Some of the guys she talked to were nice. Most had serious relationship issues they were getting over or immaturity problems. She talked to them until they started to talk about sex and then they were blocked. This went on for months. When she refused to meet them in person they ended the online friendship with her. One man was hard to refuse, Brian. He was funny, nice and had a lot in common with her. He was also dating someone else, which made him perfect. They talked online for hours at a time.

Things changed quickly when Brian dumped his girlfriend for her. It was difficult to continue to talk to him. He wanted to meet her. It couldn’t happen, she felt awkward and ugly. She didn’t think much of herself at all, which was one reason she didn’t like to date much. Her self-esteem was non-existent. She really thought she was the ugliest girl in the world and Brian would take one look at her and run the other way.

The day he ended their online friendship she actually cried. She knew if she met him in real life she would fall head over heels in love with him if he was even one tenth like the Brian she knew online. After that she didn’t talk to many people online. It hurt too much.

After several months of avoiding emails from guys wanting to chat an email from Jeff caught her eye. She began talking to him and liked what she read. He was a few years older than her, but his dating history was practically non-existent. He was intelligent, funny and appreciated her sense of humor and he never talked to her sexually.

When he asked to meet her in person she didn’t hesitate. She was a nervous wreck the entire day. She tried to keep busy with work and friends, but nothing kept her hands from shaking. They had to set a midnight date because of her job, leaving her with the entire day to be nervous.

She didn’t have any expectations of the date. Actually, she refused to have any expectations. The last thing she needed was to feel the pain when this guy saw her and ran screaming the other way. But he didn’t. He gave her an angelic smile when they met. He was handsome, but he had low self-esteem like her, which at that point was the only explanation she could give herself for his lack in dating experience.

Everything in her life improved the moment Jeff entered it. Dana began to focus on her own life. She started applying for other EMT positions and landed one in Boston. It was unbelievable and surprising. Boston was an ideal location for an EMT. There were so many possibilities and so much experience to be gained.

She also moved out on her own for the first time in her life. The freedom was great. She had the typical first apartment experience, a small two bedroom dump with a slum lord, but it was hers and she was proud of it. Who cared if there was no heat in the winter and sometimes she went days without hot water and had to endure ice cold showers? She was free.

Things with Jeff were great. They took things slowly and fell in love. Things became hot and heavy quickly, but they held off consummating their relationship for several months. Dana couldn’t sleep with a man she wasn’t in love with, not again. She also couldn’t stand the thought of ha**ng s*x with a man without a sense of commitment.

It was embarrassing for her to open up to a man sexually. The thought of sleeping with a man only to break up with him and see him in public sent shivers down her spine. What if the relationship ended poorly? There would be nothing stopping him from telling all his buddies all the sordid details of their relationship. No, she couldn’t just sleep with a man she didn’t love.

Jeff spoke those three little words to her just a month after they began dating. It took her breath away when he said it only to realize she was closely coming to feel the same way. Still they held off taking their relationship to the next level.

When they did, it was unreal and unplanned. It was beyond words for her. They made love all night in a hotel room they decided spur of the moment to rent because their makeout session became a little too hot and heavy for public, that and a cop caught them making out in her car…on the side of the road…with most of their clothes already undone….with her straddling his lap. Things probably wouldn’t have progressed that night if they hadn’t been kicked out of their favorite spot.

Dana made the mistake of confusing love with great sex. In her mind the two were the same. She couldn’t imagine a man making her feel that good without love being involved. She was young, na?ve and in over her head.

Things started going downhill for her professionally. She had to leave her job in Boston for something closer to home because of her car. Then she began working at a mom and pop ambulance company with some of the cruelest people she had ever met.

She was what they liked to call a “whistleblower”. She began reporting the abuse she saw when she responded to nursing homes for patients that had clearly suffered abuse and neglect at the hands of those entrusted with their care.

She was reprimanded by the company she worked for when they began losing nursing home contracts. The nursing homes were being fined and families were using Dana’s reports to press charges. When they demanded she alter her reports to clear the nursing home staff of abuse she flat out refused.

After she lost that job she was black listed. She would never work in emergency care again. She moved onto residential programs helping kids. The jobs were stressful, paid poorly and were god awful except for the kids who were the only plus in the jobs. She got along with all the kids the staff deemed “losers” and “bad seeds”.

Her relationship progressed with Jeff even though Jeff’s family turned out to be an absolute nightmare. Something she never contemplated. They were horrid people. Thankfully there weren’t that many people in his family. Everything in his family seemed to wrap around his mother. Dana felt uncomfortable with his mother the first minute she laid eyes on her.

The smorgasbord of mental problems in his family made Dana cringe. His family consisted of a small group of people that would drive Dr. Phil to drink. Dana avoided his family as best she could. It was a blessing that Jeff wasn’t close to his family. Just the thought of spending weekends and holidays with them was enough to send her screaming into the night.

Things between them cooled off considerably after the “I do’s.” Jeff became obsessed with his computer and video games. Something she was unaware that he did when he wasn’t around her. She knew he used a computer, he was a computer tech after all, but she didn’t know it was an obsession.

Jeff only came out of his office for meals and then he'd return to his "man town." Soon they slept separately. There were a thousand and one excuses how that happened, but the truth was they weren’t friends and weren’t in love. It happens. She wasn’t sure how it happened but they ended up pregnant twice. Jeff wasn’t a part of either pregnancy. He showed no interest and didn’t talk about it. Something she hadn't expected from him. She thought he would be an attentive husband and father, boy had she been wrong.

Her attention went back to the video playing. A small smile touched her lips. She liked seeing Edward. Hell, she liked seeing anyone relaxed and enjoying life completely. It gave her hope and an ache for what life could be, scratch that, should be for her. She loved her daughter and son very much, but part of her deeply regretted how life had turned out for her.

She was a twenty-eight year old stay at home mom of two small children in an unhappy marriage. Dana was sure she wasn’t the exception, just the rule. She had no doubt men and women both got themselves into a loveless marriage only because they confused good sex with love or even worse she suspected she had been young and na?ve and in love with the idea of being in love.

“Mommy!” Cole cried.

Dana pushed her desk chair back and went to see her small son. This was part of her nightly routine. Cole slept in his older sister’s room until he woke up around eleven. Then he came to sleep in her room. It didn’t bother her that her very sweet two year old son kept hogging her king size bed on her. They needed each other. Cole was a sensitive tough guy and she hated being alone at night when the loneliness seemed to multiply.

She chuckled softly when she saw Cole standing in front of the baby safety gate that kept him from roaming the house at night. He stood waiting for her in only his diaper with his arms up in the air with his blanket fiercely in his hand as he silently demanded her to pick him up.