Winter Blues (25 page)

A flicker of hope sparks in my gut as I imagine her choosing me. Even now I can delude myself with ideals. Her eyes stay fixed on the floor, hiding what she is feeling, what she is about to throw at me.

“Pilgrim...”

At that word, that name,
that reminder of our brief but impassioned history, her eyes lock with mine. Moments pass, wordlessly, but the silence says more than any words could. I see regret, I see anger, I see vulnerability that makes me want to shield her from the world and Reid. But most of all I see disappointment. I don’t know what I could possibly do or say to remedy that.

With a resigned sigh
Darlene opens her mouth to speak and I no longer hold onto any hope. “Goodbye, Blue.”

39

Darlene

Reid is already pacing the room by the time I make it back to our apartment. He has a towel in his hand, which when he sees me he tosses for me to catch. I take off my soaked through jacket and take a seat on my favorite chair. With the towel pressed hard against my face I try to sift through what has just happened, how it came to be that my life got flipped upside down.

He knows.

“When did you find out?” I ask, working the towel through my hair.

Looking at me as he removes his
wet, clingy shirt, he raises his eyebrows. “Does it matter?”

“Yes,” I answer without missing a beat. “I’m confused by this all, Reid. I don’t get it…I…you’ve known for how long?”

“Darlene, all that matters is that I don’t care,” Reid says, dropping his voice as he steps closer, but I step back
. He doesn’t care?
He doesn’t care that I’ve been having an affair, that I’ve slept with another man and had feelings for someone that isn’t him?

What does that say about our relationship?

“Look, I’ll explain, okay? I’ll tell you everything but you need to hear me out. No interruptions.” He waits until I nod before he continues, returning to pacing the room like he’s running tracks through his mind. “I’ve known since I got back from New York. I came to watch you perform and I saw it, the two of you gorging on each other from across the room. I waited around and saw you kiss.” He runs his hands harshly over his face, pulling at his eyelids, his mouth. “I thought it was over between us. You’d done the unthinkable.”

As Reid collapses onto the couch, his elbows supporting him on his knees, I think back to that very night and what he must have seen.
I’m humiliated and so incredibly ashamed.

“I was waiting to confront you the next day and I...I couldn’
t. We argued, you remember? And I realized how much of a role I had to play in it...in the affair.” He says the words like they’re painful to speak. They’re painful to hear. “I all but wrapped you in a bow and gave you to him. How could I blame you without blaming myself?”

“You should have told me.
Straight away. I would have finished it.”

“Exactly. But you wouldn’t have wanted to. You would have finished
it because you’re a good person and because that’s what would have been expected of you.”

“I would have finished it because I love you.”

“Not enough. And that’s my fault. I had to win it back.”

“You had to win my love back?”

He nods.

“From Blue?”

He nods again and I feel sick.

Wiping the tears from my eyes
, it is me who is pacing now. Confusion is making way for upset and anger that for weeks we have been lying to each other. While I know it is I who is in the wrong I can’t shake the feeling that his reaction lessens what I thought we had.

With unconcealed irritation I ask,
“Was this a competition?”

“What?”

“You and Blue. It was a pissing contest the moment you first met. Was this just an extension of that?” My voice is high and broken by the restrained lump in my throat.

“No, this was about me deserving your love again. About you making the right decision, not the forced one!”

“I don’t believe you. I think this was more about your ego than it was about me.”

“You’re wrong, Darlene. If it was about my ego I would have left you!”

“You should have! You should be mad at me! That you have been able to live a normal life with me despite knowing what you know makes me wonder if you really love me at all. How could you be so calm about me sleeping with someone else? Weren’t you upset? Weren’t you angry? You get pissed at me for forgetting my phone but this you can overlook?”

His eyes burn with his own fury and I welcome it, I encourage it. I need to feel something from him, anything other than this coolness. “Trust me, you fucking someone else has not been overlooked.”

“Really?” I bite on an eye roll.

I can almost see the red flush over him as he interjects my pacing. He grips me by the shoulders so much that I wince. Those eyes, so emotive and telling, speak of weeks worth of frustration and I find myself believing him before he even speaks.

His voice loud and broken, he yells, “You want to hear what I’ve been through? You want to hear what has been going on in my head? I’ve fought with the image of you fucking like rabbits every time I close my eyes! I’ve dealt with questions that no husband should ever have to deal with! Does he make her scream like I can? Does he appreciate how amazing she is and not just how amazing she is in bed?…Does she love him?”

Tears pool in his eyes and it breaks me to see him so beaten. He looks up to the ceiling in anger, trying to control his emotions, but he’s failing as much as I am. “I am a broken man, Darlene, and the only thing that has held me together is the hope that we can work through this. I had to believe that we could work through this because I wouldn’t have survived if I didn’t. I
hated
you…”

I shove him with all I can but he holds me tighter, shaking me enough until I stop struggling. I can barely see him through my abused, wet eyes, but I can feel his power, his desperation.

“…I hated you…but I loved you so much more.”

I sob into his chest. It’s not a choice. My body has taken over. I’m barely audible as I say, “If you loved me you should have told me to stop. The fact that you didn’t scares me.”

“The fact that we are still together is a testament to how much I love you! That I have been able to work through this with you, to still find you the most amazing woman I have ever met should show you how insanely in love with you I am!”

“Or just insane,” I mumble. “Jesus, Reid.”

I pull away and he lets me.

Time passes as we stand facing each other, hovering over the broken pieces of our marriage and wondering if we can even begin to put it back together
again. If my affair doesn’t end us, then surely this knowledge will.

I think back over the weeks past and judge Reid’s actions when he knew I was
at
The Nest
, and then when he banned me from going, and the argument with James. It all starts fitting together in a sordid jigsaw of our betrayals.

Then
the last piece slots into place.

I gasp at the reali
zation.

“When you thought I was pregnant, you knew.” I don’t wait for a reply because his shifting step and downward eyes tell me everything. “You were willing to raise another man’s child?”

He shrugs. “I’d do anything to keep you.”

Tears return with a heavy sob
. I feel like I have taken all the blows I can and that I am now on my very last legs. One half of me tells me that I should be blessed to have someone who is willing to ignore my terrible mistakes, but the other part, the part so easily confused by his motives, finds it all just too bizarre.

With the weight of these revelations on my weak shoulders I stumble to the chair behind me. I cling to some control, swallowing back the crying that burns my throat and eyes. Working on my breathing, I don’t see Reid come to kneel before me.

“I wanted to tell you, just like I know you wanted to tell me. But it’s all out in the open now. We can learn from this and move on,” he says, his voice gentle and cautious as his hands reach for mine.

I shake my head at his optimism but accept his hands, cherishing them. Little circles are drawn over my knuckles
, eliciting another chorus of sobs. My heart is wrung of all emotion, squeezed until all I am left with is empty breaths. These last few weeks have been spent climbing toward our happy ever after and now, so close to the top, I feel like I have jumped off. I’m freefalling with no idea where I will land and whether I will even survive.

Without the sobs there is silence and a need to fill it. Reid and I both race to talk but he beats me to it. “We’ll be ok
ay. I promise.” Lifting one of his hands, he holds it upright, a gesture of the promise he speaks of, and waits for mine. I can’t. I wrap my hand around his fingers and bring them back to my lap.

“Don’t promise that. You can’t know that.”

“I can. I can learn to trust you again.”

I blanch back.
“What if I can’t trust you? You’ve lied too, Reid. The lie may not have been as extreme but it only adds to the list of reasons why we’re not working.”

Those green eyes are clouded with pain as they widen at my words. “
We
are
working,” he insists, his grip tightening around mine. “You have to see the good in this. Without this affair we would have carried on as we were. You remember how bad that was? Not talking, not touching,” he kisses my hand and when he backs away I notice another tear fall. It kills me to see him cry. “I hate what you did, but what if your actions saved us? It’s like we’ve been recharged.”

I can’t deny that things have been better than ever lately. We have reconnected and learned to love each other with more feeling than we ever have b
efore. It’s been heaven. But knowing how that happiness was built on lies makes it hard to accept.

I’m exhausted.

My mind has run a marathon and my body has followed. The extreme crying has taken it out of me. Reid looks just as spent. After many minutes, maybe an hour of sitting with his head on my lap and my own head dropped back against the couch my eyes feel heavy and I can’t possibly work through this anymore.

M
y mind is too clouded and my heart too battered to think through this.

We need a moment.

“I’m tired,” I sigh, releasing my hands from his and standing. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Are we still going away?”

Shit. I completely forgot about this weekend’s plans. How can we go and pretend that all is okay? “I think this changes things, don’t you?”

“It’ll give us the perfect chance to work through this.” Inching closer
, he takes my hands again. I slip free, backing away with my eyes down.

“We’ll
see. I’m going to take a shower. I stink of rain.”

“You still want me to order food?”

“Ya’ know, it’s funny, but I’m not hungry anymore. I just want to go to sleep,” and forget this whole thing ever happened.

40

Reid

Darlene didn’t come to bed last night.

It took everything I had not to go and collect her from that damn chair, but for once I thought that maybe a little thinking room would do her good. It took hours for sleep to claim me. I naturally wanted to be with her, to feel comforted by her presence and warmed by her body. Without her I felt cold and naked.

Sensing the loss, even in my sleep, I wake early and decide to fix us breakfast before our long journey today. Maybe I’ll go for a run and collect those bagels I know she likes.

Feeling optimistic, I get changed into my running gear and slip on my shoes. Yesterday was a monumental disaster, but in its wake I can see a fresh start for Darlene and me. Our secrets have been bared and we have navigated the hurt. We can find our way back to our happy ever after.

Relationships can survive an affair, just like one can survive a gunshot. While the initial pain is excruciating, the damage can be repaired. Through time and understanding you can forgive
, and maybe one day forget.

After using the bathroom I pad down the hallway to the living area. My empty stomach drops the second I turn the corner.

She’s not here.

She can’t be gone.

I check the apartment, all the while knowing my efforts are in vain. There is nowhere to hide. With hesitancy I check our loaded bags and when I find hers missing I know for damn sure what I was reluctant to believe. My face heats with rage. How could she just leave like that? Unbelievable!

Pacing the apartment like a fucking animal
, I find reminders of my anger everywhere; her photos, her art, her damn books on MY shelf. I throw it all to the floor. I punch through any emotions that can’t be fixed with my fists. Grief is so much more painful than anything I could feel physically. The frames shatter under my knuckles but I feel nothing. Cloaked by adrenaline, I am numb.

The flowers.

The vase screams as it hits the wall, its splinters showering the carpet. The perfectly arranged flowers are a colored mess against the beige floor, disorganized and ruined; a sham of their previous beauty. Now that’s a metaphor.

Breathless, I collapse on the sofa. The pain is forcing its way into both my body and mind as I see that even Cash has gone. My eyes fall to a folded piece of paper on her chair. It takes me a long time to have both the energy and the courage to pick it up and read it.

Reid,

I’m sorry that my leaving has come down to this, but what choice did I have? I can’t stay and pretend that all is okay. We’ve been doing that all along and where has it gotten us? I understand that it is I who is truly in the wrong, but I can’t help but feel betrayed by you. I feel like I have been in love with a lie. You were attentive out of desperation, generous out of jealousy. Everything you did was for a competition and I was the prize. When the novelty of your winning has worn off will your love follow? I don’t think I can go through that again.

In all of this mess, I realiz
ed that I never truly said I’m sorry. I am sorry, more than you could ever imagine. It must be hard to accept that, but I need you to know that my cheating had no reflection on my love for you. You can still love and cheat, just like you can still have faith in God and still sin. You can have the best of intentions and fail to achieve them. I accept that without excusing myself. I failed you and brought down this marriage. That regret will die with me.

I still love you, and I know I always will, but right now that love is tainted with the hurt that last night’s revelations brought me. Maybe time will fix that or maybe it will allow us both to move on. Either way, time is our only option.

I’ll call, I guess.

Darlene.

He
fucking won.