My life, Unfortunately

Chapter One: Before Everything Changed

I’m twenty-three, I live in New Hampshire, and apparently, I’m at the age where every little thing thinks they have a personal responsibility to ask me when I’m getting married.

My aunties are especially talented at it.

Every family gathering somehow turns into an interrogation.

“So, Fiona, is there someone?”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“Don’t you think it’s time you settled down?”

Sometimes I wonder if they think I wake up every morning and forget that I’m single.

But before anyone starts feeling sorry for me, let me introduce myself properly.

My name is Fiona. I’m twenty-three years old, and I live alone in New Hampshire.

I come from a family of six. My parents, my three siblings, and me.

Growing up, our house was rarely quiet. With three siblings around, there was always something happening. Someone was arguing over something that didn’t matter, someone was looking for something they had misplaced, someone was laughing too loudly, and somehow, someone always had a story to tell.

My childhood was actually pretty interesting.

Not the kind of childhood that belongs in some dramatic movie where everything is perfect or tragic. Just the kind where you have enough memories to randomly remember something years later and laugh to yourself.

I miss those days sometimes.

Now, life is considerably quieter.

Every morning, before I do anything else, I pray.

It’s one of the few things in my routine that never changes.

I wake up, say my prayers, spend a little time with God, and then finally convince myself that getting out of bed is necessary.

After that, my day usually becomes predictable.

Get ready for work.

Go to work.

Come home.

Eat.

Shower.

Scroll through TikTok for an unreasonable amount of time.

Watch movies or whatever reality show has managed to catch my attention.

Then sleep.

And repeat.

I work for a company that specializes in books and novels, which is probably one of the few things about my life that sounds more exciting than it actually is.

Don’t get me wrong. I love books.

I love stories.

I love seeing how an idea can turn into something that makes a complete stranger laugh, cry, fall in love with fictional characters, or stay awake until two in the morning because they need to know what happens next.

But working around stories all day doesn’t exactly mean my own life is one.

Most of my days are pretty ordinary.

And honestly, I don’t mind it.

At least most of the time.

I live alone, so there isn’t anyone waiting for me when I get home.

No roommate asking how my day went.

No siblings fighting over the television.

No one stealing my food from the fridge.

Just me.

Sometimes I like the quiet.

Other times, the quiet reminds me that I’m alone.

And that’s usually when my mind starts wandering.

Especially when it comes to love.

I’ve always thought love was a deep and beautiful thing.

Maybe that’s because I’ve always been surrounded by different versions of it.

My family had theirs.

My friends had theirs.

And I had mine—or at least, I thought I did.

I had two close friends who lived in New Hampshire with me, Georgia and Betsy, and between the three of us, our love lives couldn’t have been more different.

Georgia was beautiful.

The kind of beautiful that made people notice her without her having to try.

Her love life, however, was a completely different story.

She had a whole roster of men.

I stopped trying to keep up a long time ago.

One week, there was one guy.

The next week, another.

Sometimes there were several at once, and somehow, Georgia always had a story to tell about each of them.

Her love life was chaotic, dramatic, and confusing.

But somehow, it was still more stable than mine.

Then there was Betsy.

Betsy had the kind of relationship people secretly wished for.

A handsome, caring, loving boyfriend who seemed to adore her.

They were stable.

They were happy.

They were disgustingly cute sometimes.

And, unfortunately for me, I got to hear about it.

Every day, I experienced both sides of love through my friends.

Georgia gave me the bittersweet, chaotic version.

Betsy gave me the soft, comforting version.

And then there was me.

Right in the middle of these two women and their completely different love lives.

The funny thing was, I still believed in love.

Actually, I believed in it a lot.

I wanted the kind of love that felt like more than just having someone to call your boyfriend or girlfriend.

I didn’t want every date to be a restaurant or a café just because that’s what people seemed to do.

I wanted activity dates.

Bowling.

Paint and sip.

Karaoke.

Going to the beach.

Watching the sunset together.

I wanted someone who would cook with me in the kitchen, even if neither of us knew what we were doing.

I wanted us to dance for no reason.

I wanted us to jump on the bed like children and laugh until we couldn’t breathe.

I wanted someone loving.

Someone caring.

Someone who actually wanted to experience life with me.

Maybe that sounded like a lot.

Maybe it was.

But I didn’t think love was supposed to feel like settling.

I wanted something that felt real.

Something that made ordinary days exciting simply because I was sharing them with the right person.

And maybe that was where I had gone wrong.

Maybe I had spent so much time imagining what love should look like that reality never seemed good enough.

But I wasn’t giving up on it.

Not yet.

For now, I had my little apartment in New Hampshire, my job, my two best friends, my family, my prayers, my endless TikTok scrolling, my reality shows, and a head full of romantic fantasies.

And, for the moment, that was my life.

At least, that was my life before everything changed.