This conclusion is for The BEAR 🐻 LT56linebacker. He has asked me a couple of times to finish this. I hope that it is what you were hoping to see. 750 words after the line.
Gloria's Response
Gloria stared at the photos Sam had shown her, printouts of pics of diary pages. Her pulse pounded in her ears. The words on the pages blurred, she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.
Katie? Katie's diary?
Phil's name was written over and over again in Katie's elegant script. Gloria wanted to believe that it was all lies, that it was fantasies of a demented mind. But they didn't read that way. They sounded real. They sounded genuine, and the details were too matter of fact. Gloria never should have had to read it, but it was all there in black and white.
Her stomach churned.
She looked up at Sam, he looked ashamed, as if it was somehow his fault. They weren't close, not really. They had only met a few times. He clearly loved and trusted Katie. And she had shattered him.
Just like Phil had shattered
her.
Sam didn't stay long. There wasn't much to say. He left the pages with her.
After he left, Gloria sank onto the couch, gripping the pages so tightly they crumpled.
She felt like a fool. Every moment she had spent defending Phil's odd behavior, every doubt she had pushed aside, every night he had come home late with some weak excuse?
A whole fucking year.
She thought of the life they had built together. Vacations, mornings with coffee in bed, the safe, comfortable love she had believed in.
Brian was already drifting off by the time they pulled into her parents' driveway. His head lolled slightly, his stuffed dinosaur clutched in his hands. For a moment, Gloria just sat there, watching him, his chest rising and falling in soft movements.
Their son. Their life together...
