The Match

by Sarah Adams

The next, I was painfully aware of how small a part I played in my own existence on this earth.

a unique southern drawl that says, I’m better than you.

for their wealthy husbands to mingle and continue to pass their old southern money back and forth like playing cards.

I’m staring into his eyes and dreaming of swimming in the shallow part of the ocean where you can still see your feet but the water is so blue that it looks like God dipped his brush in it after painting the sky.

Until this moment, I’ve been completely unaware of how important it is to me that a man have hands so large they completely engulf mine. My hand looks like a tiny baby hand inside his, and I love it.

And even though I’ll never admit it to her, I’m impressed

I’m a total schmuck, but I don’t care.

It would be so much easier to be happy for her if she wasn’t completely abandoning our child in the process.

So far, we’ve taken up power yoga (and then set it right back down),

Because if Melony Jones said something like that, it would have been to show me exactly where I fell short in her eyes.

she knows that sometimes people just need to talk and be heard—not fixed.

And then I realize that I’m jealous of the attention my dog is paying a fictional TV character, and I decide I really need to get a life.

He and my mom are of the mindset that a woman’s only job is to look pretty, birth babies to take over her husband’s empire, and help him close business deals by fluttering her lashes and making his colleagues the best old-fashioned on the planet.

and I’m a little afraid that the one I spent most of the night dreaming about might have a really tall ladder.

“Is now a good time for me to start groveling?” “It wouldn’t hurt. I’m hoping I can squeeze at least one more muffin out of it.”

this has got to be how a bug feels right before it gets zapped.

I open my mouth to say something—anything—but she’s apparently revoked my talking privileges,

But this place is the physical representation of just how out of my league this man is. Like, he’s playing for the major leagues, and I’m not even on the farm team.

There is absolutely no reason why that thought should crush me as much as it does, but I feel as if I’ve been stuffed inside a trash compactor and it’s turning me into a tight little square.

He’s watching Sam with an expression of such raw hope I feel like I could cry.