Chapter 10 - Why Valentine’s Day
The mediation lasted six hours.
Ryan and Ava sat in separate rooms most of the day while attorneys traveled between them.
Ava wanted Ryan to pay her legal fees.
Ryan refused.
Ryan wanted a quick settlement.
Ava wanted counseling.
Ryan refused.
Their brief marriage contained almost no shared property, but hurt feelings transformed every small issue into a battle.
Finally, near the end of the day, the mediator placed them in the same conference room.
Ava looked directly at Ryan.
“Do you really hate me this much?”
Ryan rubbed both hands over his face.
“I don’t hate you.”
“You act like I destroyed your life.”
“I destroyed my life.”
“You keep saying that because Nora taught you to blame yourself.”
Ryan stared at her.
“Nora hasn’t spoken to me in weeks.”
“That doesn’t mean she isn’t controlling this.”
“How?”
“She’s dating someone else and you’re still trying to become the man she wanted.”
The words hit him.
Ava leaned forward.
“You cut off half our friends. You’re in therapy. You stopped drinking. You suddenly care about boundaries. You think if you perform enough remorse she’ll come back.”
Ryan became quiet.
Then he said, “Maybe that was true at first.”
Ava’s expression changed.
“But it isn’t anymore.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t think Nora is coming back.”
Saying it aloud hurt.
But not as much as it once had.
“She shouldn’t.”
Ava blinked.
Ryan continued.
“She asked me for basic respect for years. I made her prove she deserved it. I don’t want to be that person anymore even if she never sees the difference.”
Tears appeared in Ava’s eyes.
“What about me?”
“What about you?”
“Was I nothing?”
“No.”
“Then why won’t you try?”
“Because this marriage started with me betraying somebody I loved and you deliberately trying to make that betrayal permanent.”
Ava looked down.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
“How was it supposed to happen?”
She didn’t answer.
“Ava.”
She wiped her cheek.
“You were supposed to realize you loved me.”
Ryan stared.
“I loved you.”
Her head lifted.
“As my friend.”
Her face hardened.
“That’s what you always said.”
“Because that’s what it was.”
“Then why did you flirt with me?”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“Why did you let me sleep in your apartment?”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“Why did you tell me things you didn’t tell Nora?”
“I shouldn’t have.”
“Why did you kiss me back?”
Ryan went silent.
Ava’s voice broke.
“Exactly.”
He looked toward the window.
“I don’t have a good answer.”
“I do.”
He returned his gaze.
“You loved me too. You were just scared.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, Ava. I liked being wanted.”
She froze.
The sentence was brutal.
Ryan continued anyway.
“I liked knowing you would always choose me. I liked the attention. I liked feeling important to you. And because I told myself I wasn’t cheating, I thought I was allowed to enjoy all of it.”
Ava’s eyes filled completely.
“That’s disgusting.”
“Yes.”
“At least I loved you.”
“I know.”
She stood.
“Then I hope Nora never forgives you.”
Ryan swallowed.
“I don’t expect her to.”
Ava turned away.
Then the mediator asked the question that finally exposed everything.
“Why February fourteenth?”
Ava remained standing.
“What?”
“You researched the process before the party. Why specifically plan this for Valentine’s Day?”
Ava looked toward Ryan.
For the first time, she seemed ashamed.
“Because February fourteenth was when we met.”
Ryan frowned.
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Yes.”
“We met in August freshman year.”
“Not me and you.”
Silence.
Ava looked down.
“My parents.”
Ryan stared.
Ava’s parents had met on Valentine’s Day in college.
They married four years later.
Her father died when Ava was seventeen.
Ryan knew that.
What he didn’t know was what her father had said before he died.
According to Ava, he once joked that if she ever found someone who felt like home, she shouldn’t spend half her life waiting for him to notice.
Ava had turned that memory into prophecy.
Ryan had been her “home” for twelve years.
When he became engaged to me, she panicked.
She told herself she had one final chance.
Valentine’s Day felt symbolic.
Romantic.
Destined.
She had planned to create a moment so dramatic that Ryan could no longer ignore their connection.
“You made my father’s advice into a marriage trap?” Ryan asked.
Ava flinched.
“That’s not fair.”
“Nothing about this is fair.”
“I thought once you were actually standing beside me at the altar, you’d feel it.”
“What?”
“That it should have been us.”
Ryan shook his head slowly.
“What did you feel?”
Ava whispered, “Everything.”
“And when you looked at Nora across the counter?”
She didn’t answer.
“What did you feel then?”
A tear rolled down her cheek.
“I thought she’d stop us.”
Ryan closed his eyes.
That was the final cruelty.
Ava had counted on me becoming the villain.
She expected me to refuse the license.
To shout.
To demand.
To create a scene Ryan would interpret as controlling.
Instead, I processed the application calmly.
I gave them exactly what they requested.
And without my resistance, neither could pretend someone else caused what followed.
The mediation ended with progress.
Ava finally agreed to stop contesting the divorce itself.
Financial details remained.
Legal fees remained.
But the marriage would end.
Ryan drove home exhausted.
He sat alone in the small furnished apartment he had rented after I changed the locks.
For the first time, he opened our wedding website.
The page was still online.
Photographs of us.
Our engagement story.
Hotel information.
A countdown frozen because I had canceled the event.
He read the paragraph we had written together:
We can’t wait to celebrate the beginning of forever with the people we love most.
Ryan closed the laptop.
Then he deleted the bookmark.
Across town, I was eating takeout with Daniel on my balcony.
We had been seeing each other for nearly two months.
Slowly.
Carefully.
That evening he told me his company had offered him a position in Denver.
My fork stopped halfway to my mouth.
“Oh.”
“I haven’t accepted.”
“Do you want it?”
“Maybe.”
“When do you decide?”
“Three weeks.”
I nodded.
Daniel studied me.
“You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“Trying to give the correct reaction instead of your reaction.”
The observation stunned me.
“I’m happy for you.”
“I didn’t ask whether you’re happy for me.”
I laughed nervously.
“Therapy has made everybody annoying.”
“Apparently.”
He reached across the table.
“What do you actually feel?”
I forced myself to answer.
“Scared.”
“Why?”
“Because I like you.”
“I like you too.”
“And if you leave…”
“I might.”
The honesty hurt.
But he did not soften it with false promises.
“I don’t want to ask you to stay.”
“Then don’t.”
“I also don’t want to pretend I don’t care.”
“Then don’t.”
I smiled despite myself.
Daniel squeezed my hand.
“We don’t have to solve tonight tonight.”
I looked at him.
That sentence was everything Ryan and I had never learned.
Not every uncomfortable feeling required immediate surrender or control.
Sometimes two people could simply tell the truth and remain at the same table.
Three weeks later, Daniel would make his decision.
May you like
And his choice would reveal whether I had truly learned to stop abandoning myself for love.
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