I love you. God I hate those three words. People these days say them all the time. They have no meaning anymore. People say it 12,000,000,000 times a day! But do they MEAN it? God only knows. I was in love once. With a boy named Jacob . God I loved him. I gave him everything , all my time, my love , my thoughts and then I got zilch in return.

“Jake the food is awesome. Jake, Jake, JAKE!! “ his head snapped up. “Wake up Jake.” “Right, Sorry. I’m in love, don’t judge me!!” he said dramatically at the beautiful restaurant. “I need to ask you something Honey.” “What Jake?”. He slid gracefully onto a knee. In his hands lay a black velvet box. His summer tanned surfer fingers opened the box. A beautiful ring. Gold with a ruby shaped heart with diamonds glittering their hearts out ranging big to small on each side. “Will you marry me?” I leapt up. With no hesitation I said “Yes!”.



Three Years Later
“Jake when are we finally gonna get married?”. “I don’t know Sugar. I’m so happy right now I can’t think of anything else.”



4 years after that
Dear Suzy,
Met me at Nousit’s Bistro . 10 o’clock.
Love
Jacob

I go and sit in the seat waiting. And waiting. Its midnight. I’m all dolled up in a strapless black dress and he’s 2 hours late. He staggers in. Stained tee shirt, old ripped jeans. He orders a beer. What happened to Prince Charming from all those years ago? “Hun, I need to ask you something.” I sigh twirling with my straw. “What Jacob?” “Will you, …will you…” “Will I what Jacob?” He smiles and says. “Will you marry me not?” My jaw drops. “What??” “I don’t want to marry you. I’m asking that we never get married.” I blink. “Can we still be friends?” he asked as if reading a script. So I take the fancy-shmancy wine and pop the cork. I stand up and walk behind him with the open bottle. “Of course sweetie.” I say sweetly. “And while your at it…” I pour the bottle on his fancy hair. “ROT IN HELL!!!!” I yelled running out. I get in my car and speed away somewhere. My make up runs down my faces and go to Lindsay’s. God was merciful when he let me met Lindsay. She hates marriages. And always has ice-cream and rootbeeer. So I drive over to her apartment. I ring the buzzer and suddenly I’m on her sofa with a big thing of rootbeer and a bowl of ice-cream on my lap. She’s next to me rubbing circles on my back. Lindsay Hinderson is my personal miracle. She wore pale grey sweat pants, a black tee-shirt, her beat-up froggy slippers and a almost white grey sweater. Her brown hair was in a three tiny tight buns on the top of her head. Her warm eyes matched the chocolate syrup she’d slapped on my ice cream. Her apartment was on the 14th floor and had wood floors, three rooms plus bathroom, dark red walls and white crown mold. Her laptop was playing Everywhere I go by Katherine McPhee. I didn’t have to say anything. She slipped the engagement ring off my finger and put it in her money box. “I’ll pawn it off at the shop to pay for the Ice-cream and Aerobics you’ll need.” she whispered softly. My degree, I was a nurse. I was allowed to cry. I told my patients so. Somehow I was in Lindsay’s bed and she slept on her sofa. My best friend had saved the day. Thank God for Lindsay Hinderson.

Lindsay gave me all the ice cream I wanted, all the rootbeer I could drink and never complained. Then she patiently had me work out to burn it off. I recovered and never saw the ring again. I got an apartment down the hall from Lindsay’s and made a life for myself. But I always hayed marriages from that point on. Lindsay joined in my rants against marriage. But then HE had to go and screw it up. Tyler. Tyler Song. He walked into my life one day. But let me rewind.

About three years later Lindsay’s cousin died with his wife. They willed that Lindsay would take their son and daughter. Mimi was 5. Sam was 10. And their newborn was saved. Ana . So they came to live with her. She loved them all. At first they resented her. But my Lindsay is like a rock. You ignore it till your personal flood is let loose. Then you climb onto of the rock to survive. Afterward you remember that rock. Its how Lindsay is. So she finally reached out to all of them. Then the worse happened. Mimi , the little girl who played dollies and smiled her big toothy grin was diagnosed with cancer. God it screwed me up too. I was their “Aunty Suzy”. Now what where we gonna do?