Longer Stories

Getting Closure

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for Reena’s Xploration Challenge 411.
The following quote is suggested as our muse:
“It was not my idea, but it happened.”
This is where my imagination took me.

Image by Me & Grok

The wedding was Julia’s idea. The open bar was the groom’s father’s idea. Coming at all was my therapist’s idea. “You need closure, Diana” she’d advised. “You need to see them happy.”

But Lucas in the coat check room, his mouth on my neck, my dress hiked up around my thighs …. that wasn’t anyone’s idea. It just happened.

“We shouldn’t,” I breathe, even as my hands find his belt.

“I know.” His fingers trace the edge of my panties. He smells like whiskey and the cologne he wore when we were together. When Julia was just his medical assistant. When I was the one he texted at 2 AM.

The coats press around us, expensive wool and silk lining, the sleeves of strangers brushing my bare shoulders. Someone’s mink stole falls to the floor. I don’t pick it up.

“She’s right out there,” I say.

“I know.” He says it again, but he doesn’t stop. Neither do I.

This is the man who promised me everything, who left me for my roommate, who’s marrying her in the chapel behind us while we fuck against a rack of winter coats that smell like mothballs and money.

I should feel guilty. I should feel something other than this white-hot need, this feral satisfaction of taking back what was mine, even if it’s only for five minutes, even if it means nothing.

“Diana….” he starts, and I kiss him hard so he’ll shut up, because if he says my name like that again, like it matters, like this means something, I’ll crack open completely.

His phone buzzes in his jacket. Once. Twice. Three times.

We both freeze.

“You have to go,” I whisper.

“I know.” But he kisses me one more time, soft now, almost tender, and that’s worse than everything else. That’s the part I’ll hate myself for wanting.

He straightens his tie. I pull down my dress. We don’t look at each other.

“Di….”

“Don’t.” I pick up the mink stole, hang it back up carefully. “Just go.”

He goes. I wait thirty seconds, then slip out the side door, past the chapel where Julia stands radiant in white, past the photographer capturing her joy, past the life I was supposed to have.

In my car, I think about calling my therapist. I don’t. Instead, I drive home with my underwear in my purse and the taste of him still in my mouth, and I know I’ll never tell anyone because some things aren’t ideas at all. Some things just are.

NAR©2025

This is “Going To The Chapel” by the Dixie Cups

Reena’s Xploration Challenge #411



All text and graphics copyright for Nancy Richy and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

21 thoughts on “Getting Closure”

  7. Nearly a White Chapel explosion in the coatroom … but the church bells begun ringing instead …

    “Little White Chapel”

    Dying seems like an ancient tale a drunkard told me once
    For you grew up fast and grew up weak, you never learned to punch
    The coldness of your eyes, I see the type of man you are
    Too afraid to be the same, too afraid to stray too far
    You drove that night to the town where the old folks curse the new
    Never thought we would hold something borrowed, something blue
    Memories last a lifetime but in my mind this was it
    I look up to the Milky Way and dream of what exists

    Why walk, when we can run?
    You never date the youngest son
    But if you heed the word of every man
    You never leave the promised land
    And it’s hoping in the corners of your mind
    You see the way I see and shine like you can shine
    I wish for you the best of life can be

    Some people try to run away by staying deadly still
    With you, I earned a different path, we can put that in our will
    You could spend a lifetime blowing dreams and cigarettes
    For you, I put the lighter down and cashed in all my bets

    Why walk, when we can run?
    You never date the youngest son
    But if you heed the word of every man
    You never leave the promised land
    And it’s hoping in the corners of your mind
    You see the way I see and shine like you can shine
    I wish for you the best of life can be
    Woo

    Why walk, when we can run?
    You never date the youngest son
    But if you heed the word of every man
    You never leave the promised land
    And it’s hoping in the corners of your mind
    You see the way I see and shine like you can shine
    I wish for you the best of life can be

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