First girl meets boy.
They fall in love and live harmoniously for 10 years.
Then boy wants a divorce.
This is the story of Max and Tristan Fletcher and their life together leading up to their eventual marital separation.
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6 months ago
In the doctor's office, Tristan and Max waited patiently for the doctor to return. They sat on the couch in the comfy room holding each other's hands.
His right leg bounced anxiously. Her eyes shifted from corner to corner of the office and occasionally she would swallow inaudibly.
She felt herself begin to sweat in anticipation for what was to come. Her heart was beating rapidly against her ribcage.
Max was so lost in her own world that she nearly jumped a foot in the air when Dr. Chelsea stepped back into the room. She had a look on her face that Tristan was unable to decipher.
"Okay so… I ran the tests on your urine sample, Max, and I'm afraid to say that you are not pregnant." Dr. Chelsea settled in the settee across from the couple.
Tristan shook his head and squeezed his wife's hand in comfort.
"How is that possible?"
Chelsea made meaningful eye contact with the other woman in the room. Max screwed her eyes shut.
"Well when the egg doesn't-"
"I-I-I know how reproduction works, Doc. I mean… how are we not pregnant? She's been off birth control for months. We haven't had sex with a condom in literal years. Is...Is it me?" He blinked a couple of times and frowned.
"Ah well see. There could be a multitude of reasons why nothing has developed," the doctor explained cautiously.
Max started into the distance, oddly silent during the conversation.
"Okay, what are those reasons?"
Dr. Chelsea's eyes widened. "Er… ah… well." She looked at Max for some help. She didn't want to have to be the one who broke the news to him.
Tristan waited for the doctor's response. He couldn't look at his wife, couldn't bear to see if she was as disappointed as him. He wanted kids so desperately. Starting a family had been on his mind for some time now and he thought it was time to get a start on it before he was in his 40s.
Dr. Chelsea cleared her throat and blinked uncomfortably.
"So… there's this thing called "Tubal Ligation" it makes it almost impossible for a woman to get pregnant."
Max who was previously uninterested in the conversation was now fully invested. Her eyes narrowed at her OBGYN, she got a vertical wrinkle between her eyebrows. Her lips pursed slightly.
"The surgery involves cutting and tying off the fallopian tubes to prevent an egg from entering the uterus. The procedure is highly effective." She paused letting her words sink in.
Tristan, after that point, was unusually silent. He removed his hand from his wife's and stared unblinkingly at the doctor.
He didn't know if he processed what the woman said correctly or he was finally losing his mind. If given the option either one of those scenarios would be preferable to finding out that his wife, his significant other went behind his back and did something so selfish.
"Doc, can you give my wife and I a moment?" He whispered.
Dr. Chelsea nodded and sent Max a fixed expression. She exited the office quietly, giving the spouses their space. She remembered when she did the surgery that she had valid concerns about whether to proceed. And she had voiced those concerns to Max.
"You don't think you should talk to your husband about this first? I know the procedure is reversible but this seems like something you should talk to your spouse about and from what you told me he has no clue."
"Dr. Chelsea, I'm your patient, not him. It's my body and I'll do what I want with it. He has to accept whatever decision I make."
"Okay, if you say so."
Tristan managed to keep his breathing at a controlled pace. His right leg stopped bouncing and his face hardened in concentration.
"So you got your tubes tied…" He concluded without looking at her as a shadow pass over his eyes. "Without saying anything to me?"
She bit her lip, focusing on an empty space in the air between them. One by one she popped her fingers unconsciously.
"Yeah, uh. Yes I did." She didn't elaborate further and that seemingly pissed him off further.
"Goddamn it, Max! WHY?!" He shouted, shooting up from the couch.
She barely flinched from his raised voice. "Because it's my body, Tristan. Because what if I don't want children? You ever thought of that? It was my decision to make and I'm sticking by that."
"You didn't think with under going a procedure that big I didn't warrant even a sticky note of a heads-up? We always talked about kids and now you go and do this…"
She bounced up from the couch to match his scalding glare. "No! YOU talked about kids! I never said anything about wanting little snot nosed demons taking over my body… draining my energy… sucking away at my life." She shuddered in revulsion. "I never wanted kids."
His steely eyes flattened. "You don't want kids… or you don't want kids with me?"
Exhausted with this argument, she threw her hands up and paced in front of him as he stood still. "Oh here we go! This again! This has nothing to do with him. How many times do I have to tell you this?"
"How about until I believe it, Maxine?" He scoffed.
She replied with her own scoff as well.
"When did you even get this done? Was it recent? How long have you been hiding this from me?"
"This past June," she sighed. "A month after I got off birth control. I had a pregnancy scare and I didn't say anything. My period was late but it was only stress because of the job."
"Wow," he chuckled humorously. "You've been lying to me for 5 months. I am… appalled." He swiped his hand over his beard.
"You're appalled? You've been trying to get me pregnant since we got married. I wanted at least one thing to be in my control."
"Yes, and that's exactly what you got. You didn't think to say to me 8 years ago when we got married that you didn't want kids? A lot of this could have been avoided."
She sharply angled her body to face him and shot him a hurt look. "Are you saying you regret marrying me?"
He stared at the ceiling and huffed out a heavy sigh, filled with nothing but contempt. Tristan closed his eyes and shook his head.
"I need some space… to uh… to think about where we go after this. I'll see you at the house later." He stepped forward and pressed a perfunctory kiss to her forehead then walked out of the OBGYN office.
It was cold and she had to force herself not to shiver.
