The Wall of Winnipeg and Me

by Mariana Zapata

What no one tells you is that the road to accomplishing your goals isn’t a straight line; it looks more like a corn maze. You stopped, you went, you backed up, and took a few wrong turns along the way, but the important thing you had to remember was that there was an exit. Somewhere. You just couldn’t give up looking for it, even when you really wanted to.

I like you as much as I like anyone.

“I don’t mind you.”

“You’re the most even-tempered woman I’ve ever met.”

The most muscular man I’d ever known

Ok we get it

You’re not my friend; you’ve never tried to be my friend. You haven’t once given a shit about me until you needed something, and now for some strange reason, you’re making it seem like you can’t live without me. And we both know that’s bullshit.”

you act—you still act—like one single ‘sorry’ makes up for disrespecting me in front of other people, and letting someone talk about me, it pisses me off. How can you ask me to do this huge favor for you when I feel zero obligation to? We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if I didn’t want my loans paid off.”

“I wished you had respected me enough to appreciate me back when it would have meant something. I liked you. I admired you, and in the course of a few days, you killed all that.”

When I was a kid, I learned the hard way how expensive the truth was. Sometimes it cost you people in your life. Sometimes it cost you things in your life. And in this life, most people were too cheap to pay the price for something as valuable as honesty.

“I can be your friend.” Two years too late. “Only because you want something.” To give him credit, he didn’t try to argue with me otherwise.

“You’ve been with me for two years, but I figure I’m barely beginning to understand,” the big guy claimed, his expression solemn. “Understand what?” “I should probably be scared of you.”

The last time we’d been so close together had been when we were in Vegas and I gave him that peck on his mouth in the chapel, but I’d been so distracted at that point with everything going on, I hadn’t been able to appreciate just how freaking huge he was up close. Because big, he was. Tall and broad at the shoulders and chest, and that trim waist only made everything else about him more imposing.

We get it

The Wall of Winnipeg stared down at the much smaller man, and in a voice that was as close to a cool, unattached statement as possible, he said, “Touch my wife again and I’ll break every bone in your goddamn body.”

“I’m starting to understand that you can always make time for the things that matter.”

“You don’t ever have to worry about me not wanting you somewhere. Got it?”

“That’s my girl. That’s my fucking girl.” “What are you doing here?” I practically bawled into him. “I missed you.” “You what?” His arms tightened around me. “I missed you very much.”

“How do you not know that you mean the world to me? I haven’t made it clear enough?” “I don’t know,” I stuttered. “Do you love me?” His gaze was so intent the entire world seemed to stop. “You tell me. I never stop thinking about you. I worry about you all the time. Every beautiful thing I see reminds me of you. I can’t finish my practices in Colorado without wishing you were around,” he said in a steady tone. “You tell me what I feel.”

Before I thought twice about it, I told him what I would realize later was the most significant absolute truth in my life. “Home is where you are. I would go anywhere for you if you wanted me to be there.” One of Aiden’s palms slid down the length of my spine, ending at the small of my back. He seemed to talk into my hair. “I don’t know anything about relationships, Van, but I know I love you. I know I’ve waited my entire life to love you, and I’ll do whatever I have to, to make this work.”