Something good.
Something mine.
And for the first time in my adult life, I felt like I belonged somewhere.
Not in a house.
Not with a man.
Not behind someone else’s name.
But in my own skin.
A little bubble of freedom on four wheels.
Until this mess dropped on my head like a cartoon anvil on a coyote.
See, one of the producers—bless her ambitious little gremlin heart—pitched a new segment.
“Let’s do a dating series, Esme,” she’d said over Zoom, eyes sparkling like she’d personally invented romance. “You travel, meet people, go on dates, show your audience what it’s like—real, raw, romantic, messy. It’ll be huge.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
Because dating?
Me?
After Benji?
Yeah. No.
But then again, I’ve been thinking about settling and this is the perfect segway because—do I really want to be alone for the rest of my life?
The answer is no.
I really don’t.
Just because one man didn’t want me—couldn’t believe me—doesn’t mean I have to be alone forever.
Does it?
I mean, I still want that house I always dreamed of. And children—God, I still want babies.
And someone who loves me.
So after a couple of days of just thinking, I agreed to do a dating segment.
But then we hit a snag.
A big one.
“Uh, Esme?” my manager had said a week later, voice gone careful in that way that always means bad news. “Your divorce. Um, it’s not exactly finalized.”
“Excuse me?”
“Not finalized.”
