Better Than the Original

In the beginning, the idea sounded ridiculous. This two year relationship was middling between lust, hate, and comfort. We weren't even living together yet. Our individual paths were littered with potential, so we didn't necessarily need each other.

We simply loved each other.

We loved each other so much that we were committed in a long distance relationship for the last 18 months. We joked about our kids and our kids' kids. We planned our next promotions to be in a common city where we could finally be together.

Together together. We'd moved to Austin to start the rest of our lives.

Yet we knew something was missing. We both grew up in households with annoyingly perfect parents. Happily married for a combined 57 years, our parents were text book examples of how happy couples were supposed to be.

We each asked them for their advice on how we'd know if our budding relationship was going to last. We always got textbook, bullshit answers.

"You'll never know."

"It takes work."

"Don't go to sleep angry."

We weren't looking for a guarantee. Just something that would stick. For both of us.

Then one day his father, Earl, told me about April. She was one of Rudy's high school girlfriends, but her name had never come up to me. Earl said he had only met her twice, Kastamonu Escort but he knew Rudy wouldn't forget her.

"Why?" I quietly asked him, as though we were being followed by the FBI.

He raised an eyebrow at me and said, "You never forget your first."

I assumed Earl didn't know that some girl named Lisa was his first because he didn't know how soon Rudy started with us 'ladyfolk'. But I was curious who this April was.

That night Rudy