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“You deserve to do it if you love it, Whit. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you.” Ruby, my best friend since day one of college, brings her margarita to her mouth and takes a sip. That’s her usual: margarita on the rocks.

I stay away from the cocktails. The days of me indulging in mixed drinks are over. Once I hit my thirties, my body became unable to metabolize alcohol without me having a huge, I want to die, hangover with puking and the sweats. Because of this, I stick to ciders. My body agrees with ciders, and I learned a long time ago to listen to my body.

It’s our weekly girl’s night out at Chester’s, the local pub. This is the time when we can get away from the men in our lives and vent. Think back to our younger years before husbands, and kids. Well, kids for me. Instead of kids, Ruby and her hubby breed champion blood-line type dogs.

“I know, but I’m the only one in my family who thinks the same as you do. Everyone else thinks it’s a waste of time—a waste of their time.” I take a sip of my cider. “If I want to write when they want to do something, I get eye rolling and mumbling under their breath. Hello, teacher here. I can hear them.”

The waitress comes over and places our lettuce wraps, our chicken lettuce wraps, since Ruby doesn’t do seafood, on our table. “I still, after all these years, don’t see how you can’t like shrimp,” I say.

“Coming from the woman who eats buffalo cauliflower.”

“What? It’s healthy.”

“It’s fried and smothered in hot sauce. It’s not healthy.”

“Whatever. No need to rain on my parade.”

She scoops the chicken filling with her spoon and plops it down on the piece of lettuce before bringing it to her mouth. “What does Heath think about it?”

“Heath is Heath.” I shrug. “Nothing’s changed on his end. He likes it when it’s convenient. Not so much when his work clothes haven’t been washed. I know he supports me, but I always feel there’s a catch. Like my writing is a roadblock in what he needs to get done. And he complains it takes up too much of ‘our’ time together, and by our time, I mean sitting in front of the television watching shows I either don’t care about or have seen a hundred times before. Sure, if he wants to go out to eat, I’ll stop writing, but if he wants to sit and watch a show we’ve seen, why can’t I sit next to him and write?”

I’ve been writing for the past few years. At first, it was just something to do to fill the void of the kids growing up and not needing me as much. When they were younger, and Heath and I spent our weekends running them here and there for one function to the next, I’d craved the days when they wouldn’t be so involved, or they’d be able to drive themselves everywhere. But when all that came to fruition, I struggled with my newly found free time. Always wanting to write, I sat down one day when the house was silent and started on my first novel. I haven’t been able to stop since.

She rolls her eyes. “I just don’t understand how he doesn’t see how much writing means to you?” She takes another drink of her margarita before picking at the stuffing for the wraps. “Writing is no small feat, babe, and you do it in spades. If you were my wife, I’d be shouting it from the rooftops that you’re a bad ass author. Gah! Men are selfish by nature, and he’s more selfish than most.”

I pick at my food. “I think it’s because it’s something that he doesn’t relate to and I get that. I don’t relate to most of his hobbies. I mean, I’ve never even been rock climbing, but I ask how each of his trips went. He doesn’t ask anything about my writing. I’d like for him to maybe, I don’t know, show more enthusiasm. I typically get, ‘that’s great, babe,’ and that’s it. But it’s more than him not showing interest in my writing or any other hobbies I might stumble upon. Lately… I don’t know. There’s something off. Missing maybe.” Heath has always had his hobbies, things that he’s been into outside of us, and I’ve always supported that.

“Like what?”

“I wish I knew. Life takes a lot out of me, out of our marriage, and the kids are another hurdle altogether. I know I sound like I’m making excuses, and that I should be grateful for everything I have, but sometimes I can’t help but think back.”

“Back when? Before the kids? When your lives were simpler?”

“How can you tell if a person has fallen out of love–”

“Don’t even go there, babe. Heath loves you. He loves his life and those kids, but all this could be settled if you took the time and talked to him. Ask him what’s been going on. It may be something simple.” She shrugs, taking another sip of her drink.

“But maybe it’s not. Maybe it is something big, and he doesn’t want to tell me about it.” I push the plate of food away, not wanting to eat another bite. “Twenty years ago I never imagined I’d be here wondering about the state of my marriage.” I take a long pull of my cider, my throat suddenly feeling a little too dry.

“Don’t jump to conclusions. Those have never worked out in your favor in the past.” She tips her glass to me.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Let me say one phrase…”

My eyes roll, and I outwardly groan because I know what’s coming next.

“Ten. Year. Anniversary.” Ruby puckers her lips and cocks an eyebrow.

Heath had asked me to run to the office with him on a Thursday night—the day before our anniversary. I was already irritated because there had been no mention of any plans and it was our ten year. I was hurt that he possibly forgot and I was aggravated that he dragged me all the way to the office, in the cold. Little did I know that he had planned a huge party.

At. His. Office.

Here he put forth all this effort, and I was grumbling under my breath the entire car ride over there. I’d felt like a total ass.

“What was I supposed to think? He hadn’t mentioned anything that year, and he always made a point to either take me to dinner or plan a weekend away. He did none of those things. Our anniversary was our night. The one time a year when we didn’t care if we spent too much at dinner, hell, earlier on in our marriage we would save for months just so we could enjoy a meal that didn’t come from a paper bag.”

“Yes, that’s right, he always managed to do those things. And the one year he didn’t, you jumped to conclusions and thought he didn’t remember. The man was planning a surprise anniversary party for you. Because you jumped to conclusions, the surprise was ruined, and you felt like a dumb ass. I’ve never seen a man so embarrassed in front of a room of people in my life.”