You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly. - Sam Keen
When I was younger, I thought that I was all that. True, no one really disillusioned me; everyone treated me like a king, because eventually, I would have been a king. Well, close to. I would have taken over my father's corporate firm, DugrayCorp, which was currently listed as Fortune 500, and it was placed as number three after IKEA and Microsoft for more than fifty-eight years. It was also expected of me to have a trophy wife – someone like Louise or Madeline. My trophy wife would have to have been beautiful, wealthy in her own right, docile, and a great entertainer for big social events, and not too intelligent. If she happened to be intelligent, then that would have been a bonus, and if love entered the equation, well… we all can't hope too much.
You know, my life was great before she entered my life. I had everything, everyone and no conscious to what was morally right and wrong. In fact, having one night stands, and dating every pretty girl at Chilton was praised upon, not frowned on. I had no real worries, and the biggest worry in my life was which car to drive to school; my Porsche or my Bentley, or if my hair had the perfect "just got out of bed" look. In fact, dating wasn't even a problem. Because all I had to do was stand there, and let the girls fall all over me. If I happened to be mildly interested, I just smiled and take her back to my car for more privacy. Life was easy for me. It was all planned and mapped out for me, and all I had to do was follow the blue print. As you can guess, I didn't follow what my parents, or even what my grandparents planned for me. I mapped out my own destiny, and I never imagined that this would be my life.
I should tell you where my life suddenly changed for me. I met this girl, a Mary, an innocent girl with blue eyes and brown hair. She wasn't extraordinarily pretty or was she even classically beautiful. She was in fact, very studious and intelligent. She wasn't social or outgoing and instead she preferred the company of books. She did not participate in superficial world of ours with the casual fornication or mindless chitchats of catty girls. But instead she preferred the steadiness of a dependable, loving boyfriend and few close friends. She was the epitome of goodness and wholesome and the opposite of a trophy wife. She was meant to discover and question the world around her. I met her in school when I was sixteen, and for so long, she was this conquest that I had to have in order to prove myself of a worthy king. She was just another number, or should have been; girls before her had been dominated and had their hearts broken by me, and she should have been too. I just never expected that she would be the one who broke mine instead. Now, I can agree with you that this story seems like the perfect movie story plot or the similar strings of fairy tales that are so predictable. Well let me tell you, if life was a fairy tale, I wouldn't be hurting so much right now.
When I first met the Mary – Rory, I teased and bugged her relentlessly. I couldn't figure out why she hadn't fallen for my charms. I mean not to be cocky, but I knew I was attractive. I wasn't stupid or had B.O or had a completely repulsive mannerism, au contraire, I was the opposite of that. I was intelligent enough to be the top three percentile of my class, and I had no repulsive behavior or mannerism. The girls I slept with can tell you that. I was, in fact, a complete gentleman – well at front. I never had to work so hard to get a girl's attention, and trust me; I did try hard for her to notice me. I made sure I found out what her favorite band or singer was, and what her favorite book was. I did everything to make sure that I knew all about Rory. To annoy her was the only way for her to talk to me, the only way I could find something about her. When I made her angry, it forced her to say more than one word to me. It forced her to notice me.
Well, I left Chilton, the place where I reined the school and placed in a military school in North Carolina. I got there because I did some rebellious things in my sophomore year in high school. I left everyone and everything I had known to be in a foreign place where I thought I had to start all over again. Truth be told, military school was a smaller scale of Chilton. It all consisted of rich kids who were overly spoilt and who had nothing better to do other than cause some trouble. This was the place where rich kids were sent to when they rebelled against society's norm. Almost like the Malibu drug and alcohol abuse center for the celebrities. Being placed in the military school was just a slight aberration in my life. When I returned back to Hartford, this incident was never mentioned and my life continued on to way it was before. My lifestyle didn't change, nor did my time in military school make me a stronger person – but I did grow up. I guess it was expected from everyone that people should eventually grow up. Two years was a lot time, and to be honest, when I left to go to Yale, I had forgotten about Rory. But I was indeed surprised when I bumped into her at a local café, and it took me another minute to recognize her as Rory.
We both had changed considerably. We were both more grown up, and placed in different circumstances, where my parents could not always hover over me and where it forced her to grow up. We both became different people in that short two year span and it showed. We met throughout our four years at Yale sporadically. When we had the time, we would catch up with a cup of coffee, and then not see each other for several months. It was an easy friendship – something that could not have been cultivated at Chilton. If someone at Chilton asked me if I'd ever be friends with Rory later on, I would have laughed in their face. The King of Chilton and Hartford could not form camaraderie with a potential conquest, it was not expected, for a conquest was meant to be disposed of after their use was done. But somehow she managed to forgive me, for Rory did not know how to hold a grudge. There was always a part of me that regretted that I had not tried to make our friendship into more. I had always respected her and, truth me told, a bit besotted with her. Unfortunately, I never did get my chance, and we lost touch after graduation. I did; however, take over DugrayCorp, got engaged to my future trophy wife Louise and had my life was set for me.
Our mothers already planned out our wedding before hand, and all we had to do was sit there and wait. Louise and I; however, got to decide on a summer wedding instead of spring as our mothers wanted us to. The count down to the wedding was three weeks, and my life was fine. I had accepted it, and did not question if this was right for me. I was just a puppet for the bigger picture in my parent's plan for their life and mine. Three weeks before my wedding, Rory walked into my life. We had not seen each other for three years, and this time, it was not the friendship that I wanted to settle for. Ironically we met again at a local coffee shop. She was sitting down at a small table by the corner, her nose buried in a book and sipping coffee. When I was looking around to see where I could sit down, a head of brown hair caught my eye. Strange, for blondes usually stood out for their fair coloring, but the studious head reminded me of someone I had cared for long ago. While everyone was paired up and talking, this one lone figure kept to herself. When the brunette walked away from her table to buy more coffee, did I notice then that this mysterious figure was indeed Rory. It took her a moment to realize standing before her, looking dumbfounded, holding a hot cup of coffee, was me, Tristan Dugray. She smiled when she did finally notice me, and a part of me felt something different. This was the moment that I was waiting for since high school – for her to notice me. Not notice me as an annoying nemesis, or a friend, but as a person who could be worthy of her heart. Don't ask me why how I could tell that from one smile, but I felt something change at that moment. Maybe it was the right time, or fate decided it was time, or maybe because we were older and a bit wiser… but whatever it was, my life changed right there.
I couldn't let this one get away from me, and I had to take that chance. I asked her if I could join her at her table, and she agreed and we sat there for two hours catching up before reality had to set in that we both had to go back to work. She never did become that reporter she always wanted to be, but rather, surprisingly a lawyer. I asked for her number to keep in touch, and asked her out for dinner that same day. She agreed and I blew off plans to be with Louise. Slowly, in the week that I met Rory again, I ignored Louise even more and spent more time with Rory, making excuses to my own fiancée to why I was so busy. I had finally decided that it was worth taking that risk to be with Rory, and broke off my engagement to Louise. The future at that point wasn't certain for the first time in my life, since I didn't know how Rory felt about me. But I didn't care, because I honestly had to say, I was in love with Rory. My whole family and Louise's were shocked by my announcement when I told them I wanted out from my engagement. I offered no explanation, due to the fact that I wanted to protect Rory and her reputation. Also a part of me didn't want to share Rory yet, until I was certain that she would return the feelings to me. Our engagement was a shock to everyone, when we did finally announce it, since no one knew I was seeing Rory.
Maybe I was selfish. Or maybe it was the fact that I was so in love with Rory. I couldn't bear the idea of sharing her with anyone, and so I kept our relationship a secret for the first three months to myself. Our relationship was a whirlwind, and things happened so fast. Maybe if I just paced our relationship, maybe all this…mess could have been avoided. But I needed Rory like I needed air, and I had to get her to marry me before she realized that I wasn't worthy of her and found someone who was. But I couldn't stand the idea that she could be lost to me forever, so I asked her to marry me after we were dating for five months. Surprisingly, she left common sense and said yes. We married shortly after our engagement, because I was scared she might have changed her mind. Rory had made my life, which was fine before, into perfect.
The first ten years of our marriage was what the fairy tales of a Disney movie made out to be, almost like Cinderella. But all good things had to come at an end. I wanted Rory to be proud of me as a man who could stand on his own feet with out the safety net of his parents. So I had resigned from DugrayCorp and decided to work for someone else. I got a job as a CFO in another company and had to work hard and long hours to support Rory and myself. Even though it was a lucrative job, it required me to put in long hours. Quite often I had to cancel our dinner plans, and stayed in the office finishing up reports, or forgot even to call Rory that I was going to be late again. I guess the lonely nights while I was working was too much for Rory, and she got lonely. She took more jobs that were offered which required her to leave the state for a case. Before, she would reject those offers in order that she could spend more time with me, but as years went on, we just didn't make time for us. Sometimes I too had to leave the country in order to negotiate deals, and she would leave town to finish up a case, and it was very rare for us to even talk to each other on the phone. It soon became a commuter's marriage, where the husband and wife had to schedule each other into their busy lifestyle.
They say, when their spouse cheats on them, the other would just know. For me, I never felt a change in Rory, nor did I suspect a thing. I thought we were in love and that love would keep us together. I couldn't have been more wrong. I should have noticed that Rory went back to New York quite often, and that she would call me less frequently when she was there. I should have been there for her and see that our marriage was falling apart and tried to fix it. I should have done something, anything. I should have notice something! I blame myself for the failure in my marriage causing Rory to cheat on me. But I wish it was simple as her cheating on me for a nameless face, a stranger who meant nothing to Rory. When she told me the name of the other man, the situation became more real and daunting to me.
My worst nightmare came true. Rory fell in love with someone else. I'm so scared that she will leave me to be with him. I always knew I wasn't good enough for Rory's love. But I thought giving all that I was would be. I thought Rory was the one who was naive, but perhaps I'm the one who is, for I never thought my marriage to Rory would end this way. But I won't let him have her, if he wants her, he'll have to fight for her because I won't let Rory go without a fight.
I can honestly tell you, no man will love Rory as much as I love her even after all that she has done to me. The only way that she can make me let her go is when she tells me it's really over.
