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PROLOGUE
Glisten Magazine
Love and Sex
by Ava Sterling
Final Draft, April issue
Dear Reader:
I kick off today’s column nestled by the front of the window of my shared Manhattan apartment on a Sunday morning, in my beloved green easy chair, feeling as luxurious as I ever have. I pull my plushy robe tighter in the face of a little draft and set my latte to the side while hefting the nearly-five-poundNew York Timesonto my lap like a precious and loved little baby. And like a mother to a baby, I adore my bundle of joy: its smell, the soft pages, even the noise it makes as I slide out the sections I like to read first. I reorder the twenty-odd departments the way I always do, starting with, like any (nosy-dishy-gossipy) respectable young woman in Manhattan, theStyle Section.
As a columnist forGlisten Magazine, I am a big reader, just as I imagine you are, and with the art of reading etched into my soul, my adopted Sunday routine has become as essential to me as breathing. I toss aside the paper’s high-brow World, Business, and Art sections, promising to get back to them (but knowing I may not) once I have indulged myself in the sort of human-interest stories onlyNew York Times’Stylecan offer.
And withinStyle, ‘Engagements’ is always my number one go-to feature if for no other reason than the next day at work, on glorious Monday morning with my office mates, it’s such fun to chuckle over the names of the descendants of folks who must have been on the Mayflower’s crossing four hundred years ago. Cromwell, Morris, Thomas, and Speers regularly pepper the pages’ coveted announcement spots like an elitist serenade of love songs. This morning, however, the melody has turned into ugly, ear-piercing static. The photo of a familiar face smiles back at me, a horrifying reality replacing the fantasy I’d clung to regarding my ex-boyfriend Bran, short for Brandt.
Oh Bran, the man I’d most recently and completely given my heart to, who claimed to love me in return with every fiber of his being. Yes, we’d broken up, sad enough, but here he is today, staring at me in the privacy of my home, two months after our parting, already holding another woman in his arms. Of course, her name is Angel, and she is as beautiful as her namesake, as if the morning’s news isn’t already tragic enough.
There he stands in their effing engagement photo (sorry, butGlistendoes not publish f-bombs), his arms wrapped around her with a tenderness that sends a frigid chill down my spine, under a headline reading, ‘Bran and Angel, united by love, finally commit to taking their big leap after a five-year love affair.’
The two paragraph-long announcement continues with his explanation of having met her five years prior, knowing it was just a matter of time that he had to wait for her to be ‘ready for him.’ He stressed that his ‘waiting years’ were torture but worth it now that they are together. He thoughtfully added that no other woman he ever dated came close to measuring up to his betrothed, and how grateful he was to be out of the horrible dating game that is Manhattan.
Now I’m no math whiz (that’s why I became a journalist, yo) but numbers immediately start crunching in my brain like a bitter pill that leaves a sour taste no amount of sugar can wash away. The love affair that was Bran and me, the coals still smoldering from the recency of our breakup, had all along belonged to the angelic Angel? Five years, they’d been together? Riddle me this, my Reader… Bran and I were together for two of that. If the numbers don’t seem to add up, it’s because they don’t.
G*ddammit (another curse wordGlistendoesn’t permit).
I’d been cast in a role I was neither aware of nor signed up for: that of placeholder.
Yes, Dear Reader, this is what I learned that peaceful Sunday morning, sitting with my plushy robe, latte, and belovedStylesection, smugly ready to collect names to make fun of Monday morning at work during the regular weekend debrief around the Keurig machine.
A realization grows within me like a cold winter morning, bleak and unforgiving and just downright mean. I was the interlude, the half-time show in the grand performance of this man’s love life. The side character filling in until the leading lady could take center stage. Like one of the post-its stuck on my computer monitor, I was a reminder to Bran that he was just biding his time with good old me until Angel came to her senses, realizing he was the prize catch he relentlessly sold himself as, and she was good and ready to commit.
As you might imagine, this morning’s revelation is a rude and brutal blow, a general insult to every inch of my being. The humiliation of being a designer knock-off that Bran settled for until he could afford the real deal is soul crushing. How had I been so blind to the truth hiding behind Bran’s sweet words and tender kisses? All those shared confidences, birthdays and holidays, weekends away? Completely meaningless.
The tumult of emotions running through me right now is not fun, as you might imagine, striking like a thunderstorm against my soul. But just as quickly, it’s replaced by a desperate attempt at self-preservation called denial, which strikes its ridiculous, insidious head. Surely, this is another Bran who lives in New York City and looks exactly like my ex.
Right?
Talk about clutching at straws. Freaking pathetic.
Denial is followed by bargaining, a last-ditch effort to calm the rage making my skin crawl. It’s surely all a big mistake, a typo, an editing boo-boo on the part of theStylesection in the SundayNew York Times.
Yeah, no.
Then comes anger and sadness, drenching me in their intensity. The two-faced rat bastard, I cry. Hot tears threaten my already-destroyed Sunday morning, smearing the black and white print between my shaking fingers, blurring and blending Bran and Angel’s names together as if that’s how they were always meant to be.
It's acceptance, though, that begins to clear my stormy skies. After spilling my latte all over my faux-wood parquet floor by flinging the newspaper, I find the strength to face the bitter truth.
Dear Reader, I am here to tell you there is opportunity hidden in heartbreak.
Taking the lemons life tossed my way, I decide not to just make lemonade but to add a jigger of vodka and simple syrup to create a lemon drop martini, a potent cocktail that will be the metaphor for my newfound perspective on life. And love.
Never again will I be a placeholder. I am a woman of substance, strength, and resilience. The two years with Bran will not have been merely a romantic interlude, but also a transformative journey shaping me into the woman I am today. I have evolved, learned valuable lessons about love, and most important of all, preserved my self-worth.
Bran might have cast me as his substitute for true love while waiting for his Angel, but in his dust, I have found myself. I am so much more than a supporting character in someone else’s love story. I am a force to reckon with, the protagonist of my own story, and no one, not even the as*hole Bran, can take that away from me.
To all the ‘placeholders’ out there, remember this: you are not defined by someone’s inability to see your intrinsic worth. You are neither a stand-in nor stepping-stone on someone else’s journey to love. You are the main event, the super star, of your own show. The author of your own story.
