The God Particle by Richard Cox

woke up one day and realized there were a number of ways in which he was not doing his half, but does that excuse her for blindsiding him? For announcing one day that everything she had promised him, every “forever” she’d uttered, had all been nullified? That because James neglected to fulfill certain unspecified deliverables, it was her privilege to throw him out the door and become single again?
    Take the guy from the plane, the physicist. A handsome man whose intelligence had intimidated her, whose easy manner and quiet confidence had been surprising, considering her stereotypical notion of scientists. She’d been a little annoyed at the effortless way he dismissed spirituality, but she also enjoyed listening to his ideas, comparing them to her own rediscovered beliefs.
    Most of the men who approach her are star-struck fans, men infatuated with her pancaked face on their thirty-five-inch televisions, with her clear lip gloss and glued-together hair and crisp consonant articulation.
I love your C’s,
one guy told her.
My name is Chris Carland. Would you say my name?
Or they’re rich or confident men who, because of her high-profile job, consider her a cut above, a woman fortunate enough to stand on a pedestal as high as their own.
You’re Kelly Smith, the news anchor. I’m Howard Farris, trial attorney. I’m Fred Haley of Haley’s Fine Furnishings. I’m James Delaney; I’m a screenwriter.
    Of course, the last one had worked. James turned out to be creative and in love with language and stories about people, just like Kelly herself. Their chemistry was instant and it didn’t matter that he hadn’t actually
sold
a screenplay, that he had only finished two so far and they weren’t—by his own admission—particularly good. She admired his persistence and determination. She was flattered by the way he was infatuated with her. They dated for a few weeks—he doted on her from the beginning, gentlemanly, perfect—and then found each other’s bodies. He was attentive. He tried to please her before he took anything for himself. She loved him for that.
    And wouldn’t it be easy, wouldn’t it solve this heartbreaking dilemma, if she could fall out of love as quickly as she had fallen in? Sometimes she wishes he would call her up on the phone and admit that he hates her, that last night he slept with her sister, and by the way she’s never going to get that network job she so desperately craves because she is the worst news anchor in the country. She might get over him if he didn’t continue to dote on her. If he stopped e-mailing her with observations about her on-air performance or ideas for her weekly family feature. And while she’s being honest with herself, Kelly shouldn’t forget that she still does the same kinds of things for him. Because it comes naturally to her. Because she still cares about him.
    She could have given her phone number to Mike McNair. She could have met him for dinner, a little red wine, maybe even a kiss. But when Kelly thinks of the conventions of daily life with James—buying groceries, huddling together in a dark movie theater, sleeping safely in his strong, warm arms—and then attempts in these memories to replace James with someone else, it seems utterly alien. James is what she knows. For a time she believed she was going to marry him. How do you erase an idea like that? How do you forget?
    Their relationship ended abruptly, a few months after James quit his job to write full time. Kelly had no problem financing this experiment until she realized he was producing even less work than before. He turned inward, away from her, and she realized they could never build a happy marriage if James himself wasn’t happy. He refused to seek counseling. He made it clear that he wouldn’t look for another job, because to do so was to deny his dream. Could Kelly love him, he admonished, and ask him to deny his dream?
    But when the lights go out and she cries into her pillow because his