Love’s Gamble

“Can you blame us?” said Peter, his clipped and educated accent cutting through like a knife through butter. “You don’t really seem like the type of person that would stick with anything, least of all an actual person for the rest of your life. You just… seem like you would want a more temporary arrangement.”

Freema got up. “I suddenly do not feel like playing. I am going to go outside and get some fresh air.”

“What?” said Roseanne. “Come on honey, just come and sit down. Play a few games with us. We’ll call the bet off, okay? How about that?”

Freema sighed and said, “First of all, the fact that the bet was placed in the first place is extremely fu*ked up and there is nothing really you guys can do to fix that. Secondly, the reason I’m leaving is not that you placed the bet. Not exactly.”

“Then what is the reason?” asked Roseanne. Freema only sighed and exited through the back door of the Totoya. She could not tell her. She could not find the words to describe what she was feeling right now. She simply did not have it in her to tell those guys that she felt terrible because they would not have placed this bet if she had not given them a reason to. They were good gamblers, if there were people that bet against her relationship then it would be because they saw in her the potential for failure.

What if they were right? The odds couldn’t have been all that bad for her to mess things up here. If that was the case… then was it only inevitable that she would break Ken’s heart? Was it inevitable that she would not be able to last with him?

There was too much going on. Freema’s head was cacophonous, and the din was drowning out the joy that she had been feeling with Ken. She started to wonder if she truly felt the way that she had thought she felt. She started to wonder if she had actually felt anything for Ken. What did she want from her life anyway? A husband? Children? She did not know. And that was a problem, because Ken did know. They had only talked about it briefly because it was far too early in their relationship to discuss something like this, but Ken had told her that he wanted kids. He wanted a family, and he was sure of it. Freema was unsure, and this would become a point of contention between them.

What else was there? How many things were there that could end up coming between her and Ken? Now that she knew her so called friends had calculated the odds and a lot of them had considered the odds good enough to bet against her, she was starting to calculate every single possibility. She was starting to wonder if there was a future for her and Ken.

What if he stopped loving her? What if he got bored of her? It was a very real possibility. She was a difficult person to love, after all.

What if she stopped loving him? That would be even worse, because it would break Ken’s heart. How could she ever forgive herself if that happened? What would she do? Would she continue with him as if her feelings didn’t matter, or would she crush Ken and move on? Neither of those options were very appealing, and Freema was starting to realize that she was stuck in between a rock and a hard place here. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know where to go.

Nothing made sense anymore. Why did all the happiness in her world turn to ash eventually?