It all took me back to that day. While shopping one afternoon, the air filled with the overwhelming scent of sweetness so intense, I could have sworn fresh cotton candy was being spun. I looked up from the rack of expensive clothing I was fantasizing myself wearing, only to discover that the smell was emanating from a beautifully wealthy woman. I asked her where she got the perfume and she said it was a gift from the man she loved. Oh, how I longed for a man who could buy me an extravagant perfume such as that one.

I went home that evening to my boyfriend: a nice, gentle, sensitive man who cared for me deeply. We were not wealthy by economical standards, but we were rich in love. I wish I realized back then that money wasn’t the only thing that mattered in life. Like the time we were walking and a car splashed mud onto us and although he could not save me in time from getting drenched in filthy water, he jumped in front of me in an attempt to be heroic. I rolled my eyes and dreamed of the day when I wouldn’t have to walk anywhere. Or the time he cooked homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner while my mouth salivated from fantasies of fresh lobster. Or when we bought an apartment together and he covered the whole place in rose pedals and candles and carried me in, just as he said he would do when we were married. But that day will never come because that isn’t my life any longer.

I thought my prayers had been answered when a well-dressed frame walked through the door. The flash of his Rolex convinced me it was time to leave my man and my apartment behind. My life now consists of lonely nights awaiting unreturned texts, microwaved dinners with the cat in front of the television, watching love stories and wishing they were my reality, outfits bought in the hopes of a rendezvous that never occurred, and dust on the suitcases that were never whisked away on romantic getaways as he had promised. I ended each day the way I started out--waiting.

On one of the rare occasions when he came home at night, something seemed off. I knew it long before that night, but I could never face it until I smelled that familiar, intoxicating aroma of freshly spun cotton candy. It was that perfume. With a lump in my throat, I asked, “Who is the other woman?” And he threw me a steely stare as he stated, “You are the other woman.” Did I really give up homemade macaroni and cheese for imitation lobster?”