Word Count: 288
I said yes because I was thirty years old and alone in the city. I said yes because he was the first real man that I’d known. Because at thirty you think your life is already half over because sixty, sixty is old.
I didn’t have a big sister or a close, really close friend who might’ve suggested that this wasn’t love. Who might’ve opened the city up for me like a can of sardines. Who might’ve at least raised an eyebrow at getting married to someone I’d met at a bar.
He is nice enough and at the time I said yes he was working full time at a company that looked steady enough through the recession. I still had my job at the agency, making the rent and utilities and peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. My timing, as always, was off by so little. My timing was off by so much.
Tomorrow we’re going to be married at City Hall. I’m taking the day off from work and he just won’t go to the bar. He’s gone through whatever money he had saved while he was working but that only lasted two months. He moved in with me a few weeks ago. Moved in and took over my life.
He is nice enough, I suppose. He makes me laugh. When there’s really so little to laugh about. He says he’s been writing his novel, between sending out resumes. He says so and I need to believe him.
I can’t say no now, it’s too late. But I wish for some kind of miracle. Something that would make it all better. Something that would offer a way out because sixty seems a long way off.
