I shrugged. “It’s nothing that has happened. It’s something that might happen. That will happen.” Hearing the words out in the open instead of shut away in my head gave them a new perspective, and for the first time I wondered if I wasn’t maybe overreacting just the tiniest bit. But I’d thought about it so much, and it seemed logical … “It’s all just too good to be true, you know? It has been all along. This isn’t a film script with a neat and tidy ending. It won’t turn out all rosy. They never show what happens after they fall in love, you know? Like, after Cinderella and the prince get married—then what? He snores, and she can’t cook, and he’s uncommunicative, and she’s needy, and they never show the fallout that happens when someone amazing marries someone average. He’s amazing. I’m average. He’s multimillion-dollar picture deals. I’m thirty thousand a year after taxes if I’m lucky. It’s a disaster waiting to happen, and I don’t want it to happen to me.”

“So you’re ending a relationship because of something that might happen to it later?”

This was irritating. “Look, I know it sounds stupid, but yes, that’s why, and while it doesn’t make sense to you, it does to me. You wouldn’t be able to understand.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I’m serious, trust me. You’ve been blessed with a whole family. I wasn’t that blessed, and I don’t want to go through what my parents went through, and put my kids through that kind of hell. This will save a lot of heartache in the long run.”

Missy nodded. “Well,” she said, “if you think this is what God is leading you to do, then of course you have to do it. I’m just … really surprised.” She paused and then shrugged and stood. “Joy and Taylor will think we’re conspiring against them; wanna go back and finish the movie?”

I nodded and followed her back to the living room, but this time I didn’t even try to engage. I sat on the sofa and stared at the TV, not seeing it, but thinking instead about what Missy had assumed about my decision. She didn’t even ask if I’d prayed; she just took it for granted that I had. But in reality, it had been a while since I’d automatically prayed about anything. I missed those days.

God, I am absolutely and utterly terrified of what is happening with Jack. I don’t want to be like my mother. I don’t want for my marriage to be like my parents. I don’t want to watch a movie and see my husband kiss another woman, or go to the grocery store and see a picture of him with another woman, or be constantly compared to other women.