Dear Adam by Ava Zavora Page B

was on an online dating website. I only
started dating last year. That's how I met my ex-boyfriend, the one
I told you about. It's supposed to be the best one. They ask you
hundreds of questions and you get to be very specific about what
you're looking for. Then you get matched up based on scientifically
proven algorithms and points of compatibility and they set you up
on a first blind date with your matches.”
    She could hear him moving around on the other
end, opening a door and then walking as she spoke. She could hear
the wind. He was outside. The tick, tick, tick of a lighter, Adam
sucking and then exhaling. She shivered. It was unexpectedly
erotic.
    "For instance, among other things, I
specified that I definitely wanted a nonsmoker." He chuckled. "And
someone who lived near me. I rejected a bunch of profiles just
because they lived too far away."
    "And how far was too far away?" he asked,
amused.
    "Over 30 miles."
    They both started laughing.
    "I think," she said, serious again. "I think
I'll let my subscription expire."
    "How many relationships have you been
in?"
    Eden cringed. She hated answering this
question.
    "Two."
    "Your ex-husband and...."
    "The last boyfriend, yeah."
    He said nothing on the other end. He didn't
express disbelief, which could be a good sign.
    "You were married for...?"
    "Two years." Please don't ask, she silently
begged. "Together for ten. We met each other in high school."
    "Married for two years ..." He mulled this
over. "You didn't want to get married, did you? Was it against your
feminist principles?"
    "No. It's just that ..." She struggled, again
shocked by the uncanny way he arrived at the truth, that she was
the one who was reluctant to get married and not Dante's dad. "I’m
not opposed to marriage. But -"
    "You knew he wasn't the one," he finished.
"Yet you got married because your family was pressuring you. No,"
he said suddenly, as though something struck him and he changed his
mind. "You don't care for convention. For your son. You got married
because of your son," he declared, confident that he was right.
    Eden was speechless.
    "And two months or so with the ex?"
    A bit dazed, she made a vague sound
approximating a yes.
    "Do you still talk to him?"
    "No." The answer came out sharper than she
intended. She decided to turn the tables back on him.
    "Have you ever been married?"
    "No."
    "You weren't ready."
    "Yes.”
    “ See, I have a theory about
men and marriage. It's not so much about finding the right woman,
but I think men have to be ready and then they marry whoever
they're with at the time."
    "That may be true of some men. But not for
me. If I had found the right woman three years ago, I would have
married her." As with everything he's said and written, Adam's tone
was decisive, confident. She wondered if he ever doubted himself,
ever wavered.
    "You don't speak to your ex-girlfriends?"
    "None of them. They're all whores." His harsh
words were saturated with so much bitterness, Eden knew she should
tread carefully.
    "It sounds like they hurt you very much."
    "They're all opportunistic liars. All they
cared about was how much they could get out of me."
    "You're so perceptive," she began, "You see
through people, into their hearts." You could see through me, she
thought. "You're pretty smart." Understatement of the year. "Could
you not see through them?"
    "They did everything in their power to endear
themselves to me. Like my ex. She was my waitress at my favorite
bar in London. She needed a place to stay, I had an empty
apartment. And it went from there."
    "They all came to you needing help in some
way?"
    "Yes."
    She could see picture it so clearly now. The
outsider in black, treated with suspicion everywhere he went. His
heart melting with kindness from a beautiful woman, perhaps
helpless or helpless-seeming. She would have to appeal to his
old-fashioned sense of honor. He would be protective. Although he
was freakishly intelligent, women were his weakness. His blind
spot. They