Page 11 of Untying the Knot
Turning to Banner, I say, “You invited him?”
“I thought it was a business meeting,” Banner says while cringing.
Penn pulls out a chair, then spins it around so he’s sitting on it backward. “What’s going on?”
Sighing heavily, I say, “Please don’t make a big fucking deal about this . . .”
“Why not?” Banner asks. “It’s a huge fucking deal.”
“What’s a big deal?” Penn looks back and forth between us.
Pushing my hair, I say, “Myla asked for a divorce last night.”
Penn’s brow creases. “No, she fucking didn’t.”
“Yes, she did,” I reply before lifting my coffee to my lips. “She had papers drawn up and everything.”
“Why the hell does she want a divorce?”
Banner pipes up, “She’s not happy.”
“Well, yeah, I could have told you that. She hasn’t been herself for a while. That quick wit of hers has faded, but I just assumed she was going through something. A divorce? Has she talked to you about it at all?”
“No,” I answer while setting my coffee back down. “This came out of nowhere. She was acting weird last night, very cold, and I called her out on it when we got home. That’s when she laid into me.” I scrub my hand over my face. “Fuck, I don’t know how to handle this with all the other shit right now. The business taking off at a rapid rate, the move . . . JP’s goddamn wedding, which is now in three weeks. I don’t know what to fucking do.”I can’t lose her, but is it right to hold her back from happiness if she’s so unhappy with me?“I mean . . . do I sign?”
“Do you want to sign?” Banner asks.
“No, but . . . I don’t want to force her to be with me either. Especially if she’s not happy.”
“So you’re just going to give up?” Penn asks. “Dude, we’re talking about Myla here.”
Yeah . . . Myla . . .
The girl who captured me the moment she commented on my Instagram post.
The girl with the most unique sense of humor.
The girl who has made me feel whole, as if before I met her I was missing something in my life. She came along and changed everything.
“I don’t know what to do. She’s shut down. I could see it in her eyes last night. She had the same look when her dad passed away and she broke up with me. She’s not open to solving problems. She just wants out, an escape.”
Banner pulls on his hair. “How did you win her back after she broke up with you? I can’t remember how that all went down.”
“She had to attend a meeting with her mom and dad’s lawyer alone, so she asked me to pretend we were still together until after,” I answer. “But I made a last-ditch effort to show her that she didn’t need to lose me just because she lost her dad. She kissed me in the car after the meeting, and I knew we’d be okay.”
“And you think this situation is similar?” Banner asks.
“Slightly, but this time, I truly don’t understand where this is coming from. I don’t know what triggered this or caused this line of thinking, so I don’t feel optimistic about fixing it.”
“Well, you gotta try, man,” Penn says. “This is your forever girl.” He pauses as if an idea has struck him. “You know, JP’s wedding is in three weeks. Why don’t you treat that event like what happened with the reading of the will?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
He shifts on his chair and says, “Tell her you will give her the divorce—”
“But I don’t want a divorce.”
“I understand that. But she’s going to be angry with you if you don’t go along with what she wants, which will put her on the defensive. So maybe if you tell her you’re going to grant her wishes, she’ll be more receptive to your idea.”
