FLASHBACK
The ring on her finger felt like a noose around her neck. She never should've been stupid enough to think that she'd ever change Jonathan, that when they left Ohio their lives would somehow magically get better. She should've known better, really. He wasn't a good guy, he wasn't a nice guy but damn it, she'd loved him. She'd wanted to take care of him, she'd wanted to be the girl to show him that love didn't have to be all about pain and suffering.
She sat in the car outside the arena and looked at that ring and she looked at it long and hard as the words she'd heard him telling that prettier girl burned in her ears and became etched permanently in her brain.
'Marilyn's just this girl.. C'mon, babe, I want you.' he'd said to the other girl while she stood away, hidden out of sight, hearing every word of their conversation.
She'd been intending to surprise him tonight, show up here, go back to his hotel room with him and have a romantic weekend. After all, she did have big news.. She'd just found out she was pregnant, that she was 2 months along. She'd hoped that coming up and telling him face to face would give him a chance to warm up to the news. He'd never acted as if he wanted kids or anything, and given what they knew about each others childhoods respectively, well..
She was kind of worried that if she didn't break this to him just the right way, she'd lose him. And she'd tried living without him once before already whenher parents kept them apart for almost a year.
They'd found their way back together, of course.
And now, here she sat, in her car, in the parking lot of some small time arena where CZW was doing a show, everything she'd hoped she'd changed in him obviously still the same. His words cut her like a knife and she couldn't stop the tears as they blinded her.
"And naturally, my fucking parents were right. He never loved me anyway." Marilyn said aloud to herself as she put the car in drive and drove away just before he and a friend of theirs, Sami, walked out the back exit of the arena and to their rental car.
She'd never know that he'd seen her after the words were out of his mouth, that the second he said them, as usual, he instantly regretted them and didn't mean them. That he'd tried this same tactic several times while he was on the road and she was back at their house, waiting.
And every single time, he'd never been able to go through with it. As much as he hated it, as crazy as it drove him and as much as he didn't want it to happen, he was finally in love with someone.
But we always hurt the ones we love most, don't we?
He came back for his downtime to find the home they'd made empty of her things. She didn't say goodbye, she didn't even leave a note. And he decided then and there that he was done with everyone he loved leaving. Even though this whole misunderstanding was his fault, entirely, the young man had been hurt, betrayed and left so much that he figured to hell with it.
At least that's what he did until the divorce papers came a few years later.. And that's where this story really starts.