AUTHOR GUEST POST: Elizabeth Marx

When The One That Got Away Was the ONE!

I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot lately, probably because my novella Cutters vs. Jocks is about a couple who meet in college, have a brief relationship which results in an unexpected pregnancy, and break up. Its companion novel, Binding Arbitration starts when they are forced to meet again six years later, neither of them ever expected to see the other one again, and neither of them is happy about the meeting or the resulting questions they have to ask themselves.

Their story begs me to ask the question: what happened in between? Were they pining away for each other? With a raised eyebrow, I say, “Be serious. He’s a professional athlete, and there’s testosterone and Baseball Annie’s (groupies) to deal with!” Or were they moving forward with their lives and not examining what happened back then. She’s a big time criminal defense attorney, who graduated at the top of her law school class while raising a child single handedly; I don’t think she stopped to examine it.

I believe there are two schools of thought, or teams, on the issue of the one that got away. For lack of better identifiers and because I’m from Chi town and my books are set here, let’s call them the Cubs and the Sox. Now, the Cubs are the ones pining away for the one that got away, and the fact that they were cursed by a lady with a goat hasn’t helped their statistics. The Sox are the ones moving onto natural grass and greener pastures without a backwards glance, in case you didn’t know they’re world champions.

Now I’m on team Sox all the way. I’ve never pined away for an ex, secretly called him just to see ‘what he’s up to’, Googled him or tried to find him on Facebook. Whether this because I really didn’t love him or when the relationship ended I had already exhausted every measure to keep it going, I can’t say. Maybe, I’m a once it was over, it was over for good kind of girl? Let’s face it, I’m a romantic at heart, I write contemporary romance for crying out loud, so I should be on the Cubs team, pining away for my one true love, or it could be I got lucky and married mine. This is good because I find the idea of longing for someone sad. I can’t imagine living a life without the person you love, especially knowing there out there and they’re not part of your world. I think that kind of yearning might break the spirit.

The cynics will say people don’t die over a love affair gone wrong.

Which brings me to the example that will be glaringly familiar to many of you, Wuthering Heights. And let’s face it, Bronte really meant, Withering Hearts, a device she probably learned from Dickens. We have the passionate but doomed lovers, Catherine and Heathcliff, and while Catherine is very much in love with Heathcliff she allows another man to court her because in the eyes of the world Heathcliff is an unacceptable match. Heathcliff runs away to make something of his self and to prove her wrong, and then returns to find Cathy married. Heathcliff cannot accept the situation and he literally pines away for Cathy for the rest of his life, he is so obsessed with her, and later her memory, he takes stalking to a level that almost destroys countless lives. It’s to die for kind of love, how many people love someone so much they dig up their grave and cuddle with their corpse. For Heathcliff it’s a little more than pining. Of course this is a novel and extreme, but this is what I meant about how depressing it must be to brood over someone you’ll never have.

In Binding Arbitration, neither of the star-crossed lovers realizes they were waiting for the other one until they’re in too deep. They are still attracted to each other, perhaps even more so, but they don’t realize that the heart wants what the heart wants until it’s too late.

So the question is: are you on Team Cubs pining away or Team Sox always looking forward? Post a comment and let us know which team you’re on. Or are you stuck in Binding Arbitration like Libby and Aidan, afraid to even ask the question? I’m especially interested in those of you pining away and hoping those of you who aren’t pining away, aren’t because you have captured the heart of your Heathcliff.

Happy reading!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Windy city writer, Elizabeth Marx, brings cosmopolitan life alive in her fiction—a blend of romance, fast-paced Chicago living, and a sprinkle of magical realism. Elizabeth resides with her husband, girls, and two cats who’ve spelled everyone into believing they’re really dogs. She grew up in the city, has traveled extensively, and still says there’s no town like Chi town.

Find the author online: website | facebook

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ABOUT THE BOOKS

On the idyllic campus of Indiana University, Little-Libby-Nobody clashes with Band-Aid All-American-Athlete and fireworks explode, spiraling Libby and Aidan into a collision course of love at first sight versus lust you can’t fight. Libby believes superstar jocks don’t take cutters to Rose Well House, at midnight and pledge their undying devotion beneath its sparkling dome. And Band-Aid imagines there’s no place in the major leagues for a small-town waitress. As the game plays out and their affection grows, they realize that labels like cutters and jocks can’t extinguish what’s between them.

Cutter vs. Jocks is a free Kindle read
and free for Nook.

Through the corridors of the Windy City’s criminal courts, single mother, Libby Tucker, doesn’t wonder how far she’s willing to go to save her son’s life from cancer. The undefeated defense attorney knows she’ll take her case all the way to the majors.

Libby pleads her case at the cleats of celebrity baseball player, Banford Aidan Palowski, the man who discarded her at college graduation, begging him to live up to his biological duty. Libby’s worked her backside bare for everything she’s attained, while Band-Aid has been indulged since he slid through the birth canal and landed in a pile of Gold Coast money. But helping her might jeopardize the only thing the jock worships: his baseball career.

If baseball imitates life, Aidan admits his appears to be silver-plated peanuts, until, an unexpected confrontation with the most spectacular prize that’s ever poured from a caramel corn box blindsides him. Libby reveals his son desperately needs him and it pricks open the wound he’s carried since he abandoned her.

All Libby wants is a little anonymous DNA, but Band-Aid has a magical umpire in his head who knows Libby’s a fateball right to the heart. When a six-year-old sage, and a hippy priestess step onto the field there’s more to settle between Libby and Aidan then heartache, redemption, and forgiveness.

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**GIVEAWAY**

Thanks to Elizabeth Marx, two lucky winners will receive an ebook copy of Binding Arbitration – one winner from Team Cubs and one from the Team Sox. Giveaway open Internationally. Answer Elizabeth Marx’s question in the comments and fill out the Rafflecopter form to enter. Giveaway ends February 16th, 2012. Please read Terms & Conditions at the bottom of the Rafflecopter form before entering. Good luck to all who enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway