**TRAPPED IN ILLUSIONS**
I didn’t marry for love or fleeting passion, but out of defiance, as though challenging fate itself. During my final year at university, a group of foreign exchange students arrived in our town. Among them was Charles—a name straight out of a fairy tale, with looks to match. Tall, charming, and skilled with a guitar, he became every girl’s fantasy overnight. Why he picked me, I’ll never know—perhaps it was mere chance. The Cure’s *Lovesong* began to play, and I happened to be standing nearby. That evening, I’d dabbed on my housemate’s Chanel No. 5, swiped when she wasn’t looking. The scent must have intoxicated him. We kissed until dawn, and from then on, we were inseparable.
I fell for him recklessly, following him like a shadow. No one laughed—if anything, my friends were envious. Charles, ever devoted, spent every moment with me. We strolled through the lanes of the old park, went to the cinema where he’d struggle to follow British films before giving up and pulling me into a kiss. Once, he insisted on joining me for my grandmother’s birthday in a nearby town. Two hours on the train, he listened patiently to my stories. That’s where I bumped into an old classmate, Thomas Wilson. Charles whispered, “Typical English bloke, just like I imagined.” I flushed with embarrassment—for Thomas, for all of us—but said nothing. To me, his eagerness to meet my family felt like a proposal in the making.
Then the fairy tale shattered. When his exchange ended, Charles packed his bags and left for Switzerland without so much as a forwarding address. Summoning courage, I confessed I’d thought our love was real. He only laughed. “You’re lovely, but marriage is a matter of sense, not hearts.” The world crumbled. I lost weight, starved myself, wept for three weeks straight in my dorm. My grades plummeted; the university threatened expulsion. Survival instinct alone dragged me out. But hearing *Lovesong* still brought his face back in a flood of tears.
That summer, I ran into Thomas. His face brought back Charles’s cruel words. Out of spite, I married Thomas a year later. I defended my thesis while pregnant, and in the evenings, instead of bedtime stories, I’d ramble to my eldest about Wittgenstein—putting my education to some use. Over time, I understood Charles’s disdain. Thomas always smelled of ale and pickled onions, his socks lurked in corners, and even the best barber left his hair looking like a bowl-cut. Life with him was bland—my soul ached for wit, colour, laughter. Instead, a second son arrived, and I drowned in the monotony of our village near Manchester.
The internet became my escape. I lost hours to forums, discovered scrapbooking, reconnected with classmates. Life grew bearable, but Thomas still grated. Oddly, I never searched for Charles—until my thirty-fifth birthday. My youngest, egged on by his father, surprised me with a slideshow set to *Lovesong*. I sobbed, remembering how fiercely I’d loved Charles—how part of me still did. Luckily, my husband and boys mistook my tears for joy.
“You always cry at this song,” Thomas said. “Thought you’d like it.”
That night, I googled Charles’s name, his hometown, “British philosophy.” The third link led to a Swiss university page. The man in the photo bore no resemblance to my Charles—paunchy, balding. But the name matched. His bio listed him as a lecturer specialising in British and German philosophy. I imagined my Charles aged—yes, it could be him.
Hands shaking, I copied his email and spent hours agonising over a message. Draft after draft, I finally sent: *”Hello Charles! Found old photos and thought of you (a lie). Wondered how life’s treated you. I’m well (a lie)—married, two boys, work as a copyeditor (another lie). Would love to hear from you.”*
For a week, I checked my inbox obsessively, hoping for a long confession of undying love. His reply was a knife to the heart: *”Hello! Recall my time in England, but I’m afraid I don’t remember you. Did we have a fling? Hope I was decent.”* Convinced he’d forgotten, I scanned our old photos and sent them. Three days later: *”Ah, yes. Funny how young we were.”* Nothing more. I stared at the screen, willing more words to appear. They never did. Humiliation burned my cheeks; disappointment hollowed my chest.
“Right, dug the bed for dahlias. Where d’you want those lilies?” Thomas shuffled in, smelling of earth and last night’s ale.
For the first time in years, I truly looked at him. Lanky, sun-worn, he wasn’t handsome, but beside the bloated stranger on my screen, he was vibrant, real. He remembered my lilies, noticed which songs moved me. Tears pricked my eyes. I stood and hugged him.
“Oi, you’ll mess your dress,” he mumbled. “Had one like this, didn’t you? Saw you wearing it once—with that foreign lad on the train. Thought, *Whatever it takes, I’ll marry her.*”
I didn’t recall the dress. That evening, flipping through old photos, I found it—nearly identical. A quiet warmth settled over me.
“Tom,” I whispered, “how about we try for a girl?”
He agreed. We’d always wanted a daughter. Our third son arrived instead, but we didn’t mind. Now, at last, I *am* well.
**And so I learned: illusions fade, but the love we overlook often shines brightest.**