For most of my life I have wondered what it would feel like to be in a Wild West duel, to be standing across from someone that really just wanted to put a bullet in my heart and call it a day. I finally know how that feels. The only difference being that we don’t have guns, unless you count the daggers she is shooting from her eyes. I don’t exactly know what brought me to this moment, whether it was fate or just a stupid epiphany that I would likely end up regretting as soon as she stopped cutting up chicken for dinner and started hacking me to bits. But here I am, sweaty from a long run down the beach, dressed in a pair of black basketball shorts and a red tank top, little beads of moisture dripping down the back of my neck from both the heat and exertion but also my nerves, breaking a woman’s heart.

“I don’t think I heard you clearly. Did you fall and hit your head when you were outside?” she questioned, continuing to cut chicken though now she seemed to be putting a little less care and a lot more knife into the action.

I sighed heavily and ran a hand through my damp hair, “I don’t love you anymore.  I don’t love you,” I repeated but I had a distinct suspicion that her selective hearing may just continue to block it out.

She dropped the knife to the cutting board, both hands holding tightly onto the edge of the counter and I knew that she was controlling one of two things; rage or tears, “Nick...” she said in a voice so small I could barely make out that she had said my name, “We’re getting married in six months. Last week you wrote a $25,000 cheque for the caterer and today you go for a run and decide you don’t love me anymore?”

“Yeah I know, crazy right?!” I asked but it was clear from the look that she was giving me that she didn’t find it crazy, “Well really it is. I just thought $250 a head was a bit much. To be honest when I was outside I got to thinking about how much I really don’t want a wedding. I don’t want to be married, and have all these expectations of having a family and running a household and being all lovey-dovey. It’s not me! I just got caught up in the moment. Everyone around me was having kids and getting married and I felt like I was being left behind but I realized today, out on the beach, that I was just fine before.  When I met you I was looking for something that I didn’t actually need in my life, a wife. I’m sorry that it took me so long to realize it but I can’t picture myself growing old with you. I don’t want to grow old with you. To be honest, it sorta freaks me out.”

Tears, the expression was definitely tears, I now concluded. The knife clanged as it hit the floor and I worried momentarily about her bare toes, but the feeling passed. She didn’t speak a single solitary word as she marched past me through the kitchen and up the stairs. Immediately I heard the sounds of things being thrown around, no doubt my things, as she took her anger out on everything that reminded her of our relationship, or lack thereof.

It was a bit of a harsh reality, and I didn’t mean to tear her down as much as I had. It wasn’t personal. Well, it was sorta personal, who am I kidding? There was just something about the beach that evening, something that was calling out to be from beyond the horizon as I watched the sun set at the end of the world that told me that I wasn’t doing the right thing.

Someone (whether they were wise or not remains to be seen) once said that in every relationship there are two kinds of people, a reacher, and a settler. I had always considered myself a bit of a reacher, especially when I was a tad on the plump side, but it suddenly occurred to me that I had become the settler. She is a great girl, and I like her don’t get me wrong, but when I thought about what love is, what it really is, I realized in an instant that I don’t think she’s it. I think there’s someone else out there for me. Someone is meant to be more to me than just a title, “wife”, printed on a meaningless (but very legal) sheet of paper, someone out there is meant to be my companion until the day I kick the bucket. I didn’t think it was fair to wait until we were two months, two years, ten years into a phoney, pretentious, marriage to suddenly drop the bomb that I wasn’t into her anymore.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things it would have been better for her in the end if I had realized this after the wedding because she would have at least made a couple of dollars off it. Hell, she can have the deposits from the wedding I don’t care. Really though, $250 a head for dinner is expensive no matter how rich you are.