February Almost Sucked

In the spring they started marriage counseling. It was mostly for Jim, to facilitate a chance for him to find a healthy perspective on their marriage again, and to help him regain some of the emasculation he'd suffered. It had a side benefit as well. Their sex life slowly returned to the gentle, warm, loving intimacy she had so loved to share with him before. The change was almost imperceptible, but throughout their lovemaking several weeks after starting marriage counseling, she felt love from Jim pouring into her and cleansing her soul in a way that was deeper than anything she'd experienced before.

In the spring, they also invited their friend group to their house for a BBQ. It also functioned as an examination of their relationships with the people they'd gone dancing with. It was immediately evident that every single one of their friends had a change of heart since they'd last all been together. Linda's admonishment of Dee had apparently gotten through to her, and after much mulling and thinking, she'd realized that Linda was right. Her part of that evening was, objectively, the wrong choice and made her a horrible friend.

After that evening they kept in touch and even went out with those same friends a few times leading up to summer.

It was one of those nights that Marc reappeared, though the circumstances were much, much different than their last encounter with the man. It mirrored the rage fueled visit he'd had when he visited their house. It was the first in a string of events spread out over the year of his attempts to try and bed Linda. He never did succeed, nor did he ever come as close as he had that first night they met. Eventually he gave up. Whether it was a change of heart, moving on, or the restraining order Linda had filed against him, no one ever knew.

Linda and Jim had some rocky moments after that night, but they worked back into each other's arms and rekindled their love for each other fully.

Jim kept his promise. He consciously chose to forgive Linda, and it was a grace she never squandered from that moment on. Any time she was even tempted, she remembered the man she so loved and it put any thoughts of anyone other than him entirely out of her mind.

A year later, the two of them were laying in bed together, naked, having just celebrated passing by a year after that fateful night. They'd not gone out, they'd not gotten a sitter. They were content to have a much more private dance together while their children slept.

Linda ran her fingers up Jim's chest as she hummed with contentment, laying on his arms and her body draped over him. "I love you, Jim."

"I love you too, Linda."

She smiled at him for a moment, then closed her eyes. A moment later they popped open. "By the way." She started. "I found your favorite crackers in stock today. Did you see them in the pantry?"

"No. That's awesome! I feel like it's been ages. I thought you said that an employee told you they just stopped buying them for the store?"

"They must have worked something out, cause they are back."

"Did you buy them all?"

"...Yes."

"Want to go have some?"

"...That's why I brought them up."

"Did our activity give you the munchies?"

"Yes, and I know it did the same for you."

He smiled and patted her shoulder. They got up out of bed, naked as the day they were born, save for a gold ring on the fourth finger of their respective left hands. She giggled as he smacked her butt walking out of the bedroom.

"Ohh, it's way too cold."

"We better get them fast then."

And they did.

Closing Notes

There you have it. Definitely not as titillating or exciting as some of the other versions of this tale. But I would hope that the exploration of how they are each changed in less severe ways is still worth reading about.

There's room to expand this version of the story, but I didn't want to write something crazy long, since I have much longer stories in the works.

I've seen plenty of adaptations of February Sucks that explore Jim and Linda splitting up, and a few less of them reconciling. I think it makes sense, Linda's actions are so wildly unjustifiable and so unexplainable that the natural end to the story suggests they would split up most of the time.

Personally, I am a much bigger fan of explorations of forgiveness and repentance as concepts, so most of the alternate versions of this story do not resonate with me at all.

This, however, is entirely different from all of those. I've only seen one other work that even tries to explore the concept of the near-miss. That's what this is... kinda.

I was reading one of the many adaptations and thinking about why this story is so popular for people to explore. I think one of the reasons is that, while on some level people can relate to the characters; we also can't relate to either of them. Jim could have stopped Linda, but he didn't. But his lack of action was almost understandable. It wasn't the worst thing in the world for her to dance with someone else.

For Linda, her actions are much, much less understandable. Her reasoning, that she thought they would just be fine, feels like it doesn't make sense given the way the characters are set-up. The fact that she went so many hours under this delusion that her husband would be just fine being walked out on seems irrational to most of us; because it is. I think it's certainly possible that people could behave that way. But I'd like to think that most people would wake up at some point before it's too late.

That's what my motivation was in this story. Linda had the most power to realize her actions were entirely unacceptable. Moments of weakness are understandable. Everyone is flawed. Everyone makes mistakes, sometimes grievously so. But I think most women in this hypothetical situation, who are in genuinely good relationships, would wake up to what they are doing just as a function of being reminded they are not with the person they are supposed to be with.

That's what I wanted to see with Linda. To give her a dose of rationality that slowly calmed her from her high to let her realize that she was making a really big mistake. I think it makes this plausible version of the story realistic and relatable. At least, that's my goal. That her actions have some reason to them, but in the end, her conscious mind pushed her hard away from letting her follow through on those actions.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it.