I didn't understand it. How could it bother me so much? I'd found my soulmate- the one who HAD been since I was just a kid, and yet, the pictures of my ex's wedding stung like a thousand bees swarming all over my numb body.

Why did it matter? How did it matter? We'd moved on. Sure, Wolfgang and I had spent 4 years together, a year and a month married, but I was engaged now and he was obviously already married again.

So what was the big deal, anyway?

My heart hurt, that was the big deal. No matter how happy I was with Arnold, the thought of all the memories I'd once shared with Wolfgang plagued on in my mind on a never-ending loop. The promises he'd made, the very vows I'm sure he shared part of with his new wife at the wedding I of course was not invited to.

Every promise, every 'we'll still be friends and civil to eachother' had turned to ash. He'd promised on that rainy day that he'd never let me go, not fully. That we simply weren't right for each other and that he did love me, at some point in his life. He'd sworn that we'd still remain in contact and that he'd never let me down again, not like he had on that day.

Fast-forward to years later and he had me blocked on facebook after trying to add him when I was under the influence one night out with Phoebe.

"It isn't worth it, Helga. You know that it will only bring you hurt and strife to add him back into your life."

"Yeah Pheebs, but I don't care, that's the problem. He PROMISED me, Phoebe. PROMISED that he wouldn't do what he's done to me. You think he at least owes me this."

But Phoebe was right. He didn't owe me anything, just like I didn't owe him anything. We'd moved on, went our separate ways and found love in different places altogether. Me, with my soulmate. Him with, well, whoever the hell it was he'd married this time.

He'd never done well with impulse. After all, we were engaged after only four months, me straight out of high school and burning from the relationship I could never make work with Arnold as I was too in love with the idea of love to see it staring me right in the face.

No, I settled just like my parents did and their parents before them. I found the first way out and took it to believe in 'love' like the kind I thought I shared with Wolfgang- the only time it had found its way to me fully mine, or so I thought.

I set my phone down on the bedside table and sighed in the darkness, sleep escaping me from the images of their pathetic wedding dancing 'round my head.

"What is it?" Arnold asked as he rolled over to look at me through the shadows and I shook my head.

"Wolfgang," I sighed, "he got married. Again."

"Oh," he responded, not sure where I was headed with this. It had been so long since I'd mentioned his name as Arnold and I were happy. Blissfully happy. Things had finally worked themselves out between us and we'd worked so hard on our relationship. We were 3 years strong and engaged at 2. I was taking things slower this time, smarter, determined not to mess this up like I had the last time.

So why was Wolfgang's new marriage threatening my soon to be one? And more importantly, why was I letting it?

"You wanna talk about it?" Arnold asked and I blinked out of my thoughts and shrugged my shoulders while pulling the covers up and over my bare shoulders.

"I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."

"Why do you say that?" He questioned, his eyes glimmering in the moonlight as it shone through the window of our room in our apartment.

"I guess it's just, I don't know, he lied to me. He straight up LIED to me and then is throwing this in my face."

Arnold scrunched his brow together in confusion. "I thought you weren't friends with him on Facebook anymore?"

"No, I'm not." I said before pausing and then saying, "But I AM friends with his pretty new little wifey of his."

"Helga..."

"What? I can't help it that she's friends with mutual friends. I did have a life before us, you know. A life with parties and games and friends. More friends than we have now." The words came out angry and I couldn't help but feel bad at their tone as I shot them at Arnold.

It wasn't his fault we'd become homebodies. He wasn't a partier and frankly neither was I anymore. I'd only ever gone out to parties before to accompany Wolfgang and often found his parties to be boring and full of people much older than me.

No, Arnold and I worked a lot now, mostly. Work and online school took up most of our time even though we carved out time for eachother among the chaos. But even that time alone couldn't fog out the memories of what once was my life. A life full of social aspects and fake happiness.

And fake love, apparently.

He sat in the room watching sports as I entered and stood in the doorframe watching him maintain eye contact with the set. "Can we talk?"

Without looking up, he shrugged his shoulders. "What about?"

"Us. You seem...distant or something."

"I'm fine."

"You don't seem fine. You don't treat me fine. You hardly talk to me anymore and honestly it feels like you'd rather be anywhere but with me."

His eyes glanced over to mine before returning to the television. "I'm fine. We're fine, okay?"

I leaned against the siding of the door and crossed my arms. "Wolfgang. You can tell me anything. Please, just tell me what's wrong. What's going on?"

His finger hovered over the channel changing button before he sighed and set the remote down altogether. "Helga, I don't think I love you anymore."

I stood dumbfounded ahead of him and stared into his eyes which were still not looking at me. "Wh-what?"

"I just don't think I love you anymore."

"O-oh." I cleared my throat and pushed myself off of the door frame. "Uh, what do you, what do you want to do about it? Do you want to go to counseling? We can work on it together."

He shook his head and continued watching the sports game unfold before him as if nothing was unfolding before us in the growing-smaller room. "I don't know what I want to do. If I had to chose now, I guess I'd say I want a divorce."

"A divorce," I repeated, the words feeling numb against my tongue as they floated through the air.

And it's a divorce he got. He strung me along for days, though. Days of endless texting and waiting for him to make some decision. It wasn't until a visit with my mom that I realized her life isn't what I wanted mine to be. I was headed down a path of a man controlling my every move until I give up and drown out my sorrows just like Miriam has ever since I can remember.

I didn't want that.

So I marched over to his work that day and demanded he make a decision. Of course, he said divorce, and I told him that that was that and we were getting a divorce then. Yes, I cried, like some big baby and he faked out some tears as well that at the time seemed pretty convincing to me.

I look at it now and shake my head. I wonder what he thought he was achieving by lying to me. What was it that he believed he was doing by forcing out some tears and 'I'm sorry's all for my behalf? I didn't need his sorrows. I'd made up my mind. I was going to change my life. Sure, Wolfgang and I had made sense together. We both were sarcastic. Both very interested in the same things like wrestling and other sports. We enjoyed watching dumb TV shows and making fun of the contestants and hell, we even LOOKED good together. He was the right amount of tall to my semi-tall and at first glance, we looked like the perfect couple, completely suited for each other in every way.

Every way except what was most important.

He didn't love me.

"I've been faking the last few months of it, okay?" He said from where he sat on the bench outside his work where I'd come to visit for my final goodbye after signing the divorce papers. "I just couldn't do it anymore."

"Do what? Try? Work on us? You couldn't or you didn't want to?"

He turned to look at me and with the straightest face he'd ever given me, he said, "Both I guess."

"Helga?" Arnold called out to me and I reached up to touch his hand which was wiping tears away from my hot cheeks full of embarassment. "It's okay, you know. You can talk to me about this."

"What? About my ex-husband? What fiancee wants to hear about their partner's last marriage?"

Arnold offered a small smile and rubbed my cheek for a moment. "One who cares about you. More than you'll ever know."

I smiled back at him and found my chest begin to heave as the tears came. I couldn't stop them as I sobbed and curled into his form as he held me through each pathetic cry that escaped my mouth. Wolfgang wasn't worth this. He wasn't worth my tears or my pain and yet he was still winning it all. I was letting him and his stupid wedding pictures win out over MY happiness.

I couldn't let him win.

Not this time.

Not again.

I sat up from Arnold's arms and held his face in my hands. "I love you, Arnold. I love you more than each breath and more than each ray of sun that hits the Earth. I love you to the moon and back and it may sound cheesy and lame, but it's true. YOU mean EVERYTHING to me, you hear? Not Wolfgang, not his lies or our memories, but YOU. And if I had to go through it all again, if it led me back here to you," I swallowed and smiled through the tears that were falling down my cheeks, "I would. I would do it all over again just to be with you. All that hurt, all that pain, it was worth it to finally feel... loved."

And I did. I felt accomplished and whole when I was with Arnold. Even though he wasn't the tall to my semi-tall, the sports fan to my sports fan or the logical couple you see walking down the street, he was mine. We...just fit. Each hug felt like a puzzle piece enveloping the other. I could walk around without him, but it just felt better when I didn't have to.

It wasn't long before I fell asleep in Arnold's arms, the memories and pictures drifting away from my subconscious and back into the Pandora's box of emotions I hid inside my head. I knew there'd be more Wolfgang related tears down the road, but I also knew that I wouldn't have to walk that road alone. I had Arnold, I HAD Arnold at long last, and he was in this for the long haul no matter what I brought to the table. It had been the only thing missing in my relationship with Wolfgang and at last, I finally had it.

Who knew that pain could bring about the best things in life? Who knew that a fake love could lead to a real one that I never imagined possible?

I didn't know who to thank exactly, but I thanked my lucky stars that I'd finally found it- I'd found love. In the most unexpected place of all.

---

Well, i hope i didn't write this for nobody because this took a lot out of me to write as it's semi-autobiographical to something i just went through recently with my life. i hope you enjoyed it. please leave me a review to let me know what you think and if you think i should continue writing as i'm starting to kinda give up on the fanfiction world. i don't want to, but i kinda feel lost in it so any review would be helpful and much appreciated.

thanks yall. you're the best.

-Polka