Take a Looks Inside Breakups and Bouquets

I stare at Adam, shocked, as tears fill my eyes.

This is not how tonight is supposed to go. He and I were supposed to have a quiet dinner, the last one as just him and me, before our wedding next week. Adam’s schedule is widely unpredictable. It always has been, but tonight he carved out time for me. He left work early to give us a night on the town—something he hadn’t done in almost a year.

A few hours ago, I was elated to go on a date with my fiancé. Now, I want to scream and yell and cry like the fool I feel like, but I can’t make a sound. My throat is dry and tight with emotions. And I don’t want to cause a scene at Favolli’s. It’s my favorite restaurant, which is why we chose them to cater the wedding.

That and I’ve been coming here for years.

Ray, the owner, was one of my dad’s best friends. Every monumental moment I’ve ever had was celebrated here—birthdays, anniversaries, good grades—you name it…this is where we went.

And now, every time I come here the food will turn to ash in my mouth.

My first memories won’t be of my sister’s baby shower, or the celebratory dinner from when I graduated college, or even the monthly family date nights we had leading up to when Dad died. 

Nope.

All I’ll remember is how Adam, the love of my life, dropped down onto one knee to propose to me and how he chose this exact restaurant and the exact same table where he made my dreams come true to ruin my life a week before we were supposed to say I do.

“I don’t understand.” My voice is barely above a whisper and my eyes sting with the threat of tears again.

This can’t be happening. We can’t be breaking up.

Before Adam, I wasn’t a relationship girl. I didn’t see the point because relationships never lasted. My mom left when I was a baby, and Dad’s track record with girlfriends was more like short sprints rather than marathons. Throw into the mix that all of my friends’ parents were divorced, and I had a solid theory that dating was pointless.

I watched too many people get hurt, saw too many goodbyes, and witnessed the aftermath of endless broken promises. I didn’t want to put myself out there. I was convinced that love was a fleeting illusion, something that slipped through your fingers no matter how tight you held it.

But Adam proved me wrong.

He’d been different from the start. He wouldn’t let me push him away despite knowing I had a strict three-date rule. He gently, but firmly, begged to be in my life, until the day came when I couldn’t imagine not being in his.

He saw through my defenses, chipped away at my walls, and made me believe that love could be something more than a temporary high followed by inevitable pain.

And now, here we are.

I search Adam’s eyes for answers, for some sign that this is a mistake, that he doesn’t mean the words that just tore my world apart. But his gaze is steady, his expression unreadable, and the last bit of hope I am clinging to slips away.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to get married,” he admits, running a hand through his shaggy brown hair. It’s at that length where he needs to either finish growing it out so his curls can spiralize or cut it short because the in-between stage gives him a weird, early-nineties, Justin Timberlake-like afro that is adorably cute in the winter but not at all perfect for fall wedding photos. Although… I guess that doesn’t matter now. Does it?

Adam exhales a heavy sigh, then looks down at his glass of wine, swirling the deep red liquid as if it holds the words he can’t find. “The thought of being with one person for the rest of my life terrifies me, Em.”

What? I refuse to believe he’s that kind of guy. He’s too kind. Too dedicated. Loyal to a fault. And yet I have to ask…

“But you’ve been with just me for the last three years. Right?”

Adam nods, but his eyes are filled with a mixture of guilt and sadness. “Yes, but… this is different. Dating is one thing. Marriage is forever. What if I change? What if you change? What if we wake up one day and realize we’re not the same people anymore?”

“But that’s part of marriage. Growing together and facing those changes side by side,” I say, trying hard to keep the storm of emotions swirling inside me at bay.

Adam looks away to… I don’t know where. Just not at me. “I’m scared, Em. Scared of failing, of not being enough, of losing myself.”

His voice is raw and filled with a vulnerability I’ve only ever seen once. Adam is the type of man who laughs at every situation. Nothing fazes him, even when I wish it would. The only time I’ve ever seen him like this was when we first started dating, and I told him he’d hit his three-date limit. The pain in his eyes was what made me consider giving him more time. It looked like I crushed him.

Ironic, because today he’s crushing me.

I reach across the table, but Adam pulls back, adding physical distance to the emotional trench between us.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” His eyes finally meet mine and I glimpse the first emotion he’s shown since sitting down to dinner.

Regret.

“You already have,” I admit before I can stop myself.

Adam lifts his glass by the stem and brings the dark red liquid to his lips. He swallows the wine, and I swear every second that ticks by feels like hours.

My whole life could have passed in the moments that hang in the thickening silence. Babies could have been born, proposals could have been made, weddings could have been celebrated, and life could have come full circle where people could have died in those seconds because time isn’t linear. It moves incredibly slow, yet far too fast all at once. It’s torture.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to be with you for the rest of my life, Emma, and I’m sorry. I thought I was ready to get married. I thought you were what I wanted, but this isn’t the life I pictured for myself,” he says, his shoulders dropping with his admission.

Quiet tears fall down my cheeks, and I’m thankful for the small wins in life. The little things I never thought mattered, like waterproof mascara.

I guess it’s true that love never lasts. I knew better than to hope it could, but hope is a stupid, fickle thing.

The irony of this whole situation is that Adam made me believe in love so wholeheartedly that I started a wedding planning business. I thought that if we made it this far and were going to cross that finish line together—meaning grow old and have our happily ever after—it was possible for others to make it that far too. I was building a career around the belief that true love was attainable.

I should have known better. I should have seen the signs that we were crumbling. That believing in love was hopeless. My company’s disastrous first six months should have been the brightest signs of them all.

And yet…

Hope.

“You can’t say you really want to get married either,” Adam presses, his voice cutting through the fog of my thoughts.

I blink at him. Once. Twice. Struggling to find words because… what? “Of course I want to marry you, Adam. I love you.”

Adam shakes his head, his fingers twisting the stem of his glass on the table. “No, you don’t, not really. We spend more time apart than we do together, and it’s gotten worse since you started planning our wedding, Em. Healthy couples should want to spend time together, and truthfully, I’d rather be anywhere than with you. All you do is talk about our wedding or someone else’s wedding, even the weddings of people you don’t know.”

“That’s my job, Adam. Do you think I like hearing about your job? No, but I listen because I love you.”

“Maybe that’s the problem, Em. Maybe I don’t love you anymore.” He sighs and if there was any part of me that hadn’t shattered tonight, it had officially broken. “I have to leave town for a few days. You should start packing while I’m gone. Cameron said I could stay at his house if I need to, but I’d rather not. Finding an apartment you can afford this week will be tough, but I think you can do it.”

Adam scoots his chair back and stands. He hesitates and the weight of his gaze burns a hole in my chest. I don’t want to look up and see the pity in his eyes, or worse, a lack thereof. I don’t want the tables around us to see me crying. I don’t want our waiter, Erin, a girl I’ve known since she was in diapers, to walk up to us and put the pieces together of how tragically my life is falling apart.

But tonight isn’t about what I want because all these things happen despite my pleas to the universe to spare me the embarrassment.

I meet Adam’s cold gaze one more time. A flicker of regret crosses his face, but it’s no more than a fleeting afterthought when he says, “I wish things could have been different. I’m sorry, Em.”

I hold myself together long enough to watch Adam walk out the front door and for me to gather my purse and then run out the back.

My tears mingle with the rain as I stumble down the alley to my car. The future I envisioned with Adam is gone, shattered into a million pieces, and I have no idea how to pick them up.