Again

by J.L. Seegars

Second chances are not given to make things right but to prove we can be better even after a fall.

I still feel like my legs have been swept out from under me the moment his gaze touches mine because it’s there. It’s all there. Every second of our history is written on his face. Every kiss, every hug, every contented sigh and moan etched inside rings of smoky quartz and gold.

“There’s nowhere to run, Amina.”

“I can’t do that,” he says quietly. “Why not?” “Because doing that only makes me think about how everyone should still be calling you Mrs. Daniels.”

I opened my stupid mouth and all but confessed that I still think of her as mine because I’m perfectly content with staring at her, soaking in her beauty and wondering how successful my plan to get her back into my bed and my life will be.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to be ignored by someone, but that’s what Amina does to me. She makes everything—even the most mundane or insulting thing—feel like a gift.

The idea of any part of us being resigned to the past, deemed an insignificant relic of an era that has been forgotten, makes my entire being ache. Amina could never be my past. Our love—our history, our future, and even this impossible present where she won’t acknowledge that she’s mine— lives in a place where time doesn’t exist. A boundless space where the brand she left on my heart has never faded. A ceaseless oasis that will continue to be even when this world is gone and our bodies are nothing but dust floating in the cosmos.

“And I told you I don’t care. All marriages, including the ones that end in the divorce, start the same way, with vows and rings and promises you have every intention to keep. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, but it never stops anyone from doing it.

“Yes, I would. Tell me what you want, Amina. I’ll give you anything. It’s all yours anyway.”

“I don’t give a fuck about those papers. Everything I have is yours, and it always will be because I wouldn’t have any of it if it wasn’t for you.”

“You make the end of our marriage sound so simple, so easy, like letting you go didn’t kill me. Like not knowing why I had to figure out how to live life without you hasn’t made every fucking day unbearable.”

she should be worried because I’m not leaving Tulum without her heart.

Somehow I managed to convince myself I was doing the right thing, that separating myself from painful situations was okay, but in reality, all I was doing was isolating myself. Leaning into my pain when I should have been finding healthy ways to deal with the changes to my life plan.

With love in our hearts and forever in our eyes.

we put on this thing, if we start this, there will be no ending it.

“If you’re not convinced by the time everyone gets here for the wedding, then I’ll leave it alone. But you have to give me a chance, Mina. I need some time, where I’m not chasing you around this damn resort, to prove myself to you. When you walked away all those years ago, I let you go way too easily. And now I have to work my ass off to make it right, but that’s okay because I’m not afraid of hard work. Not if it gets me you.”

My heart—stupid, treacherous organ that it is—that has longed for this very moment since I knew this week was happening. That is now wondering why we couldn’t be this in sync when it really mattered. When it could have saved us.

I wish I could climb underneath her skin. Burrow into her heart, make her soul my home.

I used to think she was a blessing—a gift from God to an undeserving man—but I was wrong. She isn’t a blessing, some small thing held up to prove the existence of a higher power and keep you beholden to it. She is the reason blessings exist. They are born in her eyes and fueled by the blood in her veins. They are forged in her name and written by her hand. She is my religion. Her body is my place of worship, and I will spend the rest of my life at her altar.

I’m sorry I was too busy trying to save you from the hardships of battle to appreciate how determined you were to win the war.”

“If I let other people tell me what I can or can’t do, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you.”