The hyphenated past

"Sometimes I wish I was married." she sighed.
"Why?"
"I would love to be part of a dual entity. The hypenated combination of 2 names. The illusion that you are no longer alone in this world.
It's so easy to just give in. To give up all that you are and become part of that person you love. It's an almost religious belief, beyond all rationality: to trust another person with your life. To hand over the steering wheel voluntarily to a pirate.
To risk being pushed up a small wooden gangway and into the sea, after being stripped of treasures and ornaments."
"The hyphen is there for a reason." I tell her. "In our world only genes can unite. There is no everlasting, complete, balanced union of passion and love, only collaboration and support or hate and battle." I pause.
"I was married once, you know."
She looks me in the eye, surpised.
"I shoudn't have done it, I know. But I wanted the fairytale. I liked the beginning of the story so much, I wanted to live it."
"Although you had read the ending?"
"Yes," I answered. "It lasted 5 years. Then, one day, I found them together in our bed, all sweaty with lust and desire and an empty gaze in their eyes.
"Join us", they whispered. It's not exclusive. You are part of us. We don't lock you out."
They should have. I stepped back, onto the small wooden board. The fresh breeze of the waves brushing against my legs, lifting my skirts. And then I fell, along the boat with it's small portholes and big anchor chains into the wild ocean. In my hands the small bloodstained golden key that was my wedding ring.