parents that night to deliver the news, they were speechless.  It was only after I assured them that, of course, we were going to wait until after college to actually get married that they found their voices to congratulate us.  My father, always the quiet, pensive type, wished us well, although I'm sure he had his doubts.

Lie: He's the half that makes you whole, he has a poet's soul, and the heart of a man's man

After we had reached our one-year mark, my father wasn't the only one who had doubts, but, like my father, I actively ignored any feelings of discontent or unhappiness, never outwardly questioning the merit of our relationship.  I was engaged, after all, and wasn't that every girl's dream?  And, more importantly, what if the problem was myself, and he was the best I was going to get?  I'd never been a gambler, and I couldn't bring myself to discard a three to take a chance on an ace if there was the slightest possibility I could end up with a deuce.

Truth: I know he'll say that he's in love

The I-love-yous became mechanical and routine, and while the signs were everywhere, I felt I was too late.  What good was a "Caution" sign when I had already crashed?    

Truth: But between you and me, he won't be good enough  

Less than a year after sobbing over the lines of lies my father and I were supposed to dance to at my wedding, I realized that he wasn't good enough and left with little explanation (for none was really needed at that point).  

I reflected back on my fear of being able to look my father in the eye during that song, both of us knowing the lies that littered each line: dirty secrets exchanged wordlessly.  

Because he would have let me marry him.  He would have done it because he thought that it was what I wanted, that it was what would make me happy.  I love him and I hate him for that.  I love him because he always let me find my own way and supported me in every pursuit, however crazy or irrational it was.  But some days, I was silently screaming, begging for him to give me an excuse – any excuse – to bail.  In all honesty, though, I'm not sure if I would have listened if he had tried.

Almost three years have passed since I've had the daunting task of lying to myself about being happy.  Lying to yourself is pretty difficult work: work I don't care to do ever again.  

But the tables have completely turned, as they say.  There's no ring on my finger, but there's a sparkle in my eye and love in my heart and this beautiful song on the radio about a father giving away his daughter at her wedding.  The father believes that the groom will never be good enough, but I'm finally sure about one thing:

Truth: This time, he is.