Wait for It

by Mariana Zapata

This smooth motherfucker was killing me. How? How was he single? How could his wife be such a dumbass? What could he have done to ruin a marriage? I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t.

He did things for his grandma around the house, played poker, and watched TV with her. Fuck. My. Life. In. Half. I had to squeeze my eyes closed because I didn’t want to watch myself lose my shit on the floor of my dining room. Didn’t he know he wasn’t supposed to be this damn… perfect?

“It’s like you’re purposely trying to get me to love you, Dallas. I swear to God. You don’t even want me to stick my hand down your pants. You want me to want it all,” I laughed, trying to make a joke but failing awfully.

His eyes met mine; we were both smiling at each other. And in that moment, it was the most connected I’d ever felt to anyone. Anyone ever. God help me. It hit me. It hit me right then. I was crazy in love with this motherfucker. I really, really was.

“Of all the houses you could’ve bought, you got the one across the street from me. Of all the sports Josh might have played, it was baseball and I happened to coach his age group. You were meant to be in my life.”

“This is serious to me too. I’ve made a lot of decisions in my life I’ve regretted, but you will never be one of them. When I saw your pink toolbox with puppies on it, I’d never been angrier with myself for making stupid fucking life choices than I was then. I won’t break your heart, Diana. I’ve never been scared to work for things or wait for them. I know you, and I know that you’re it. I just had to wait to get divorced so I could do this right for you. Life is so fucking short, Peach, and I’m too old to not know and go for what I want. And you know what I want. What I’ve wanted. For a long, long time.” He paused. “You.”

“I gave it to you a long time ago, Diana. In little pieces and then bigger pieces, and the next thing I knew, I didn’t have anything left in me, so I hope it’s enough.”

He was wonderful and I loved him. I loved him more than I thought I was capable of. If I really put it into perspective, how could anything I had ever felt for anyone before him even be close to the “L” word when what we had was ten—twenty, thirty, forty, fifty—times brighter and more real than any man I’d ever met before him?

“While I still have breath in my body, I won’t go anywhere, Peach.” He kissed my temple. “You never know what will happen an hour from now, a minute from now, but I won’t make you regret any of it too bad, even when I get on your nerves and we bicker because we’ve been together forever and know everything about each other. That time could be a month, or could be until we’re both in diapers, but I’ll be there.”

All I could think about as I stood there was that sometimes life gave you a tragedy that burned everything you knew to the ground and changed you completely. But somehow, if you really wanted to, you could learn how to hold your breath as you made your way through the smoke left in its wake, and you could keep going. And sometimes, sometimes, you could grow something beautiful from the ashes that were left behind. If you were lucky.