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She crawls over and plants a kiss on my lips.
Shit. She’s not wrong. Seeing Kal’s name on the board sent me back in time. Just now when she kissed me, I tasted those cinnamon candies Kal was always sucking on.
“I’m going to get dressed for dinner. Want to watch?” she asks and without waiting for me to respond, she slips out of bed and starts to strip. I lean back and watch.
And of course, as my girlfriend prances around in her lace bra and panties, my mind leaps back six years to Kal’s plain white panties and bra and how much I enjoyed peeling them away from her beautiful body.
Fuck. This is going to be an interesting weekend and not in a good way. The timing of this is fucked. Our relationship is basically over. Unfortunately, I’m starting to realize that only one of us seems to see things that way.
That one of us being me.
I look at her for a moment, just to take her in. Her dark hair spills in perfectly styled waves around her heart-shaped face. Her dark eyes are round, lushly lashed and her mouth is as lush and red as a tender rosebud. She’s beautiful, poised, polished, accomplished, and ambitious. She’s everything I should want. And yet, being with her has always felt like settling.
It’s not that I’m better than her or smarter than her, or even nicer than her.
It’s just… she’s kind of an asshole. A lot of people would say the same about me. Maybe it’s true. But, no fucking way do I want to date myself.
And despite her vehement and frequent declarations of love, I’m not convinced.
Not that it really matters if she loves me.
I certainly don’t love her.
When we got together in college. She was a completely different person. She seemed relaxed and happy, not uptight and worried about appearances. She’d even expressed her regret at how she’d treated some of the girls back in Rivers Wilde. We started hanging out and then we started dating. Our families were ecstatic, so we just fell into place. Turns out, that regret she expressed, that was just a phase.
I chose to stay in DC for law school, and she chose to come back to Houston. At first, the distance was cool.
My first year in law school was brutal. I had very little free time. And I spent all of it on planes flying to see her. Every fundraiser, every opening night, every gala, she wanted me there. It was stressful, but it was fine.
Until Joni fashioned herself the leader of a clique of former debutantes turned full-fledged divas in Houston. She sits on boards, holds fundraisers, gives speeches, volunteers at a children’s hospital.
But, she loves doing it under a spotlight. Every moment is captured on social media. It was like her entire life was a show.
Every time I was in town, there was a small note about it in the Houston Chronicle style section. I hate it. I’m a private man. I don’t live my life on the pages of the style section the way some people do. If I ever seek the spotlight, it’s to use my platform to shed light on an important cause.
The public scrutiny—were we holding hands when someone snapped us walking through the Galleria?—started to wear on me. Attention, that in my youth, had been flattering, started to wear thin.
I like being able to go grocery shopping without being accosted for a selfie. I don’t enjoy having my so-called love life scrutinized by a bunch of self-appointed journalists armed with iPhones and immediate access to the Internet. I didn’t sign up for that.
Six months ago, things started going downhill and fast.
She started acting like we were on the verge of being engaged. She joined forces with my mother to try and pressure me into marriage. I’m only 24, that’s not on the cards for a long time, if ever.
Six months ago, my mother flew to DC for work and came by my Massachusetts Avenue apartment to give me my grandmother’s ring.
“Remember that this is bigger than you. Use this when you’re ready,” she’d said when she pressed the three-carat emerald-cut diamond into my palm.
By that, she meant right away.
This morning when I was leaving for the airport, she called to remind me to take the ring with me. I left it right where it was.
It’s not that I’ll never be ready, but she’s not the woman I’m going to put my ring on.
No matter ho
w badly I want to please my family—I won’t be frog-marched down a wedding aisle and spend my life with a woman who is as vindictive, shallow, and dishonest as Joni.
I hope my mother will understand.
