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I peer into my laptop and pull up the script we’ll be working off of.
“Yeah, she is.” I’ve envied Jordan because of his rock-solid relationship with Anna in the past.
That envy doesn’t serve me, so I don’t indulge in it anymore. At least, I haven’t in a long time.
For some reason, though, today, it wells up. Anna is loyal, nice, smart, and funny. She’s a good person to the core. Jordan hit the lottery when he met her. Though he’ll tell me we’re best buds, I know in my heart that his best friend is really Anna, and she has been since they tied the knot years and years ago.
I can’t have a relationship like that, I remind myself.
I tried, and it didn’t work.
When I met Mia, I got caught up in thoughts about the future. I thought I could have what I saw my friends getting: perfect love.
I watched my parents divorce when I was young. I knew marriage was a risk, and I went for it anyway. I thought maybe if I tried hard enough, I could do better than my parents did.
I thought maybe Mia and I would make it.
We didn’t, though.
Not even close.
The arguments started during our honeymoon. How embarrassing is that? We couldn’t even manage to get along for even one week before it all fell apart. Like a windshield, cracked and broken into thousands of pieces on impact.
A fleeting memory of the car accident fills me: Blood. Her screams.
I shudder.
I can’t have love because I never want to cause that much pain ever again.
That accident was my fault. I was distracted by our argument.
When I’m honest with myself, I see that there were ominous hints of our destruction before it ever happened.
There were fault lines under the surface of our relationship before we got hitched. It took getting married to really bring them up into the light. Once we both had those rings on, those thin fault lines ruptured into wide, gaping canyons.
The car accident was the last straw—the thing that finally tore us apart in a way we couldn’t recover from.
She was in the hospital longer than I was, but I paid my dues, too. Three weeks with a wired-shut jaw. Stitches to my temple. Ear surgery, which fixed the cosmetic damage but couldn’t give me back my hearing on the left side.
When we finally flew home from Hawaii, it was with the seeds of divorce in both of our hearts. She filed the minute we got back to Austin, Texas, where we lived at the time. Not that it really mattered which one of us got the paperwork rolling. I couldn’t wait to sign those papers when they landed on my desk.
I couldn’t wait to get out.
And the minute I was free, I made that promise to myself: Never again.
Some guys are cut out for marriage. Some aren’t.
My friends love having wives and having kids. Me? I’m on this journey of life solo, and that’s just the way it has to be.
I click open the recording software. “You guys got your scripts up?” I bark.
Jordan catches Leo’s eye.
Leo shakes his head.
But Jordan doesn’t seem to like the unspoken advice. “No. I gotta say something.” He leans forward and drills his eyes into me again. “Anna’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And I know Leo feels the same about Brianna. Dude, you’re spinning your wheels with these mean, negative women because you know they’re not right for you. You know they’ll never make you feel anything. Anything real.”
“I don’t want to hear this.” My jaw clenches.
