Author's Note:
I want to apologize to anyone who has started reading this story and was waiting patiently for chapter three. Real life has a way of ruining fun hobbies. I didn't want to put out a chapter just for the sake of doing so. I wanted to take the time and make sure that I was happy with it. I can't promise you that I'll wrap it up quickly, but I can promise to budget my time better and put forth more of an effort in future chapters
Thank you all.
Synopsis from the last two chapters:
Regina flew away on a sex filled vacation with the infamous wife stealer, Brian. When she returned, she found that there wasn't a warm reception from her husband, Lee.
She expected that though. She knew he wasn't going to be happy about her cheating on him, just like she wasn't happy about a one-night stand that he had resulting in a pregnancy. Her anger was quadrupled by the fact that it was a slap in the face to impregnate another woman when she was unable to bear kids.
Now both parties are wondering the same thing: Is the marriage worth salvaging?
***
Time heals all wounds.
That lie is a common idiom. It's whispered in comforting tones to provide solace for unfortunate individuals going through painful seasons of their lives. It tells them that if they just hold on long enough, everything will eventually work out. Pain will erode over time, and soon it will just be an unpleasant memory.
But time holds no such power. It possesses no magical properties that can change sadness into happiness. It's simply a construct invented by humans to allow us to gain understanding. We created it as a box so that everything inside of it can be watched, reviewed, analyzed, and ultimately controlled. It is only in our collective minds that this ant farm exists.
Time just...counts. It marks the hours, days, months, and years of our meager existence. The gods know no time. They only know joy, love, pain, victory, and defeat. These are the tools that shape us into who we are. Everything else is just background noise.
Once upon a time, Regina laid eyes on the man that she knew she would fall in love with. This guy could force a smile onto her face, even when she felt like crying. His eyes beheld her with resolute loyalty and told her that she was the only one they cared to look at. His powerful hands embraced her with loving softness, yet took dominion over everything else that they touched.
With him, she was safe.
Her heart belonged to him far sooner than she anticipated. He owned the happiest moments of her day. The only thing he had to do to make her smile was be on the other side of the phone.
Her mission became clear; to show him that his life would be better with her in it. She had to erase any doubt in his mind and eliminate all other possibilities. This meant keeping him interested in her for more than the prize of her panties.
What she didn't know was her mission was accomplished long before she took it on. For Lee, she was the first deep breath after years of being suffocated by the horrors of dating in a shallow world. Her mind was a maze that had to be explored; full of twists, turns, and surprises. Each corner that he turned revealed more corners to turn. Most other women were like city parks that could be viewed in a single glance.
His future already had her in it. She just didn't know it.
When they married, it was forever. Those two people had the world before them, and they planned to enjoy it all to the fullest. Love, family, laughter, and happiness were promised to them; the only thing they needed to collect on it was each other.
And then...time counted.
Now, ten years later, Regina sat in her car parked in her driveway. The house in front of her had unquestionably been her home for almost a decade. Now, new eyes looked upon this old possession with new fondness. Before the events of this past weekend, she never even thought about what it would feel like to lose this. It wasn't until this very moment that she realized how much she took for granted that this would always be her home.
She felt many things, and all of them flooded her mind at once. Anger at Lee, pity for herself, frustration with life, and now the added feeling of guilt for her own actions. With this tornado of emotions fighting for dominance, was it even worth it to save this marriage? Wouldn't it just be simpler to walk away?
Her phone buzzed in her purse, awakening her from her somber thoughts. After wiping her face with the back of her hand, she dug inside of her purse to fish it out. Turning the soft glow of the screen on made the buzzing stop, but the name displayed continued it inside of her.
Brian.
Her thumb dangled between the red and the green options beneath his name, as if in indecision. A pang of guilt stabbed her stomach as illicit memories rushed to her. It felt wrong to harbor them with fondness. They shouldn't even be there.
With a shake of her head, she finally denied the call and put the phone back in her purse.
Her eyes fell to her house once again. Was her marriage worth the fight? She honestly couldn't answer that, but there was one thing that she was sure about. Despite the drama of the past and her actions in the past few days, she still loved Lee.
She knew what she had to do; what should have been done ages ago. This monster of silence that she created had grown far too strong. If her marriage even stood a snowball's chance, she had to kill that beast before it devoured the last bit of love left between them.
With both trepidation and determination, she opened the car door and met the warm night air.
When she walked into the front door, darkness met her. The house was eerily quiet; almost dead. The feeling of déjà vu washed over her as she remembered the last time she was in this room. Her eyes cast to the chair that her husband sat, not even 8 hours earlier. She half expected to see him there, once again sitting alone in the dark.
She walked past the living room and towards the narrow hallway that led to the two bedrooms. Light seeped through the edges of the guest bedroom door and crawled under it, spilling onto the dark floor. This confirmed what she already knew; she saw the light from this room when she was sitting out in her car. He was in there, alone, refusing to sleep in the master bedroom with her.
With a deep breath, she rapped lightly on the bedroom door.
There was no answer from the other side, so she knocked again. Still, no voice called out giving her an invitation to come in. After a contemplative few seconds, she apprehensively turned the doorknob and poked her head inside.
Lee was on the bed, laying on his back with his hands behind his head. His eyes were open and staring straight up at the ceiling. They lowered for a second to acknowledge Regina's head peeking around the door, but then quickly dismissed her and returned to where they were.
"Hey." She said from the doorway.
"Hey." He returned in a lifeless tone, still not looking at her.
The air filled with the tense silence of many unspoken words. She wanted to say something of substance; anything. There were so many things that danced right at the tip of her tongue. He needed to know what was going on inside of her. It was hidden long enough, and it needed out.
"Lee...
"Go away, Regina." He said in a soft, dead voice. It actually sounded like a polite request, though there was no warmth in his tone. As he rolled over on his side, she was struck by another message that he inadvertently delivered.
He called her Regina. After more than a decade of hearing him call her Gina, her full name sounded foreign on his lips. There was no familial attachment. Loved ones are granted permission to use shortened names, and they do so as an unspoken acknowledgment that their relationship is more than mere strangers or casual acquaintances.
But maybe that's all they were now; strangers. The people standing here today were vastly different than the two that met eleven years ago. A lifetime of choices and silence had slowly eroded the ground beneath them, pushing them further and further apart. Without neither realizing it, they'd become so distant that it would take a running start and a leap of faith to even begin to close the space.
The question is, who would start running first? Who should?
The message that Trudy spoke to her earlier today reverberated in her ears.
"If any part of you believes that you need this man in your life, now is the time to fight. Make him listen."
Regina took a deep breath in the face of his rejection and steeled herself. "I know that you probably hate me right now. Maybe you're right to. But, if we could just..."
He sat up so fast that it startled her, causing her to stop talking. His eyes latched onto her with an emotionless stare. The rest of his face appeared drained of life.
"What part of go away don't you understand, Regina?"
Her full name; again. Damn, it sounded cold. It almost threw her, but Trudy's words urged her forward. With determination in her eyes, she squared her shoulders and assertively said, "I understand it perfectly. But I have something to say, and I think you need to hear it."
