Wasted Love with You (Wasted Love 1)

“I just got a call from a client,” he says. “Raincheck on breakfast?”

I nod, knowing I’ll never redeem it.

We say lines like, “You want waffles?” or “Want to watch a movie later?” in the same way that friendly strangers ask, “How are you today?” and “Great weather, isn’t it?” We aren’t interested in the actual answers, and we don’t expect the encounter to lead to any place new.

He blows me a kiss and I pretend to catch it. Then I watch as he walks out of our front door, as he slips behind the wheel of his quantum grey Audi.

Julie returns to the line as he drives onto the street.

“Okay, sorry about Daniel,” she says. “What’s this about?”

“Nate.”

“Aw! You want me to help pick out something for your upcoming anniversary?”

“No.” I swallow. “I want you to tell me why I shouldn’t ask him for a divorce…”

End of Episode 1

Episode 2

Autumn

A few hours later

There’s a gorgeous man in Juniper Cafe who can’t take his eyes off me. From the moment I walked through the doors, his blue and grey irises have followed my every move.

They’re currently beckoning me to leave, to walk away from this conversation with Julie.

Do it, Autumn. Leave.

As tempting as it is, as easy as it seems, he and I can never be.

This ‘man’ is nothing more than a framed Chris Hemsworth poster, and I have the feeling that after minutes of listening to Julie’s rambling, he wants to jump off the wall and kill himself.

“I don’t understand why Daniel is regressing in his potty training.” Julie stuffs a fry into her mouth. “One day, he goes to his seat and drops those turds just fine. The next day, he’s shitting brown lava all over my favorite couch and the dogs are following his lead.”

I set down my fork.

My appetite vanished a while ago, but she’s assuring me that it’ll never return.

“My living room smells worse than a zoo these days, so I’m happy that my nanny is coming back from vacation next week. Potty-training my son is her job.”

Nodding along, I lean back in my chair and wait for her to ask me about Nate. I wait for her to say something, anything, that isn’t about her life.

Half an hour passes, and she never does.

By the time her phone sounds with a reminder that it’s time to head home, I’ve learned which neighbors are in danger of having their houses foreclosed on, which decorations she’s setting out for Halloween, and which brand of toddler toilets hold the most poop.

This can’t be my life…

We share an umbrella on our way to the parking lot, and she waits for me to slip behind the wheel.

“Divorcing Nate isn’t a fucking option.” The cold tone of her voice makes me look up.

“What?”

“You said vows before God and your family, until death do you part,” she says. “You loved him enough to want a ‘forever together’ at one point, so suck up whatever the hell you’re going through and work that shit out.”

“Julie, it’s a bit more complicated than that. If you’d asked me in the cafe—”

“No, it isn’t.” She cuts me off, narrowing her eyes. “Only a weak and pathetic woman would ever consider leaving her marriage, and that’s a fact.”

I stare at her for several seconds, completely taken aback by her change in demeanor.

“All you have to do is remember how good things were before.” She attempts to soften her voice, to retract some of the venom, but the damage is done.

“There will always be rough patches,” she says. “The real couples know how to hold tight and iron them out.”

I fake a smile. “Thank you for the advice, Julie.”

“Anytime!” she says, now laughing and acting as if the last minute never happened. “And when all else fails, watch some hardcore porn together. Sometimes a few rounds of good sex is all it takes.”

“Good to know.” I say goodbye and wait for her to turn away before slamming my door.

The moment I start the engine, the windshield wipers brush away what was left of our ‘friendship.’

Contrary to what she thinks, I’ve played the ‘remember how good things were before’ game millions of times, and all it ever does is reveal how many red flags I missed. How many times I had the opportunity to step off the field and accept our try at love as a loss.

I met him during the summer before my senior year in high school, after he’d already graduated from college.

A small part of me thought he was too old and experienced—way too full of himself as well—but the larger part of me didn’t care.

I let him sneak into my room and steal my virginity, let him show me what it felt like to be utterly reckless, while we smoked marijuana and drank warm beer on the beach.