Page 1 of Wes and Addie Had Their Chance

If a guy breaks your heart, it seems only right that he should go on to be unhappy and unsuccessful. That’s fair, right? And

you know what? It wouldn’t hurt if he were also ugly. Prematurely bald. Maybe required the application of some prescription

ointment to keep his skin condition in check.

Now, if the guy breaks your heart by leaving you at the altar—humiliating you in front of everyone you know, scarring you

for life, and causing you to question and doubt everything you thought you knew about love—shouldn’t he also be unable to

leave his house without the assistance of some sort of crane? I don’t consider myself a vindictive person, but I really don’t

think that’s unreasonable.

I’m forty years old, and my heart has been broken three times. And I guess that’s not so bad if we’re grading based on quantity

alone.

Of course I’m not talking about the emotional devastations of youth that we think are heartbreak at the time but are, in actuality,

disappointments at worst or hormonal fluctuations at best. Getting socks for Christmas. Snagging the hem of your prom dress.

Planning for months to go to Denver to see The Verve only to discover at the very end of the concert, when they sing “Bitter

Sweet Symphony” (the only song you’ve recognized all night), that you had them confused with The Verve Pipe.

Or is it the other way around? Honest to goodness, I still don’t know the difference.

My first true heartbreak was when my mom died. I was eleven, and I didn’t understand why everyone was acting like life was

just going to go on. Like the sun was going to come up the next day and the world was going to keep on spinning. But of course

it did. Even if my life—and every aspect of the whole wide world—felt like something was missing, from sunrise to sunset of

every single day, from that point on.

But you know... most of us outlive our parents. We’re simply not, however, hardwired to be widowed at thirty-eight. That

was the third heartbreak. The clock is not supposed to be ticking down while our toothbrush is hanging out of our mouth. We’re

not supposed to be running so late for work that when our husband FaceTimes us for what will be the very last time, and we

have one more chance to tell him how much we love him, we accidentally spit toothpaste on the camera and end the call in a

flurry of foam and minty-fresh aroma and never-to-be-fulfilled promises to call back in a few.

So yeah. It was that third heartbreak—losing my husband, Joel, almost two years ago—that hurt the most. That was the one that

almost did me in. But here lately, it’s the unavoidable reminders of heartbreak number two that are really starting to stick

in my craw.

When I was eighteen, I was left at the altar. Literally left at the altar. I think a lot of people use that expression too

liberally when they’re talking about a breakup after the invitations have already gone out, or the night before the wedding

when you still have time to call everyone and tell them not to show up. I think those of us who were really and truly left

at the altar—hair and makeup done, dress zipped up, long train perfectly placed on the grass behind us in preparation for

our walk through a meadow to the only boy we thought we’d ever love—should file a class-action suit against the women who

carelessly throw around the phrase. Calling off a wedding would always be hard, I’m sure, but those of us who had it called

off for us, once it had already begun? We alone have earned that particular badge.

Wes Hobbes didn’t just break my heart that day twenty-two years ago.

He ripped it out of my chest and ran it through a meat grinder.

Then, in case there hadn’t been enough damage done, he stomped on it a few times and fed it to the wolves—and left me behind to try to salvage the digested remains as they were pooped out in the forest.

Whatever. I got over it. It took a long time, but I really did get over it. I met Joel, I fell in love again, and I got to

spend nearly ten years married to the love of my life. Joel Elwyn. A man who never did anything to hurt me. You know, except

die. Meanwhile, Wes Hobbes couldn’t even do me the simple courtesy of going on to become severely pockmarked and unemployable.

The man who left me at the altar when we were eighteen years old had become Senator Wesley Hobbes, the beloved front-runner

for president of the United States. And he was handsome and had all his hair, and his skin was flawless, and if the nightly

news and People magazine and all the thirsty fan forums online were to be believed, he was perfectly capable of squeezing through doorways

without any sort of lever-and-pulley system whatsoever.

Such a bummer.