V is for Veronica

The deed was done.  She had purchased a non-refundable ticket to paradise.  Visions of tropical palm trees, thatched huts, and turquoise water caused her stomach to do a little flip-flop. She and Don had dreamed of taking this vacation.  As always when she thought of  Don a stab of pain pierced her.

When she had first introduced him to her family they had been skeptical   Pretty and popular she had a reputation for fickleness, dropping one boyfriend after another when someone new caught her eye.  Everyone assumed that like the rest he would be a flash in the pan.  But they were wrong.  This time she had fallen in love.

Don's good looks, southern charm, and big dreams had totally captivated her.  When he asked her to marry him she immediately said yes and never looked back.  Until he disappeared.

For the thousandth time she asked herself the same questions; What happened? Was he alive?  Where was he?"   No one knew, not his friends, not his co-workers, and not the authorities.  It was that uncertainty that almost drove her mad.  If  death had taken him she'd have grieved but would have been forced to accept the reality.  If he had left her for another women, as devasting as that would have been, she would eventually have come to terms with it and moved on.  Instead she was caught in nightmare.  Every phone call could be the news she was dreading to hear, every knock on the door could be the police telling her they had found his body.  For months she awoke from a night of fitful sleep desperate and depressed . And it hurt, oh God it hurt.  She prayed for the pain to go away.

Finally, after a year of torture she was surprised to realize that occassionally a few hours would go by uninterrupted by thoughts of Don.  People no longer avoided her, unsure what to say.  Her family no longer insisted that she needed their constant company as she had during the months following his disapperance.    Yes, this trip was exactly what she needed.  Finally, ready to face head on the fact that Don was really gone, she looked forward to being just another anonymous tourist.

She waited until the last minute to pack.  Now that her leaving was a reality she was nervous.  What if something should happen to her parents while she was gone?  What if she came down with a serious illness or God forbid her plane should crash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?  She was being paranoid and she knew it.

On the morning of her flight she took a cab to the airport.  When they called her flight she joined the que of people waiting to board.  After buckling herself in she glanced at the person seated next to her to gave him a quick nod of greeting.  And froze like a deer in the headlights.  There, after all these months, was Don.  Veronica could feel the vomit rising.  She wanted to scream at him, slap him and at the same time beg him to explain how he could be sitting here, next to her.  He smiled vacantly and turned to look out the window.