You Must Be the One

Maroon- 2/3

Aaron was perfectly nice; Stefani was right. Worked in finance, smart, well-read, polite. Could talk about sports and the stock market in the same breath.

They went to lunch while Ali was at school; neutral territory---the sandwich place downtown. Aaron insisted on treating, a fact he didn't argue with and they got along just fine. As far as first meetings with your ex wife's new boyfriend went, it would probably be considered successful.

He could tell the guy treated Stefani decently, which was the most important thing, liked how he seemed excited about meeting Alianna, liked kids in general and spent time with his own nephews fairly frequently.

Still, the entire time, his sandwich may have well been comprised of sawdust because chewing and swallowing was damn near impossible. He could only pray no one noticed.

Thankfully, Stefani refrained from asking him what his opinion was, only making sure he was a hundred percent okay with Alianna getting to know Aaron, which he reassured her, was okay by him.

There was nothing else to do. Nothing that wouldn't risk it all. Being an asshole wasn't an option, either. It was counterproductive.

It wasn't to say the situation didn't make him feel like complete shit.

In the past, he'd throw himself head first into work to avoid feeling anything at all. Spending extra time in post production or at the office doing twelve hour days seemed far easier than dealing with the fact his marriage was falling apart.

Only it did nothing to fill the emptiness and it certainly did nothing to repair what was broken. Oh, he had done all the "right" things to try to, or that's what he told himself. Couples therapy, a vacation, better communication (really working at it, anyway)... everything but admit that the issue was him wanting more, always wanting more.

When they were first together, they lived on pure happiness. Just love and struggling didn't seem so terrible...not when they had each other.

They were both actors back then, meeting by chance at an audition and that had been that, really. It was an amazing thing to come home from a shit day to someone who completely understood where you were coming from without having to provide an explanation.

It was great until he was hit with the desire to give her more. She never asked, never wanted anything other than to work hard and him... but he loved her so goddamned much and she deserved everything.

"I want to be able to support you. And I can't do it like this."

"You don't have to support me, Bradley," she'd implored. "We're a team, you and me. What's mine is yours. You're the man I'm going to marry."

The sentiment made him simultaneously choke up and laid down an enormous sense of responsibility to make certain he was worthy of her.

Luckily, he was able to break into the other side of acting, writing his own scripts, directing and producing, eventually forming his own production company from the ground up. It wasn't long before his business was fairly successful and it was only up from there.

Success, though, proved to be subjective. All the money, the work, the accolades...none of it proved to be important because gradually, he had lost sight of what was.

By then, it was too late. The gap between them was a mile wide and there was no closing it; the damage done.

It weighed heavily on him, this need for Stefani to know just how badly he'd fucked it all up. Perhaps it wouldn't change anything.

He knew that she didn't blame him for the way they fell apart at the seams, but he blamed himself.

"Aaron's nice," Alianna remarked casually the following weekend over pizza. "I like him."