i was about to let go

'till i knew you e x i s t e d . . .

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The first time I typed the word "annulment" into Google was on my computer at work. Just out of sheer curiosity, I wanted to see what would pop up.

What is an annulment and how to get one? Annulment vs. Divorce: What's the Difference? How long does an annulment take? Need a quick, easy, somewhat painless fix to something that should have never happened?

I should have been tracking orders for new samples that Donatella requested. Instead, I was trying to figure out if Gus and I really could "erase" our marriage and act like it never happened.

It had been one day – not even twenty-four hours – of living with him again and I was already back to my old ways. Then again, I never really would have thought that at just twenty-three years old, I would be having this kind of dilemma. The kind of dilemma that means wanting an annulment after drunkenly eloping with Gus on the night of my sister's wedding.

Surprisingly enough, the annulment idea came from Nadia. After I spent the entirety of our forty-five-minute lunch break telling her about Hawaii in the most condensed version I could manage, she had a lot of questions, a lot of thoughts, and a lot of advice. I wouldn't have expected anything less from her.

She brought it up as a mere suggestion. If we really couldn't come to terms with the whole marriage thing, or if we just couldn't make it work, we could erase it. Simple enough.

Other than that, she was pretty happy that I made it out of the wedding alive, in one piece, and as a new woman. She almost cried too, honestly. Happy tears, of course, because half of the time she was laughing at the irony of this whole goddamn situation. She tried her hardest to get me to show her the video I got from Keone but to no avail; I still had yet to watch it myself. Instead, I let her inspect the plastic wedding band I got as a souvenir from the one night in my life that I didn't remember but definitely should.

When we got back to our cubicle was when my research on annulments began. I didn't know what it meant exactly, and the part of me that thought us eloping was the stupidest thing we could have done wanted to consider all of our options.

Soon enough, I found myself with twelve tabs open in my browser, each containing a different article about annulments or divorce. I was jumping headfirst down a rabbit hole that I didn't know I ever wanted to be in. One I never thought existed or considered before.

I had a headache after two and a half articles. I closed out the rest of the tabs without even bothering to bookmark them and decided to save my research for another day.

My work week came to an end not much longer after that, which meant it was Friday night. My first one as a wife, one week since the incident, and while there were a dozen exciting things I could have been doing, I was spending it grocery shopping.

Gus was grabbing drinks with guys from his work, so I got myself in an Uber after I left the office and went straight to the brand new Target they just built in my neighborhood. What should have been an easy, uncomplicated thirty-minute trip turned into frustration and precious time wasted. My favorite coffee creamer and preferred toothpaste were out of stock, and that goddamn dollar section with too many knickknacks caught my eye for longer than I'd like to admit.

By the time I got home, after my third Uber ride of the day from not wanting to bear the single-digit windchill that swept the entire city, I had three bags full of things I didn't need. A pretty normal trip to Target for me, all in all.

The end stool at the island was occupied by Gus, who glanced up at me from all the paperwork and bills he was sifting through when I walked into our apartment. The TV wasn't even on in the background and he was still in his work clothes, which made me think he must have just gotten home too.

"Hey," he called out with a nod of acknowledgment.

"Hi," I grunted, breathless as I knocked the door shut behind me with my shoulder. "It's so fucking cold out. I miss Hawaii."

I heaved myself across the room and dropped the bags of groceries onto the empty counter space next to the sink. I could feel Ziggy poking my leg with his nose for attention, but with all the bags and my thick, wool scarf wrapped around me, I couldn't see him right at my feet. Yanking my scarf off, I smiled when I finally saw him and bent down to scratch behind his ear.

It was stressful moving back in with Gus, to say the least, but I couldn't deny how relieved I felt to be home. To be able to have my entire closet on hand again, my purple shampoo to keep my blonde hair from getting too brassy, and my particular brand of coffee I always bought to make in the mornings because I swore it was the only kind that could wake me up. It was the little things I missed the most.

I thought it'd take a little while to get back into the swing of things, but to my surprise, it didn't. Everything felt just as it always had with us. Almost like I never left.

"This came today," Gus announced. When I looked up from Ziggy, I saw him pushing a rather large padded envelope towards me. "Thought you might wanna see it."

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously and stood up, taking the envelope in my hands. It was addressed to Mr. & Mrs. Monahan in cursive (which was something I still couldn't get used to), while the return address was an unfamiliar name from Honolulu. I flipped it over to see that it had already been opened by Gus.

Dumping out its contents before me, a postcard came tumbling onto the countertop first, followed by the last piece of paper I ever expected to see. Our marriage certificate.

The flyer, practically a mockery of our marriage, thanked us for choosing whatever godforsaken chapel Keone took us to along with the endearing afterthought to like their page on Facebook. Signed, sealed, and delivered by Reverend J. Henakai himself. The very man that officiated us.

"Oh my God," I chuckled to myself. "How was this place even real?" I said it more as an offhand observation, but Gus snorted in amusement at it.

My fingers grazed over the raised seal in the corner of the marriage certificate when I picked it up. There was no way I could deny its authenticity. It was signed and dated by the clergy. The raised seal was legit. Though I may have crushed the license in Gus' room the night we eloped, seeing this certificate in my own home suddenly made it feel much more real.

You could just get an annulment and erase this whole thing, then act like it never happened. I shuddered as the thought crossed my mind like someone left my subconscious unsupervised and any fucked up ideas of mine were fair game, free to come to the surface instead of remaining buried where I usually kept them.

I couldn't say it. I couldn't even let myself think about it. I wasn't back home for a full day and I was thinking of ways to ruin things.

Despite everything, Gus and I were good, bottom line. I didn't want to give that up. Not yet, anyway.

Gus cleared his throat, so I peered up at him from where he sat across from me. He folded his lips into his mouth in thought before uttering, "I told Dean."

"I told Nadia," I replied with a nod, and he hummed approvingly. "So that's two less people we have to tell and neither of them is a family member."

"You really think our parents are gonna freak out when we tell them?" He asked, a glimmer of pure wonder in his eyes like he really couldn't answer that himself.

"If we tell them," I corrected him. He gave me a flat look in return, and I just giggled. "Kidding. I think mainly it's gonna be shocking. Everyone definitely expected us to get back together... but not married. You know?"

"Yeah, I guess," he said lowly.

With a shrug, I placed the marriage certificate off to the side and picked up the one bill I saw that was addressed to me, which was my credit card statement. I grimaced when I realized how much I didn't want to look at it. For some reason, while it was happening, I never paid much attention to just how much money I was spending leading up to Sutton's wedding. I knew it was a lot – too much, to be frank – but I kept clicking check out and swiping away like I had endless funds.

Now that it was all over and I was slowly starting to get back into the swing of normal life again, my bank account was a black hole. If I didn't have Gus, who knew finances like I knew fashion trends, I'd be absolutely helpless.

"Alright, I'm starving and it's already after seven o'clock. Do you just wanna order a pizza or something? I bought groceries and shit, but I really don't feel like cooking," I explained as my stomach growled on cue. Gus, unphased by my words, kept blankly staring at the paper in his hands. I rolled my eyes and spat, "Gus."

"Huh?" He jumped at the urgency in my tone, his glazed sapphire gaze snapping up to meet mine. "Yeah. Sure, that sounds good."

My eyebrows furrowed at his disinterested behavior. "What's your deal?"

He grumbled something to himself and uncomfortably shifted in his seat. When I asked him to repeat himself, he just mumbled, "I gotta tell you something."

"Okay..." I trailed off. My hands went to grip the edge of the island to hold myself up because I had no idea where this conversation was about to go.

"I wanna preface this by saying it's really important to me. Since you're back home now and we're gonna try working on us, I feel like you have a right to know," he told me, but his eyes were avoiding mine like his life depended on it. He had put all the bills and paperwork down and was twiddling his thumbs instead.

I hadn't seen him this tense in a long time. Probably not since the first time we crossed paths in Hawaii, and that was only because it had been weeks since we last saw each other. Plus, we were broken up at the time, and that was aggravating enough.

His shoulders were almost touching his ears and he still refused to look at me. It wasn't helping the surge of anxiety I felt that twisted my gut in turmoil. I kept quiet out of respect for him. Whatever he wanted to tell me was important, as he said, and I didn't want to take that away from him.

Finally, with a shaky inhale, he spoke up.

"I've been seeing someone." And because I knew him, because I knew us, I just raised an eyebrow to initiate a further explanation. With a shake of his head, he hissed, "Fuck, that came out wrong."

I smiled a little in an attempt to ease his nerves. "It's okay. Take your time."

"A therapist," he blurted then, "I-I've been seeing... a therapist."

My jaw went slack. In a state of total shock with probably the wrong reaction to this kind of news, I was speechless.

I knew something was different about him all this time. How levelheaded he had been every time we argued about anything in Hawaii. How practical and understanding he had become. From our first conversation in the hotel hallway, I knew he wasn't the same Gus. Even when I went back to get my stuff on New Year's Eve and we got into a pointless fight, he had changed. For him to go out of his way to text me an apology and ask if I still wanted him to come to the wedding was not like the old Gus I remembered.

It all made sense now. I suddenly felt like an extremely guilty piece of shit for even wanting to look into annulments. That idea was out the window now, completely.

Gus still couldn't spare me a glance, but I could feel his apprehension clawing at my throat. He was desperately waiting for me to say something.

All I came up with for a much-delayed response was a weak, "Oh."

"I know. I've wanted to tell you for a while, but I was scared," he sheepishly admitted.

"Scared?" I found myself questioning since it seemed I couldn't form any real, articulate thoughts.

He nodded, gulping before he went on. "Yeah. It was an easy decision, sort of, because I knew I had to do it, but it's still hard for me to process. I was scared of what you'd think once I told you. Therapy is such a personal thing and... I don't know. Not that you would judge me for it, but I guess I felt kind of ashamed. I just figured we're married now and to make this work, we have to be open and honest with each other. Communication is where we've always struggled and I don't want to slip back into old ways."

"I completely agree," I said, a little astonished at the words coming out of his mouth. They were things I always wanted to hear but never thought I actually would. "When did this happen? If you don't mind me asking."

"I don't mind. You probably have a million questions, I get it," he chuckled a little. "But right after we broke up, pretty much. I was always talking to Dean about it and he actually got me in touch with somebody. Perks of having a nurse as your best friend, I guess. His office is right in Center City and I go once or twice a week, depending on my schedule. I really like him so far. I mean, it's only been a month but I feel like he's already helped me so much."

He wasn't looking at me, but I couldn't stop smiling at him. "That's great. I'm proud of you," I murmured and it finally got his lips to curl up.

"Thanks," he breathed, taking the plunge then and meeting my eyes. "I wanted to tell you about it because I uh... I feel like you could benefit from it too."

"Me?" I asked with knitted brows and a gentle, confused laugh.

"Yeah," he said, his tone wary like he knew I wasn't going to like what he was about to say next. "Obviously I'm going for my own personal reasons, but I think we could use it too. Wayne knows all about you. A lot of our sessions revolve around me and you, if we're not talking about my family."

"Wayne?"

"My therapist," he clarified for me, and I just nodded a little. "I think you'd like him, and he'd definitely like you. You're such a complex person and I think he'd enjoy trying to crack you open and dig to the root of your issues."

I scoffed indignantly, "My issues? Please tell me what my issues are. I'd love to know."

He froze for a split second as if he was going to regret this, but it didn't stop him from cracking his knuckles and sitting up straight. My eyes narrowed at how dramatic he was making it.

"Sometimes, I feel like I'm dating a brick wall," he started and my mouth fell open, insulted by the comparison. He realized it right away and held up a hand before saying, "Let me elaborate. You can be so closed off. You refuse to show any emotion when things go wrong and it's so hard to work with. You immediately close up and snap instead of trying to understand. You're never like, vulnerable or openly honest. Especially when we argue, if I don't agree with you, all you do is get offended which just makes things worse because there actually is a way to 'efficiently argue'. We have to listen to each other and know how we feel when we act a certain way."

I wanted to react. I wanted to defend my actions and myself and honestly, I wanted to cry. But I thought all of that would just prove Gus' point even more, so I did nothing. Besides, it wasn't like me to cry. Like Gus said, showing emotion wasn't my strong suit.

Instead, I stared at my husband who just held an intervention for me right here in our kitchen.

Having someone try to psychoanalyze all the shit that was wrong with me wasn't my idea of a good Friday night, but I couldn't get myself to think that Gus was wrong. I always said we knew one another better than we knew ourselves.

Apparently I didn't need a therapist. I had Gus to do that for me.

"Well, shit," I mumbled, looking down at the bills between us.

"I'm not trying to hurt you, okay? You said you want this to work and if we both don't make some changes, it's not going to. We're gonna be right back where we started and I don't think either of us wants that."

I frowned as brief clips of our relationship throughout the years flickered in my mind. Too much wasted time spent resenting one another. Too many hours wallowing in anger. Too many years had gone by where we thought what we were doing was okay.

It wasn't, by any means. We were just used to it.

"Hey." He got up from his stool and came around the island to where I stood. His hands were on my shoulders, jerking my body around and forcing me to look up into his eyes. "I love you... so fucking much. We're gonna be fine. Things are gonna be different this time, I promise. It's scary and it's new, but we have each other. As corny as that shit is, it means more than you think."

I softly smiled up at him as I said, "I love you, too. I guess I just gotta get used to this new version of you."

"Oh don't worry, you will."

His hands squeezed my shoulders, provoking another sideways grin out of me. It was borderline utterly insane how easily he could get me to smile sometimes.

"Next time you wanna dissect my issues, remind me to say no," I said, a hint of teasing in my tone.

"Well, if you decide to join in on some sessions with me, get used to it," he quipped. "Wayne can be an asshole sometimes, but it's tough love and it works. He doesn't sugarcoat anything and I admire that a lot. It gets to the source of the problem quicker and saves time. I know without a doubt that you guys would like each other."

"I'll think about it." My voice dropped to nearly a whisper as I thoughtfully chewed on my lip. Gus just nodded and his mouth curved into a fond grin as he looked at me, not pushing the subject any further.

There wasn't really anything else to say. We were just gazing at one another. I ended up sliding my hands around his waist and nuzzling myself into his chest, my cheek resting just above his heart. It was slow and steady as I listened to it, while his arms circled me and held me so close to him, I didn't think there was a single spare inch between us.

We didn't break from our embrace and we lost track of time. Eventually, we were swaying, to no music and for hours, it seemed. It was so intimate; a rare, tender moment we were both cherishing that I never wanted it to end.

And so we slow danced in the kitchen to nothing but the sound of our own breathing, believing for the first time in months that everything was going to be okay.

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- WHOA ok so gus dropped a bombshell didn't he?!? what's going through your mind right now?? did you predict this??? we def saw a different side of him in hawaii, that's for sure, but now we know why!! all along he knew what he had to do. we're making such great progress, my friends. i'm proud of the bb. this is the NEW and IMPROVED gus and he is 1000x better than the old gus. do y'all think bayla should hop in on that offer of going to therapy with gus? (um... yes). homeboy was spilling straight TEA and she was shook, for lack of a better word. guess we'll have to wait and see what happens!