“No. I like it that way. I’m assuming she’s too busy with her new guy and helping her mom.”
“I still think that’s a bullshit reason not to go ahead and file.”
Guilt rose within me. “I know the reason I didn’t step up again was because I wanted to enjoy what we were beginning and ignore all the rest. To pretend there isn’t a problem. I’m too good at that. Maybe that’s why Sheila and I made it as long as we did.”
My thoughts traveled too easily back through the hurt and the pain, to one particular night. I shook my head. “You know, after I confronted her about the final affair, I checked into a nearby hotel. Just needed to get out of that house, needed to get her out of my mind for some time. Even after all that happened, I was still considering going back. Sounds pathetic to me now, but I thought I could help her. That I could change, and she would be good to me.
“She came to visit me, and I remember her holding me as I relived all this pain, and I told her that I was struggling to figure out if she was a woman who made mistakes or a monster. And she didn’t say anything to that. Just kept holding me. Just silent. I remember thinking, I could never imagine someone I loved saying that to me, and not being horrified to know I caused them so much pain. I tried to make excuses, but then realized excuses for her were what had gotten me in so deep. I’m not saying she is a monster, but the fact that she wasn’t more rattled by that, it still haunts me…makes me question all the years together.”
By now, Kyle was gently stroking the back of my hand with his thumb, as though wanting me to know he was there for me, to listen to my pain and heartache. “She really did a number on my Big Man.”
“Yeah, she did. She had a hard past. Her dad was toxic and abusive, something I had to remind myself of every time she did something that felt cruel to me. I think I confused the explanation for an excuse, used her own pain to right so many wrongs.”
“Just because bad things happened to her didn’t give her the right to do bad things to you.”
I knew he was right, but this surge of energy pushed through me, and I caught myself. “Funny, I was about to tell you that we shouldn’t have been talking about her like that. My instinct is still to protect her. Yet I don’t ever recall a time that she protected me. And then I wonder if maybe I’m misremembering it all, painting it all black because of my pain, and I get lost…”
“No more of that,” Kyle said, the anger in his tone cutting through the air like a knife. “She did you wrong. She’s still doing you wrong. But a part of me understands why she still wants to be in your life, because if I were your wife, I wouldn’t let you go easily.” His gaze fixed on mine, and he looked as determined as ever. “I would fight to show you I was worthy, to show you what it means to be respected and appreciated. I would never let you forget you’re special. That you deserve to be worshipped.”
It reminded me of that day when he’d talked as if he could be my wife. It wasn’t just the peculiar scenario he presented that caught my attention, but how full of conviction he was about what he said. It caught me off guard.
“Why did you look away from me when I said that?” Kyle asked.
“Did I? I hadn’t noticed.” A lie, and he glared at me to let me know he knew me too well for that. “You sound so serious when you talk like that, angry even. I don’t understand how you could say things like that and sound so hateful.”
“I hate what she did to you, and I hate what the world is doing to us. We are like Catherine and Heathcliff. Don’t we feel pain too? Don’t you feel that sting, that burn of what we’re doing? The fear and worry, but then knowing none of it fucking matters because everything else is so worth it?”
“Yes, but you aren’t the thing causing any of that pain. You’re the remedy,