Lucky or Just Foolish? The Story of Emily, the “Unlucky Lucky Girl”

“You really think he’s different from the rest of them?” Sarah asks, her voice sharp over the clink of ice in her glass. We’re crowded around a battered picnic table in the backyard of my parents’ house, the summer night heavy with the scent of cut grass. I’m twenty-one, sunburned and anxious, clutching my phone like a lifeline.

I force a smile. “He’s not like the guys from home, Sarah. He’s…older. He listens.”

“Older is just code for ‘knows how to hide their bullshit better,’” she snaps back, making the others laugh. My cheeks burn. They call me “Lucky Em”—but always with a smirk. Like luck is some kind of joke in my life; like everything I touch is doomed to fall apart, and all I can do is grin through it.

I met Ben during a weekend trip to Estes Park, Colorado. It was supposed to be a girls’ getaway—mountains, hiking, free lodging at Sarah’s cousin’s cabin. Then Ben appeared, all easy smiles and Army Reserve uniforms, renting the room next door. He was ten years older than me, with a voice like gravel and hands that looked like they’d seen real work. Everything about him screamed dependable—a word I’d never used for anyone I’d dated.

The first night, we stayed up talking on the porch, the mountains looming like dark guardians behind us. He told me about Afghanistan, his broken engagement, the way his mom still called him every Sunday. I told him about my unfinished college degree, my retail job at Target, my parents who fought so loudly the neighbors called the cops every other month. He listened. God, he listened.

Three days later, I came home with a new contact in my phone and a head full of dreams. Ben texted every morning—”Good morning, sunshine”—and every night—”Sleep tight, Emily.” He drove five hours just to take me to a minor league baseball game. When he asked me to move to Denver with him, I said yes before my brain could catch up with my mouth.

My parents went ballistic. “You’re moving out there with a man you barely know?” my dad shouted, slamming his fist on the kitchen table. “What if he’s just using you? What if you end up stranded out there, with nothing?”

“I’m not a kid anymore!” I screamed back. “Maybe if you two weren’t always fighting, I’d want to stay.”

My mom cried. My little brother wouldn’t look at me. Sarah called me a fool. But I packed anyway—two suitcases, a battered duffel, my dreams, and a knot of anxiety I tried to ignore.

Denver was bigger, brighter, colder than I expected. Ben’s apartment was clean, spare, full of Army memorabilia and not much else. Our first weeks were a blur of takeout dinners, job applications, and making love on a mattress on the floor. I told myself I was happy. I posted filtered photos on Instagram, pretending I was living the dream.

But the cracks showed quickly. Ben worked late, sometimes not coming home until after midnight. He was tired, distant, haunted by things he wouldn’t talk about. When I asked, he’d snap, “I just need some space, Em. Can’t you understand that?”

I got a job at a coffee shop, made friends with a barista named Chloe who wore black lipstick and told me I was too nice. I sent texts into the void—Sarah, my parents, my brother. Sometimes they replied. Sometimes they didn’t.

Then one night, Ben didn’t come home at all. I called, texted, paced the apartment until sunrise. When he finally stumbled in, his eyes bloodshot, he just grunted, “Got stuck at work.” But his work badge was gone, and there was a woman’s perfume on his shirt.

I confronted him. He swore nothing happened. He yelled, I cried. He punched the wall, not me, but the sound echoed in my bones all the same.

The next morning, I called Sarah. “You were right,” I whispered. “I’m not lucky. I’m just stupid.”

She sighed. “You’re not stupid, Em. You just want to believe the best in people. But sometimes, people aren’t worth believing in.”

I packed while Ben slept. I left a note: “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” I took the bus to Chloe’s place, slept on her couch for a week, and called my mom in tears. She didn’t say “I told you so.” She just listened, like Ben never really did.

Months passed. I found a new apartment, kept my job, started night classes. I learned that loneliness doesn’t kill you, but it sure makes you question everything. My parents visited, and for the first time in years, they didn’t fight in front of me. My brother texted me memes. Sarah sent me job listings and cat videos.

On the anniversary of my move, I sat on the porch of my new place, mountains in the distance, heart bruised but still beating. I thought about luck, and what it really means. Was I lucky, to have escaped? Or just foolish, to have believed in the first place?

If you had the chance to risk everything for love—or for something you thought was love—would you take it? Or would you hold back, afraid to look foolish? Maybe the real luck isn’t never falling; maybe it’s having the courage to get back up, again and again.