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CHAPTER 20
“You’re ending this, aren’t you? Once and for all.”
Facing him, I don’t want to say the word because I know that once it’s out, it’s done. It cannot be taken back this time. “Yes.”
There it is, the removal of that scab that keeps forming over a wound that’s never properly healed. His features contort in pain and I feel the shredding of my heart as our lives are pried apart even further. Permanently.
The agony in his green eyes is obvious, though I know, just like me, he feels relief that this is finally over, no matter how it’s happening.
We are sitting on the couch, facing each other, the house silent but for the occasional hum of the appliances turning off and on.
Jess offered to take Mia for the evening, saying she’d keep her overnight if the conversation went long, but I declined. Mia has school tomorrow and it would be so much easier to wake up with her here. I’d told Jess only that I was going to have a conversation with Owen, that I needed to put an end to this love triangle that was nothing but hell on all of us. I didn’t tell her who I’d chosen, or why, feeling that I owed that much to the two men that were suffering because of my inability to commit.
Owen looked down and with his nail, intently followed the seams of the fabric on the couch. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell his mind was racing, processing what I’d just said. Still, it was a different reaction than what I’d imagined.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “This wasn’t how I imagined our marriage would end.”
“I never imagined our marriage would end at all.”
“Neither did I.”
“It’s not all your fault, Cris. As much as I would love to lay all the blame on your shoulders, I’m the one who let the devil in. Five fucking minutes and he came and took what I love the most away.”
“The amount of time is of no consequence,” I say. The reality of it is that all it took was one second of Owen’s sin. The devil had come knocking long before that. I’d recognized the danger and fought against it. But the instant Owen cheated, he opened the door wide enough to let him in. That was all it took. An instant.
Then again, I also wonder if perhaps he hadn’t lost me before that. Maybe I’d been lost the moment my eyes made contact with Bo’s. Or if I believe as Bo does, I was born his.
Owen sighs, his head hanging low. “I’m so tired, Cris. So, so tired.”
Coming closer to him, I reach out to him instinctively, and bring his head into my chest. He’s taking deep breaths, his body trembling, but he’s not crying, perhaps he also has no tears left.
It’s not an easy thing to admit, but our marriage has been in the process of dying for quite a while now. We wanted to keep it alive, to save it, but the injury done to it was too great to survive. And the dying hasn’t been easy. It’s been so agonizing and slow, the toll on both Owen and I so immense, that now that it’s over there is relief. It’s done. There is nothing left to do, but to heal.
“Why him?” he asks quietly. It’s not in anger now, I think, more curiosity.
As I comb my fingers through his hair, I shake my head. How to explain such a thing when I don’t know how the heart chooses?
The thing is, that up until recently even I didn’t know which way to go. In the end, it came down to one thing, and when I realized this, I was finally able to see.
What I discovered in that vision I had at Dr. Riker’s office was that I’d already made that choice. I’d done my best to suppress the thought of it, because the very idea that I could ever leave Owen was unimaginable to me. I thought I’d succeeded in squelching the thought.
But the truth is that even though my brain had managed to function without Bo, my heart and soul wept for him. Literally, the pain seeped through my being, tears a constant companion, a reminder of what I needed, but denied. They ached for him, cried for him, to such a degree that there was a physical reaction even though I didn’t recognize it for what it was. I’d been crying for months. Those tears in my eyes, the tightness in my chest, it was all because I’d wrenched myself from him. Because I’d tried to pretend that he’d been a one-time thing, instead of what I knew he really meant. He was everything. He was forever.
And there it was. My answer. I felt like I would die without Owen. But to be without Bo, that was a fate worse than death.
How to explain that to someone who meant so much to me, even now? Because yes, I still love Owen deeply. I don’t want to hurt him anymore.
So, I say, “I don’t know.”
He accepts this, I suppose, because he doesn’t ask about it anymore. Actually, nothing else is said after that. Instead we sit like that for a long while, with Owen’s head at my breast as I run my fingers through his hair and down his back, comforting him as much as myself.
We sit like that, together mourning the loss of the life we’d built together. For over sixteen years we have loved each other, and I know, at least as far as I’m concerned, I will love him forever. Clinging to each other, knowing that this is the last time, we both drift off.
When I wake up, the sun is shining brightly through the floor to ceiling living room windows, announcing a new day. A new life.
Pushing off the blanket Owen must have laid on me at some point, I sit up and take in my surroundings. He is gone, but in his place is a folded sheet with my name written neatly on it. Unfolding it carefully, I begin to read.
Cris,
