The Opposite of Romance

Prologue

And they lived happily ever after.

My throat constricts as I type out the words with shaky hands and hit the save button. It’s been my signature cliché last sentence ever since I started my author journey, but lately, it’s been harder and harder to type.

I’m a fraud .

HEA isn’t realistic. No, it’s more likely they ended up resenting or hating each other. Or worse, not even noticing each other.

I grab my water bottle because my mouth is suddenly dry, but the water does nothing to help. My breathing grows faster as panic overtakes me.

I’m supposed to be this epitome of romance. For the last ten years, I’ve been writing incredible love stories, self-publishing twenty-two novels. My characters found everlasting love despite any and all circumstances that stood between them. And they lived happily ever after.

Me? I’m counting the days till my eleventh wedding anniversary with a man I barely know any more.

Instead of grand gestures, I get to be chilly while I walk six feet in front of the person who’s supposed to give me his jacket. Instead of overwhelming passion, I get a polite exchange of information about our kids.

Instead of feeling desired, I get to feel invisible.

I’m a fraud.

And I don’t want to be a fraud anymore.

When did it happen? When did my great love story turn into this? David was always a good guy, I know that. He still is, I guess. He helps out around the house, and he’s an involved father.

But he hasn’t been a husband for a while now.

I tried, at first. I talked to him about what I was missing. He told me it was normal.

“It’s what happens after two kids and so many years together, Sadie. Life is not one of your little romance books,” he had said.

A part of me believed him while another part was starving. Day after day, I was starving for love, starving for affection. Until I stopped expecting it.

Until I closed myself fully off, throwing myself into fictional characters, living vicariously through them. As my collection of sex toys grew, so did my loneliness.

Technology is mind-blowing. But it can hardly replace the touch of a man you can’t live without. The kind of touch that burns through your skin, giving you more than physical pleasure.

How can I keep lying to my readers about a love like that if I don’t grant myself the same grace?

If my characters deserve it, don’t I deserve it, too?

Inhaling deeply, I rewrite a word in that last sentence, then click on ‘Save’ again.

I stare at the screen, the words staring right back at me, before I exit my manuscript and open my browser.

Somehow, typing ‘divorce attorney’ into a search bar gives me less anxiety than finishing my book with ‘they lived happily ever after’.