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.
