Four Week Fiance

“I wish I could be the man you need me to be,” I said, my voice lower than a whisper.

“What?” she asked me, leaning in closer.

“I’m glad you can be so mature about it,” I said louder and her face froze as she nodded. My heart broke for her and it broke for me. I knew in that moment that both of our spirits were somehow fading, both of us forever co

It shouldn’t feel this way. Yet, it did. I was doing this for her. I was doing this because I knew I couldn’t give her what she needed. Not really. I didn’t know how. And what was worse, I didn’t know that all of me wanted to know how. As much as I loved being with her, I hated it. I hated how she made me feel. I hated the insecurity. I hated the jealousy. I hated the powerlessness. I hated that sometimes when I was alone and looking at the sky, her face would pop into my mind and I would find myself spending minutes and hours just thinking of her smile. I hated that I felt like she was made for me. She was my other half, my soul mate. She made me believe in God and that was a laugh because I hadn’t believed in a long time.

“So, what do you want to do today?” I asked her finally, pretending that we hadn’t just had the most life-altering conversation of our lives. I gri

“I think I’m going to go and see No

“Oh, that will be fun.” I was a

“Yeah.” She nodded. “It will be fun. No

“Okay, that sounds good.” I nodded and watched as she jumped out of bed. My body missed her as soon as she was gone. It was the first morning since she’d been here that we hadn’t made love. I wanted to reach up and grab her and pull her back down onto the bed, but I didn’t. She gave me a self-conscious smile as she walked away, her eyes looking small and sad, and I just gri

This was for the best. It was smart for me to get her to start hating me from now on. This way she wouldn’t be so heartbroken and downtrodden when everything came out.

I heard the sound of the water in the shower and I felt tears coming to my eyes for the first time in years. I was a man who didn’t cry. I was a man who didn’t shed a tear, but in that moment I couldn’t stop myself. I felt like I’d just lost a part of myself. I wasn’t even sure how or why, but as the tears flowed, I knew that I needed the release. A part of me wondered if I was crying because she was crying in the shower. It wouldn’t have surprised me. We were so co

We were co

Chapter Eight

Mila

The goat and the fish. That was us. He was the goat: frisky, moody, intelligent, questioning, hard to read. I was the fish swimming toward him, following him, wanting him, waiting for him. Always waiting for him. Every day I woke up and thought about how I wanted to kick that goat, though some days I didn’t want to kick so hard. You don’t kick hard when you love someone.

Every day felt different now. Some days, I could almost pretend that I felt happy, as if I were riding the bull of life and charging down the streets of Pamplona like some bad-ass Spaniard with no fear. Those were the days I loved, feeling high on life, excited to just be me and to experience everything that I could. I craved all of the feelings that went through me: pain, happiness, joy, jealousy, love. All of them made me feel alive, like I had a purpose. And then there were the days that I didn’t want to wake up. Even sitting up in bed was an effort. Thinking of him was a burden. A heartache. A depression. A memory I didn’t want to relive.

Those days were always the same. The thoughts were always the same. The moment etched in my mind was always the same. We're at the lake. It's mid-September. It was a couple of years ago, when I was in college. I’d been so excited to go to the lake house that summer. Some part of me had thought that that was going to be the summer that TJ and I would finally get together. It was late that night, about 11 p.m. I remember the time exactly because he'd told me we had to be there by 9 p.m and I'd been late. We were scared we wouldn't see the constellation, but we still had hope. We were tired, but alert. He wanted to show me Capricornus, the sea-goat. I'd laughed. I'd never heard of a sea-goat constellation. He'd held my hand and told me to just wait. That there were several things I'd never heard of before. And so we lay back and waited. He told me how Capricornus was represented by an image of a hybrid goat and a fish. I joked that he was moody like a goat and he said I was antsy like a fish. I told him that I was on break from college, so didn’t need him acting like a bossy professor. He said I’d be so lucky. I’d just looked at him, confused, and asked him lucky for him to be bossy? And he’d just laughed.

His shoulder had rubbed next to mine gently as we lay looking up at the stars, waiting. The distant stars and moon provided the only light and as I looked over at his shadowed face, I had felt my heart swelling. He looked over at me, gave me a small smile and told me to look back at the sky and to wait patiently. I remember I rolled my eyes at his bossy tone, but I didn't say anything. I liked it when he took charge. And then, just when I thought we were waiting in vain, we saw a shooting star and I felt his hand finding mine and squeezing. We just lay there, staring at the sky, hand-in-hand, and as the cool breeze ran across my face, I thought that this was perhaps one of the happiest moments I'd ever had in my life. I never wanted it to end.

"Do you believe in soulmates?" I had asked him softly, not able to stop myself.

"Soulmates?"

"You know, your one true love?"

"One true love?" He laughed, his eyes looking at me for a few seconds and then away from me. "I think there are many loves for everyone."

"I see." My heart dropped and I gave him my best fake smile and looked back at the sky.