Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
She wasn’t wrong about that either.
But four of her words stuck with me.
Taking you for granted.
My eyes were aimed, unfocused, on the hot pink table with the bright floral arrangement on top that sat in the corner as I thought this through.
“I still liked him, though, H. Because he actually is a good guy. He just wasn’t perfect. No one is,” Liane said.
I focused on her. “I don’t think I want to get married.”
“To Bryan?”
“To anyone.”
A huge grin spread across her face, and she started laughing when she said, “I wonder what Mom’s going to think about this whole take-the-high-road thing with Dad, considering he’s the reason neither of us is gonna go the traditional route with that malarkey.”
“I don’t know if it was Dad,” I replied. “I mean, yeah, it probably was. Part of it. But we also had a long time with her and Andy, and they work.” I considered it and finished, “I think it was Bryan.”
Her expression grew concerned. “Were things worse than what you said?”
Obviously, I shared with my sister.
We were complete opposites, but I told her everything. She returned that.
We’d had a time in our lives where it was essential we bonded. You did that when you had a parent whose love wasn’t quite healthy. Then Mom had to work after we left Dad, and as latchkey kids, Li and I spent a lot of time together.
We created our bond, and even when things got better when Mom left Dad, and then when Andy came, we kept it strong.
In other words, she knew all about Bryan.
“How much worse did they have to get?” I asked. “And that’s the first question you had. But he didn’t apologize or start to take me seriously until he realized how serious I was about ending us. I have my own home, my own business, things to do with my life, but he got to a place he didn’t even thank me for drying and folding his laundry and having it ready for him to take home. It’s the conventional way people look at relationships. He said my concerns were petty. He said this because I’m not only expected, as a woman, to adapt, I’m simply expected to take on this stuff. He’s a great guy if he rushes to my place after work to clean up after his buds, even if they were his buds who made the mess, I asked him to do it the day before and I have to live with it, not him. Why is he great for cleaning up after his own damned self?”
“Good question, and he isn’t,” Liane agreed.
“No. But if he did it when I asked, he’d expect me to thank him. Like he’s doing me a favor. I get that men are programmed like that, they see it at home. Growing up, the mom takes on the lion’s share of the day to day, the dad mows the lawn, kicks back and watches football. It blew his mind that the stuff he thought was petty would end us. He still doesn’t believe we’re over. I don’t want any part of legally binding myself to that kind of life contract.”
Li was grinning again. “Preach it, sister.”
Oh yes.
I was preaching.
And I wasn’t finished.
“I read this article written by this woman who had a job and kids, and her husband wanted to do something special for her birthday. He thought he was being awesome. But after making her breakfast in bed and him baking a cake with the kids and wrapping her present, she got up to a kitchen that was a disaster, and she had to clean it up. She went to the closet to get dressed, saw he’d wrapped her present in there and left all the shit on the floor for her to put away. When she complained about this to him, he was upset she wasn’t appreciative of all he’d done. When ‘all he’d done’ meant she ate a breakfast she didn’t have to cook for once and spent five seconds opening a present she didn’t have to wrap, but she had to do all the shit work on the back end. And he threw her a guilt trip because she wasn’t grateful.”
“We shouldn’t use wrapping paper,” Li remarked. “It’s an unnecessary depletion of natural resources.”
I couldn’t argue that.
But it wasn’t the point.
“I know there are women who love doing that kind of thing. And good for them. But I don’t want to get stuck in that.”
“H, if you’re trying to talk yourself into understanding your right to let Bryan go, you could have stopped five minutes ago,” Liane affirmed. “What you feel is right. It’s right, no matter the reasons. Though all of what you’re saying are exceptional reasons. I will say, I’m unsurprised, because it’s all kinds of ballsy that you don’t want to bind yourself to something that might morph into that bullshit, and that’s who you are. All kinds of ballsy. If it was easier for us to walk away when men walk all over us, things would be a lot different in this world.”