No one wants to talk about the women who are scared of commitment. It took me years to realize that I was one of them. I never wanted to get tangled in something I couldn't find my way out of. Marriage didn't scare me because you could always get a divorce. But having a child? You can't walk away from that kind of commitment. And what business did I have bringing life into this world when most days I didn’t want to be alive myself? It's one of the many reasons I left Connor. It's one of the many reasons I've fallen for Logan. He doesn't ask me for anything I can't give. And he is just as broken as me.

The six weeks following my breakup with Connor leading up to the first time I met Logan were some of the longest days of my life.

Connor insisted on helping me move. He bought brand new locks for all the doors of the abandoned trailer I returned to. He was worried about someone breaking in.

I found my old home in shambles. The yard was overrun. The long grass was spilling over like waves. I ignored it, no one wanted to get a lawnmower out in February.

The interior was covered in dust, the air was stale.

I brought too much back with me, the boxes were stacked above my head in the living room.

I had spent countless hours handpicking the items that decorated my home with Connor. I went to antique malls, swap meets, garage sales. I wanted everything to be unique. I wanted each piece to have had a life before coming into our home.

I couldn't leave it behind and I couldn't unpack it.

Every piece reminded me of my life with Connor, all the hope I once had in my heart, my aching ribs. I couldn't leave it either.

Connor's pain radiated off of him, pulsing. I didn't want to be near him. It hurt to see him that way. I was hoping for something easier.

When I broke up with him, he agreed with me, that it was the best thing to do. Then the next morning he woke up changed, desperate to have me back. He followed me from room to room. He didn't touch me, but his stare choked me.

I told him I was going back to my trailer and he argued. He said I should stay in the guest room until I found a more suitable place. My trailer was never suitable for him. I was never suitable for him. He wanted me as I retreated, ignored me when I was right in front of him.

I declined the offer, took up more hours at work, and tried to ignore the sound of him sobbing in our bedroom. Though my trailer was dingy, shambled, it was a relief to go back. To lie in bed with nothing but the sound of my cat walking around, the soft sound of my dog breathing. No sound of a heart breaking apart.

My own heart was a war zone. I felt both freedom and a deep seeded hate for myself. Connor didn't know, yet, that I was talking to Logan. I hated the phrase. Talking to. It was more than that.

“I don’t want to have kids.” Logan’s truth came out on the phone one night. It made my heart bubble up, ache, hiss.

“I don’t want them either. Not anymore.” He was the first person I’d said it to, before I used it as a weapon on Connor. I sobbed into the phone and he was silent. When I stopped, he shifted, I could hear his clothing rustling.

“Am I the first person you’ve told that to?”

“Yes. I don’t know when I changed my mind. I don’t know when it left me, the desire. But I can’t tell anyone. Because what would I say? They say I can’t let him win. That just because I was touched as a little girl, that doesn’t mean I can't be a good mom. But what do they know? I have this hole inside of my chest and there is nothing to fill it. It gets bigger every day and I am drowning. The only way to make the hurt go away is to write. And no one understands that either. We are just sharing to a stupid app on a phone, right? That’s what they’ll say. It can’t fill the hole a child could, but they don’t have to live with it. This blackness. This stain.”

We were feeling each other out, exploring the possibilities. He lived in Seattle, half a country away.

He sent me pictures of himself by the sea, reading novels I'd never heard of, writing words I wanted tattooed on my skin.

Late at night, he would whisper his desire for me, in English, sometimes in broken French.

I learned, after seeing a screenshot, that after the first night we spoke on the phone, when I belonged to another, he said he was in love with me.

“I’m in love with Gwen,” it said.

“In love? Like legit in love?” my friend replied.

“Both? How is this possible? How can you be in love with someone you’ve never met?” he said.

It scared me to see that. It set me on fire. I told myself it was because he was young. He would change his mind when he met me. The idea of me was so much more enticing than the reality. They always left when they accepted the reality.

I bought a plane ticket. I flew to Seattle to meet him. But not before giving him the chance to betray me. Not before Connor came to my work in the middle of the day and proposed to me.