two new people
He was pulling the refrigerator away from the wall to clean behind it when he saw the magnet. Somehow it had fallen on the floor and ended up under the refrigerator where it had been forgotten for the last four years. He picked it up and stared at it for a long minute before he put it on the counter to resume his cleaning. But the memory associated with the magnet rose from the ashes like a phoenix and flared to life.

They had been planning their honeymoon: Hawaii in the spring. They had both been there before, but never together. They had talked about all the things they wanted to do, snorkeling and exploring the big island. He'd started making a list of all the food trucks he wanted to try and was planning to make a reservation for a luau. Everything seemed to be falling into place and he couldn't remember being as excited about anything as he was for their honeymoon.

During a lunch date, the two of them had gone to a Hawaiian restaurant and purchased one of the Hawaii shaped magnets the restaurant sold at their cash register. Something to remind them of what they could look forward to once the madness of the wedding was over and they were settled into their new life together. He'd put the magnet on the fridge when they got back to his place and they'd stood there, arms wrapped around each other admiring it and talking about their excitement surrounding their impending visit.

It was only a couple of weeks later that she told him she thought she might be pregnant. Panic had risen in him like bile and he had felt like he might have a heart attack then and there. He had known that it wasn't a good look, that she was trying to lean on him and count on him to be strong. Neither of them had planned on having children so soon, but they had talked about it for the future. They both wanted them. Just not right now. The magnitude of how his life was going to change made him call off the wedding. It wasn't that he didn't love her and didn't want to spend his life with her. It was that he just didn't feel ready for that kind of change. Especially the kind involving children.

His sister was going through marriage troubles of her own and he didn't want that for himself. Her children were young and if there was a divorce in their future, they wouldn't have both parents in their world anymore. Jax didn't want to subject his own children to something similar, and it spoke volumes that he was already considering that his own marriage would end in divorce, too.

In the end, her pregnancy had been a false alarm, and it only served to make things between them worse. She didn't trust him now, and he knew he deserved it. She couldn't understand why he was calling everything off when they had been so happy. If he loved her, why didn't he want to be with her? Although he had tried to explain that he did still love her and wanted to be with her, he just wasn't ready to be married, it was too little too late. She left him the next week and somewhere in the shuffle the magnet had been bumped off the refrigerator and slid underneath it.

Once the refrigerator was back in place, he looked at the magnet again. He still hadn't been back to Hawaii since his relationship had dissolved. It had been four years, though. She'd moved on and he was doing the same. He put the magnet back on the front of the refrigerator, a reminder that he would like to go to Hawaii soon.