115 N Holmes Street: Shattered

***Daphne's perspective***

The other day Daphne was helping Mike move some boxes from the basement into the attic when it happened. A box got knocked over and a framed photo spilled out onto the floor. She reached down to pick it up. The glass was shattered over the smiling faces of the bride and groom. How fitting that art imitates life. A single tear slowly traveled down her face landing onto the photo.

Mike entered the basement ready to grab the next set of boxes. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Daphne. "Is everything okay?" His face showed genuine concern, but the tone of his voice reflected confusion. You only had to know Mike for about five minutes to realize he wasn't the cuddly feely emotional type.

Resounded to keep things professional between the two of them Daphne nodded her head. "We only have a few more boxes to move. Like you said, this basement isn't going to waterproof itself."

Maintain distance from all those around you. That's the best way to avoid getting hurt again because when you let down that guard and allow someone access to your most vulnerable self they have the ability to destroy you. Daphne hadn't always felt this way, but the divorce hardened her. And although she had opened her home to complete strangers she refused to open her heart to them. This was a business arrangement, not a family and not even a friendship.

As she carried the box with the shattered frame up to the attic her mind began to wonder to that place of uncertainty. People asked her if she saw it coming, if she knew how unhappy Aaron was. Looking back she could now see all the little signs that she had been too ignorant to pay attention to at the time. He preferred spending Saturday nights with his poker buddies than with her. Their sex life had seriously dwindled over the last year of marriage. When they were home together, they both preferred to hang out on their own. Maybe in retrospect these weren't such little signs after all.

But whose fault was it, Aaron for being so distant or Daphne for pushing him away? The truth probably was that the fault lay somewhere in between. No one is 100% innocent 100% of the time. And if Daphne was going to move past all this hurt she needed to pull away from the victim mentality that was so easy to fall into. She had to take a long hard look at herself to see how she had contributed to everything that had happened. The warm loving man she married didn't turn cold overnight and without reason. There is always a reason even if it's too painful to admit.

As the life she knew shattered she began to pull away from everyone around her. She just got so sick of having that same damn conversation over and over again; the one where people ask her how she's doing, what happened, will she be okay. Why did this divorce suddenly become the sole definition of who she was? Daphne was still a homeowner, college graduate, and successful career woman. Had this one event nullified everything else? Somehow she doubted the same was true for Aaron. The beauty of gender double standards strikes again.

The only contact she had with the man she had shared herself with in every way was through lawyers. If anyone had predicted this on her wedding day she would have never believed them. Daphne looked down at the bride smiling back at her in the photo. She shook her head while whispering "stupid bitch". If only she could go back to stop that first domino from falling.

Since time travel wasn't an option, she needed to pick up her life and move on from all this. Of course saying and doing are two entirely different things. She wanted to trust again, eventually she even wanted to date again. As far as love that seemed like a concept as foreign to her as space exploration.