Authors note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Happy? Part 2
Prelude: Confession
Somebody once said that confession was good for the soul. Ashley wasn't entirely sure what state of grace her soul might be in at this moment in time, but her stomach felt sick, and her heart felt like it was torn asunder.
She had waited for Colin to get back from work. It'd been just half a day since she had discovered that Jerome had been lying to her the whole time, playing on her sympathies by manufacturing an illness for his wife, messing with her mind so as to encourage Ashley to make all the moves, shoulder all the blame.
Ashley had considered sleeping on her decision to confess all to her husband, wondering if maybe the night would bring a different answer. She had eventually come to the conclusion that whatever other options she might come up with, this one, telling Colin she had cheated on him, was the most painful but also the only right one.
He had come home as cheerfully as he had left that morning, whistling as he opened the front door and stepped inside. From the hallway he was able to see straight through to the kitchen and Ashley's tear-streaked face had made the bright whistling dry up immediately. Of course, he had rushed to her side, wondering what had happened to upset her. Ashley had pushed him away gently, his concern only making things harder.
"I... ummm, there's no easy, no-good way to say this," Ashley began.
"Oh fuck, shit. Is it your mum? Your dad? Are they okay?" Colin asked, sinking into a chair across from her.
"They are fine, everyone's fine. Jesus... Colin... I don't want to hurt you..."
"What do you mean, hurt me?" His voice betrayed a new type of anxiety now, whatever news was coming, Colin now knew he wasn't going to like it. Ashley looked like she'd been gargling fuel, her face screwed up as if needing to spit or vomit.
"I cheated on you. Jesus, I'm sorry, but I cheated on you."
"When? No... are you joking? Why? Why would you?" Her husband wasn't a soft man, she'd seen him take on a would-be mugger one night, stopping a man who had threatened a woman walking ahead of them. Ashley had seen Colin at work, in court, full of confidence, shattering witness testimony, articulate, confident, intelligent. Now she saw him cry. The tears came fast, a hot flood that choked off whatever else he wanted to say. She waited, giving him time to gather himself together. While Colin fought to regain his composure, Ashley considered her next move. A full confession was only going to rub salt into the wound, better to understate what had happened, to spare colin as much as herself.
"When? Last week," Ashley began to answer his questions. "Why? Because I was stupid, I was feeling depressed, because someone showed me affection and I responded to it. Mostly because I was stupid, childish and uncaring."
"Do I know him?" Colin cuffed at his red eyes, sniffling as he spoke.
"No, you don't. I didn't know him either, he was a stranger." This was true at least. After Jerome's lies, Ashley felt she'd never really known the real him. It had all been an act, one she had bought into entirely.
She watched as Colin processed this, his eyes never leaving her, focused on her face as if trying to read her true motives from her expression, perhaps wondering how much she had omitted or changed. The chair scraped on the floor as Colin stood up abruptly. He said nothing as he walked into the hallway, retrieving his coat.
"Please!" Ashley called out. Colin paused, waiting on her to speak again.
"Please, please don't leave me," Ashley added in a small voice.
"I need to walk. I need to think," Colin answered, never looking at her. He opened the front door, stepping out into the dark October evening.
It was close to midnight before he returned, Ashley still sitting where she had been, at the kitchen table, her eyes fixed on the front door, awaiting his return.
He came inside in utter silence. If he noticed Ashley's face was marred by freshly shed tears, he made no mention of it. Colin went over to the fridge, opening it and pulling out two bottles of beer. Still mute, he opened both of them, setting one down in front of Ashley before taking the seat he had occupied earlier.
He took a pull off the beer, a long one. Ashley barely wetted her lips with her own, she couldn't drink, not with her heart in her mouth.
"I'm not an arrogant man," Colin began saying.
"Of course not, no, this was me, not you..." Ashley cut across him, babbling nervously. Colin stilled her with a look, staring until she fell silent.
"I'm not an arrogant man," he began again, "I never claimed to know everything. I never thought I was perfect. I thought we were perfect though." Ashley choked off a sob as he said this but otherwise remained quiet.
"I see it at work all the time, divorcing couples. Blaming one another, poisoning whatever good memories they'd shared, moving to the point that, with so much hatred on view, it was hard to believe love had ever existed between them. I used to think, God I'm lucky I married Ashley. This could never happen to us." Ashley began to cry once again, tears flowing freely but she stayed quiet all the same.
"I'm not a genius either. I can't calculate a percentage of responsibility for you, for me. There's no way I can accept full blame for this, same as I can't dump it all on you. This is a marriage and that implies shared responsibility." He watched as Ashley continued to cry; his face unreadable to her.
"This is still a marriage," he said simply and Ashley felt a hot lump in her throat, quashing her breath so that she had to release it with a wail. She sobbed loudly, tears falling faster when she felt him take her hand in his own. It wasn't a firm grip; he more or less just laid his hand across hers. But it was contact, something that was a lot more than she'd expected or felt she deserved.
"It's over between you and him?" he said, a statement as much as a question. Ashley couldn't talk, just nodding as she cried.
"I can't promise things will work out. You've broken my heart and I don't know that it can ever mend," Colin continued, Ashley trying to take his hand, to squeeze it but he lifted it clear of her reach.
"I do promise to try, to try get back to where we were, to be better, to you and for you. Can you promise me the same?"
Ashley nodded again, rubbing furiously at her face as she tried to stem the tears.
"I promise," she finally croaked out.
"Okay, go to bed. I'll take the spare bed tonight. Just tonight, I still need time away, I'm still really angry," Colin said. He rose from the table, pausing one final time.
"You could have told me. You could have said... something. Not giving me a chance, a choice. Not trusting me to help, not allowing me the chance to make you happy. In a way, that's the most hurtful part."
Chapter 1:
The next two weeks were filled with awkward moments. It was three nights before Colin returned to their bed. Seven nights before he tentatively touched her, his arm folding her into an embrace as it had almost every night since they'd been together. It was partially muscle memory, partially an indication of the gradual thawing of the chill that had settled between them.
Ashley just counted her blessings that things hadn't fallen apart after she had made a partial confession to him. It spoke of his maturity in the way he had handled things, the real love he felt for her in the way he decided to work on their marriage. She had made a promise to do better and she would. For a start, she had quit the gym. She didn't even bother looking for another one, for the moment Ashley decided to stay at home as much as possible. It was a penance of a kind, paltry given her sin but it would do.
Jerome had her number and she received multiple texts from him. All of them went unanswered. She didn't even want to give him the satisfaction of calling him out on his lies. Ghosting him seemed a more fitting punishment given that burning down his café wasn't a real option.
Things had settled back into a routine again. The atmosphere was more strained and Ashley felt that it was right for her to let the hurt fade before pushing Colin on things that might make a difference to her. More affection, physical affection to begin with.
As mid-October slid past on the calendar, Colin came home one night with some news. Their friends, his friends and their wives to be accurate, wanted to go out that weekend. Every Christmas, or winter to be accurate, a group of them made an effort to all gather together, with the toll of work and family responsibilities, it was hard to gather everyone for occasions like barbeques or birthdays. But unfailingly, the Christmas gathering always happened.
This year, George and Kate were going to be in Australia for a lot of November and all of December. They were visiting George's parents who had settled there a year before. To keep the tradition alive, the entire group were meeting that weekend instead. Colin and Ashley, the only ones yet to confirm.
"What do you think?" Colin asked her.
"I think we always go. They are your friends, our friends and we love seeing them," Ashley replied.
"But what do you really think?" He pressed as he always seemed to do now, unaccepting of her initial responses, suspecting deceit in her when there was none to be found.
"Honestly? I think we could do with going out, having a laugh. It won't... fix us, but I think it'll help to be around people who care about us. I miss us laughing together."
