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I gave myself another selfish second on the street to try to make sense of it.
“What did you do?” I asked in a whisper. “Oh, my God, what did you do?” I said as I fisted my hands on my chest. “What did you do?!”
Cameron moved to shut the door, and my eyes snapped to the passenger side as Kat yelled at him. “Jefferson, what in the hell do you think you’re doing? You’re embarrassing me! Get in the car!”
She couldn’t see his face, and I just wanted her shrieking to stop. I had to get away.
I grabbed my bag and let my instinct to run kick in.
“Abbie!”
Jefferson. I didn’t even know his real name. I knew nothing real about him.
It was all a lie.
One.
Huge.
Lie.
He was never mine. Not made for me. Not my soul mate, not my other half. Not my missing piece. He was someone else’s husband.
A liar, a cheat, a goddamned figment of my overactive imagination.
And I’d never be the same woman without him.
I saw her end us. I saw it happen. I did my best to straighten my face and got back into the car. It took seconds to undo months of the trust we built. In those seconds all hope for my newly paved road had been obliterated by the tinderbox that was my wife.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Kat spat out while I stared in the direction Abbie fled as Kat ranted. There was only one reason I picked her up and explaining myself to her wasn’t a part of it.
Abbie was gone in every sense of the word. There was no use trying to catch up with her. She would never forgive me. And I couldn’t blame her. I was selfish to make us happen.
Months of indecision to come forward and do the right fucking thing had ruined everything. Despite her pleas to keep things as they were I should have manned up and demanded we exchange truths.
Still, I knew the one I harbored would be far more of a game changer than hers. I would never be able to make her understand. And seeing Kat and me in that capacity, as a couple, even though it was a lie—Kat’s lie—would do the most damage.
“Jefferson, I told you to bring the SUV. I told you I needed to pick up some things.” I wiped an open palm down my face.
I’d been so close to the unattainable, the impossible. Of breathing life again, of having her. All I had to do was be honest, but honesty could never have saved me. She’d judged me standing there on the sidewalk. She snapped our connection and erected a wall leaving us both standing on opposite sides with no way through. I was shut out the minute she saw me, but that meant nothing to my heart.
I would fight with every ounce of my being to get her back. I would make her understand, no matter how much pride it cost me, no matter what I had to reveal to her.
Even with that mindset, even as I tried to convince myself that I could tell Abbie anything, I knew the whole truth would be the hardest thing for me to give her.
“Once again you’ve tuned me out. Just forget it. Jesus, you’re useless. Just take me home,” Kat snapped. “I’m so sick of this.”
I ignored her, while I looked for any sign of Abbie. When Kat’s shrieking could no longer be overlooked, I took a deep breath and tried to compose myself.
“Today you’re going to sign those papers, Kat. I’m tired of asking. I’m telling,” I said calmly. She waved me away with her hand and opened her purse. I snatched the pill bottle from her hand and tossed it to the back of the car out of reach.
“Stop this car right now,” she snapped. “Jefferson!” She shrieked.
I didn’t answer to that name anymore. That was a nickname a woman gave to a man whom she loved when he was on her shit list. My middle name, a name I never wanted to hear again. A name that had been muddled by wrath, addiction, and hate. The joke hadn’t been funny in years.
“I don’t know who the hell you think you are,” Kat snapped as she twisted in her seat in an attempt to reach the bottle and I grabbed her coat by the pocket and pulled her back to sit.
I looked for bitterness in my words and found resolution instead. “I’m no one. I was your husband for a few years, and your punching bag for another few. I’m done. I left you a year ago. Your denial is over. We’re doing this.”
