Her Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
Henley, being named Henley after all, had
decided long ago that he must have cruel and unusual parents. Not only was Henley an uncommon first name,
it was also gender neutral, and it was the name of a type of shirt as well as
the last name to famous musician Don Henley.
When asked about it, his parents remembered picking the name from a list
of Old English names, but nothing involving a secret love of The Eagles. Their reasoning was that they wanted a unique
child so they felt it appropriate that they give him a unique name. To that effort they had great success. If they had a secondary goal of getting their
son made fun of as a child, they were two for two.
Henley
grew into his name and found he appreciated it more than he ever would have
imagined. There is something special
about being special, or so he told himself.
Henley found that men and women both just naturally liked him. They liked his name. They liked saying it and using it as a
nickname. Henley often wondered if he
had been named David or Joe if he would ever have received the amount of
attention that he garnered. Rather than
run any experiments with using a different moniker, Henley simply embraced the
power of an interesting name and milked it for all it was worth.
To
say that Henley liked women would have been putting it mildly. Henley loved women. As a teen he had been girl crazy. He never outgrew that. Henley dated often and often recklessly,
having two or three girlfriends at a time.
This led to messy and painful emotional scenes and breakups, but for the
most part he was quite content with this system.
And
a system was what he had developed.
Henley hadn’t sat down and written out a system. He had no manifesto or dating checklist, but
conscious or not, he had a system. If he
had been deep enough for self-analysis he would have dubbed it a system of pain
minimization. He dated a lot, cared a
lot less, and never got hurt. Henley had
seen too many relationships end and had been part of a great deal himself. He had no faith in love or belief that there
were such things as soul mates or life partners or some destiny or fate awaited
us all. Henley was a realist, or a
pessimist as some others might see it.
He knew people were all flesh and blood and chemicals and
pheromones. There as no such thing as
love, other than some endorphins that were released and lasted in the body for
about seven years. Holding such a negative
view on love allowed him to never seek it and to simply date for the fun of
dating. He wasn’t lonely; there was
always some one new. He wasn’t
heartbroken; he never believed he was supposed to be with anyone. He wasn’t cruel; he was always honest and
open about his beliefs and never misled a woman he pursued.
Henley
did have one girl that was more important than the others. He had dated a girl named Hannah in high
school. They had gotten along well
together, but neither one was all that serious about the other. They both used the other one to lose their
virginity and it seemed like that was good enough for both. Years later during summer break from college
they had begun another fling. It filled
the summer nights and made them both happy.
When the fall semester came neither one cared too much that it was time
to move on. During their class reunion
they reconnected and shared an exciting hour together while both their dates
wondered what had happened to them. Five
years later Hannah had decided it was time to settle down and have herself a
family. Henley didn’t think he would be
interested. He had no desire to think
about the future or old age or any of the finite elements of existence.
When
Henley met Helen, he finally understood.
He finally believed in unconditional love and lifelong soul mates and
other such romantic things. He had never
thought about weddings or spawns or what it would be like to be a father. He was glad he let Hannah talk him into all
three.
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