“It’s not you, it’s me,” I reply, trying to mock his deep voice. “I have felt neglected—wah, wah, wah. Anything else you’d like to add?”
“I’m sorry,” he says. He says the words as if they’re going to fix our lives.
“Me too. I’m leaving.”
“Rose, don’t leave. Let’s go to marriage counseling. We’ll do a couple’s retreat. I’ll take you out for more date nights like you asked. Please, don’t leave.”
I can’t help but laugh. I sometimes laugh when I’m angry and punch things when I’m happy. There’s a cross-wiring in my brain, I guess. “No,” I tell him. “I had one hard rule. No cheating.”
“I don’t want to lose you, Rose.” Frankie stumbles from the bed, pulling his boxer briefs up to his waist. He’s walking over to me with outstretched arms. “I made a mistake. I swear to you, it won’t happen again.”
“You broke my trust,” I tell him. “That’s something words can ’t fix.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” he pleads. He must be reading these responses right out of a cheater’s manual.
“No,” I tell him again, keeping my monotone sound in check. I must pretend like I don’t care. It’s the only playing card I have.
I haven’t figured out why I’m so calm. It must be the wiring in my head again. My heart is pounding so hard, and my head feels like it’s squeezing in. My life as I know it is over, and I have no clue where I will go, or what I will do. Yet, I’m talking to him like I’m asking him to go outside and pluck the newspaper out of the front bushes like I do every Sunday morning.
“So, that’s it? We’re just over. We aren’t going to try to work this out?” he asks, trying to make this out to be my fault. Why should I stay?
“That’s it,” I tell him.
2
A Year Later
It was Frankie’s house to start. I left as fast as I came.
I only stayed long enough to pack a duffle bag worth of clothes and belongings. I tuned out all his apologies. They meant nothing to me. I didn’t even care about the rest of my stuff at that point. My only focus was deciding on my two options: I could head back to my parents’ house two doors down, or I could start anew.
Living with my parents after being on my own for ten years didn’t seem like a viable option, nor did living right next to my dick of a soon-to-be ex-husband. I had to leave the area.
The state.
The country.
I moved to London—a small town in London. The roads are cobblestone, the small Georgian houses are affordable to rent with a roommate, and the neighborhoods are in walking distance of the downtown village.
It took less than two weeks to find a housemate who had ironically also recently suffered through a divorce.
Before I left, I quit my columnist job at the local newspaper and took half of the savings from my joint account with Frankie.
Without a second thought, I hopped on a plane. I haven’t looked back across that ocean once. I have no regrets, other than meeting Frankie.
Suzette, my new housemate, is thirty-five; just a few years older than I am. She has an uplifting spirit and loads of motivation. Suzette has inspired me to run, to start a lifestyle blog as I have dreamed of doing, and helped me find a part-time job at a nearby art gallery to fulfill another one of my passions. She’s better than a dumb husband.
I didn’t think uprooting my life could have been simpler. It’s like I was traveling down the wrong path, and as soon as I corrected my direction, everything began to fall into place.
Aside from all the positive happenings, it took a good six months for the pain in my chest to melt away. Even now, I try my best to push the thoughts away; a day doesn’t go by without the dreadful thoughts and questions I have.
It has now been a year of mourning my marriage, but I still don’t understand how a person can casually and carelessly hop into bed with another woman.
I’ve spent countless hours scrolling through the photos I have stored on my laptop; our wedding pictures—we intended them to be timeless, like my dress and Frankie’s tux. We looked so happy—we were so happy. I was happy.
Maybe I should have given him a second chance. That thought also goes through my head daily.
I still can’t pinpoint the exact moment when our relationship died. I’ve tried to convince myself that I don’t need to know the whys and hows of what happened. I’m sure the truth would only eat away at me, and I take on more blame than I should.