“I just don’t understand why she’s still with him. Everyone can tell he’s not right for her.”
“You don’t understand because you’ve never been in a long term relationship, Jaime.”
“Um, ouch.”
“I’m not insulting you, idiot. In fact, it’s probably a good thing, because you might end up like her. She’s not with him because she’s in love with him and she doesn’t think there’s anyone else out there for her. She’s with him because its safe. She’s dated this guy for, what, two years? That’s everything when you’re a teenager. That’s your whole life. To her, breaking up with him would be a huge waste of time. He’s an investment; a routine. The same way you wake up in the morning and drink three cups of coffee knowing that you shouldn’t and it’s probably shaving years off your life, but refuse to stop because it’s just your routine. I go to Barnes and Noble, dying to get a new book and spend hours scanning the shelves, but when it comes down to choosing between a mystery book with an interesting back cover I’ve never heard of and a John Green or Jane Austen, we all know how it ends.”
“I don’t understand how your lack of literary risk has anything to do with this.”
“It’s the big picture. I pick the Green or the Austen because I know there are very small odds that it will absolutely suck and I’ll regret buying it. It’s what I know. Even though I might have chosen to not buy what could have been the best book I’ve ever read, and you could live ten years longer if you would just convert to orange juice, we stick with what we know and what will make us mediocrely happy because that way we can accept that ignorance is bliss and we’re just cliché mother fuckers. She may think that you’re way better for her, and in her head she probably has a run down of your perfect little life together, but in the end, there’s no way for her to know that you won’t end up being like every other douche bag and break her heart, making her question why she let him go when she knew he was perfectly nice. He might not be her prince charming, but he shakes her dads hand and buys her flowers, so why should she throw away guaranteed happiness for a chance that you two would live happily ever after?”
I sat there at a loss for how to reply, and a little confused on whether I should be offended or enlightened, but concluded that the question was rhetorical, as she picked her book back up and leaned back in her chair, taking a long drag from her coffee cup. Hypocrite.
WRITTEN BY: GRACE RILEY
Realistic Fiction
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