Chapter One

Why are we, as humans, so adept to find flaw in even the most simplistic of moments? The lighting is always wrong, the music is never a soulful mix of melody and rhyme, and even the initial reactions of those around could find it impossible to meet expectations. The unidentifiable food that lay before me on one of those white square plates that seemed to be all the rage in restaurants today, although I will never know why square is so much better than round, had yet to be eaten. Not because it didn’t smell good, quit the opposite actually, but rather I needed something to say to the waiter when he eventually returned from wherever it is they go right when you need a refill of beverage. Not that I could blame him for wanting to avoid my lonely table.
    I had come in with a reservation for me and my soon to be fiancé, or so I thought she would be. It was supposed to be magical, a night to be remembered forever. I had bought the ring a few weeks before with the fabled “three month salary”, which itself was a feat, considering my only source of salary was came from  a small bookstore in an even smaller town; I barely managed to book the table in this ridiculously expensive restaurant she had always wanted to go to; I had even shaved off the goatee she hated so much even though the reason I had it still was because she said she loved how it tickled her nose when we kissed. However, on the drive over she had complained about every small thing from the speed I was driving to the shirt I was wearing (not the right color she claimed). Now those, those should have been the first signs that something was amiss.
    “It’s not that I don’t love you, it’s just it’s not right,” she had said in the voice my mother used to use when she was so exasperated with me that she gave up.
    Not right? What does that even mean? I would have understood if she had said I wasn’t right for her as in I had some flaw that could never be fixed, or if it wasn’t right like I was failing to please her sexually. But those weren’t right because number one I had no flaws we hadn’t already gotten past, and as far as number two goes there was no way a woman who was faking it would also ask for it.  
    Whatever she had meant I will never know, because she is gone and I have been left with our uneaten food and the ring glaring at me from the meticulously folded napkin that rest next to her empty champagne glass.
    “Excuse me sir would you like a bag for your… leftovers,” the polite yet distant waiter asked after being gone for almost twenty minutes. Under normal circumstances waiting so long would have prompted me to refuse to leave a tip, but seeing as how he had the privilege of watching a smiling man and woman walk in and the same woman walk out , leaving the man quiet over his plate.
    “Uh, sure, sure thank you.” I grabbed my coat off the back of the chair and fumbled around for my car keys while he attended to my food that had yet to be named. I put a twenty on the table, for the space of course, and walked out into the brisk March night to my awaiting car.
    I didn’t take the quicker route home, the one that led straight through the valley and then into my town, but instead drove through the mountain pass that twists and turns like they all do. Usually I would never take this route because the road was always icy until mid June and the turns caused my stomach to tumble, but the state of mind I was in at that point in time was such that I really didn’t give a damn if I puked or slid off the side into the dead base of the pines below.
    It’s not that I was sad, I was just a confused. To be with someone for over two years with no complaints or major arguments only to have them look at you with hopelessness in their eyes and say that “it wasn’t right” completely baffled my mind. Had I not successfully proved my love to her day after day no matter the circumstance? Had I failed to satisfy her every whim despite my best efforts? Had she found someone else? All of it had yet to be answered and unfortunately there would be no answers forthcoming.
    My home was quiet when I arrived, like it always was, but tonight it seemed unusually so. Charlie, my always obnoxious gray cat, was lounging on the window sill with one green eye half open. I could typically find him roaming the kitchen, meowing a strange meow that always sounded like he was calling for Ron. Ron is my best friends name. Traitor.
    “Hey buddy,” I rubbed his ears and listened to him purr, “did you have a nice evening?”
    He nipped my knuckles in response and stretched before jumping off from his high perch. He ran his lithe body against my leg and I reached down and picked him up. We walked into the bedroom together, and I fell onto the bed without even untying my shoe laces.
    The light was left on in the hallway, but I didn’t move to turn it off. Instead, I just lay there, eyes open, and slowly let my mind wander until I felt Charlie jump off my chest and I fell asleep.