When I look back on writing my first published novel, I’ll have to say that this was my favorite chapter to write. It’s a simple flashback that the main character has about her marriage. Their conversation illustrates a lot about their characters and it was also fun to write. Also, while you read it, (even though it’s never stated), if you read Jeff’s part with a New York accent it’s even funnier.

Brie thought about yesterday and closed her eyes. She could still feel his lips on hers as well. She cried because the thought excited her and she knew it was wrong. Jeff had never written her letters like that. Not even in the beginning. The longer she was away, locked in this room with all the time in the world to think, she wondered why she held on to him.

He’s so good looking, she remembered thinking when he first came over to her in The Pizza Shack. She thought that it was a practical joke. Sure, she was attractive in her own right but most people described her as cute, he was gorgeous. They were very different people, even then. He was a people person, she a classic introvert. They weren’t married a year when he first cheated on her. She remembered their little kitchen, their first house could fit inside of the one they owned now. She sat there in their little kitchenette with the rooster border crying, not knowing what to do.

Melanie with tears in her eyes said, “How could you do this to me, to us?”

“I still love you, baby, I just got confused. All this being married stuff. She meant nothing to me.”

“I’m sure you told her the same thing about me.”

“How could you say that? You mean everything to me.”

Melanie started to cry even harder when Jeff walked over and took her in his arms.

“Let me tell you something about men. Real men cheat and real women get over it. You wanna know why?”

“Why?”

“You remember that bottle of Merlot I bought you, the Bogle Vineyards?”

“Yes.”

“You remember how you just loved it, drank it all the time. You must have drank like 10 bottles of it.”

“I remember.”

“Then one day you got tired of it, I brought it home and you said you were in the mood for something different. You still loved it but you had drank so much of it that to drink it, literally made you wanna throw up. You remember that?”

“Yes, it did.”

“So I got you a Cabernet and you liked it but not as much as the Merlot. You even drank the shitty white from that vineyard in Harrisonville for a while but you always went back to the Merlot.”

“Okay.”

“Babe, you’re my Merlot. I love you and no matter what I may go out and drink, eventually it’s gonna taste like shit and I’m gonna come back to my Merlot.”

Brie had to laugh at herself for actually believing him then. She looked down at the rings on her hand and pulled them off, throwing them across the room. Melanie thought that if she ever got out of this, she was definitely divorcing him. She wanted a better a life with someone that would respect her as much as love her.