Stolen Dreams

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events or locales or to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First edition: July 2016

  Copyright © 2016 by Cheryl Bradshaw

  Cover Copyright © 2016 & interior design by Indie Designz

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any print or electronic form without the written consent of the author.

  VEGAS DREAMS NOVELLA SERIES BY CHERYL BRADSHAW:

  Sweet Dreams — Rae’s Story (Book 1)

  Shattered Dreams — Sasha’s Story (Book 2)

  Stolen Dreams — Callie’s Story (Book 3)

  COMING SOON:

  Summer Dreams — Kenna’s Story (Book 4, September 2016)

  My name is Callie Wilde and this is my story. Well ... my sob story, I guess you could call it. Don’t let the last name fool you. The only things “wild” about me are my inner thoughts, and those I have a habit of keeping to myself.

  I’m an introvert, you see.

  A silent observer.

  A woman of few words.

  At least, that’s how everyone sees me, and I suppose they’re right. In my humble opinion, people talk too much, prattling on and on as if they have nothing better to do than sit there and hear themselves utter every single random thought that comes to mind.

  People like that bug me.

  They really, really bug me.

  My quest for love began with a bitter dose of verbal garbage that no committed wife ever wanted to hear: I’m leaving. And just to be clear, my husband hadn’t said it in the “I’m leaving but I’ll be back” kind of way, like he’d run a few errands, or return after work. No. He’d said it in the “I’m leaving permanently” kind of way. I interpreted his words like this: “Thanks for all the shit you’ve put up with over the years, but hey, I don’t think I want to do this anymore. See ya. I’m out.” Which was pretty much on the money.

  At first it came as a shock; I hadn’t seen it coming. I’d always been all-in, one hundred percent committed to him from day one. In that moment though, I learned something, a valuable lesson: just because I was committed to him didn’t mean he was committed to me.

  Josh had made his two-word declaration while standing in the doorway, with the open doorway. I assumed this was so he could make a quick escape and avoid some kind of spastic, gut-wrenching freak-out on my end. But there was no confrontation. No opposition. No trying to force him to do anything other than what he’d planned. Instead, I glanced at the baskets of clean, perfectly folded, perfectly stacked laundry in front of me and behaved as if he’d said nothing out of the ordinary.

  I plucked another hand towel from the stack, and watched the dryer sheet detach itself from the towel, fluttering aimlessly to the ground. It was worn and wasted, nothing more than a piece of irreparable trash, just like my marriage was turning out to be. I pondered that thought while Josh stood stock still in the doorway, duffel bag in hand, apparently waiting for some sort of response.

  Fine. I’ll cave. I’ll say something, but you’re not going to like it.

  “Okay,” I said. “Leave.”

  Tears pooled around my eyes. I batted them open and closed a few times, pushing my emotions back, doing anything I could to keep myself together. I wasn’t doing this—not in front of a man who seemed determined to throw away our marriage for a reason I was unclear of yet.

  “Okay?” he said. “Really? That’s it? After six years together, that’s all you want to say to me?”

  In my mind, the word “shit” repeated over and over again like a broken record stuck on repeat. The way I saw it, a single shit didn’t do the moment justice. Only a multiple shit captured what I was currently feeling in its entirety. I knew what Josh wanted because I knew him well. He was waiting for me to ask the one question he knew was on my mind:

  Why are you leaving?

  I refused to look up, refused to stare into his smoldering, blue eyes that once made me feel safe and whole, like I meant something, like I mattered. I resisted the urge to go to him, to run my hand through his blond, messy locks of hair, or to pull him close to me, begging him to stay.

  I was no beggar.

  “Just go,” I whispered. “I don’t care what you’re doing, or why. You’ve packed. You made your decision, and you didn’t even bother talking to me about it first. So, I have nothing to say.”

  I choked so hard on the words when I said them, I wasn’t sure he knew what I’d just said.

  “No, Callie. I’m not leaving until you look at me. If you refuse to face it right now, I at least need to know you’re going to be okay.”

  Okay? You’ve got to be kidding me.

  And, face it? I’m being blindsided!

  The wound growing around my heart had been salted. I balled up an unfolded towel inside my hands, squeezing it so hard it wouldn’t have shocked me if moisture oozed out the middle. I had two options—explode or implode.

  I sucked up a lungful of air, stabilized my voice, and said, “Get out.”

  He shook his head, irritated. “Fine! I’ll be at Charles’s house.”

  The front door slammed, vibrating the walls of the house like it was on the receiving end of an earthquake.

  Josh revved the engine a few times before he drove away, tires squealing along the pavement as he sped down the road. I pulled the curtains to the side and looked out, staring at the back of his truck until he was out of sight.

  Gone.

  Possibly forever.

  And I still didn’t know why.

  Maybe I wouldn’t ever know why.

  Part of me now wished I’d done what he wanted, taken the time to sit down with him, talk things out, but I was much too proud for that.

  I grabbed the brimming stack of perfectly folded, color-coded towels and heaved them all, showering the room in a rainbow of color. My legs caved, and I sagged to my knees, my stomach churning from the storm brewing within. Tears rushed forward again, surging like an unruly tide. This time I didn’t hold back. And it didn’t matter. No one was here to see me. No one to scoop up the fragments of my ruptured heart.

  I was alone.

  I clasped a hand over my mouth, fighting the urge to empty the contents of my stomach onto my perfectly shampooed, perfectly white carpeting.

  I needed a toilet.

  Now.

  And that wasn’t all.

  I needed my girls.

  How does a woman know when the relationship with her man is over? Is it when the communication slows to a molasses-dripping stop? When he’s more interested in playing video games than having sex even when she’s standing over him in a newly purchased negligee? When sex feels more like she’s sleeping with a roommate and not with a man who’s supposed to be the love of her life? Or is it when he looks at her, but he’s not really looking at her anymore because the fire’s gone out?

  Take Josh for example.

  Over the past few weeks, he’d appeared to see me, but the more I looked at him, the more I realized he didn’t see me at all. Not really. His eyes were glazed over, like if I waved my hands in front of him, he wouldn’t react. His body was there, but his mind had crossed over into some parallel universe, or perhaps a remote island where he was sitting in a hammock, sipping a mai tai. Alone. Or maybe not alone. But in a place I wasn’t invited.

  Is there another woman?

  I pondered this question while sitting in the living room with two of my three closest girlfriends.

  “So, what happened this morning?” Rae asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Josh packed a ...” />
  I couldn’t finish.

  “What’s happened to Josh?” Sasha asked. “Is he all right? Did something happen?”

  I swallowed. Hard. Tried again. “Something happened, all right. This morning. He packed a bag and walked out. He’s gone.”

  Rae and Sasha exchanged glances, like they found it hard to believe. They liked Josh. Everyone liked Josh. The clerk at the store, the teller at the bank, practically every person he’d ever met.

  “When you say gone,” Rae said, “Do you mean gone gone?”

  “What other kind of gone is there?”

  Sasha reached for her glass of wine, took two hearty swigs, and set the glass back down again. “We’re going to need more information, and a lot more wine.”

  I sat there—numb—without a thing to say.

  Rae placed her hand over mine. “Callie, I know it’s hard for you to express your feelings sometimes, but Sasha’s right. We’re going to need a bit more to go on.”

  “I got up this morning and made him breakfast, like I do every morning. Everything seemed fine.”

  “Did you talk to each other?” Rae asked. “Was there any conversation?”

  “It was a typical morning just like the rest. I had his breakfast on the table for him when he got out of the shower. He came in the kitchen, grabbed the plate, and took it to the table. I went into the living room and started folding laundry.”

  “And then?”

  “After he finished eating, he went to the bedroom for about fifteen minutes, then walked past me and said he was leaving, going to his friend Charles’s house. He’d packed a bag and everything.”

  “Is there any chance he didn’t mean what you think he did?” Rae asked.

  “No chance. I don’t know how to explain it. I just know, Rae. He’s gone. I think our marriage is over.”

  Rae shook her head, and I knew she thought I was mistaken. She was convinced Josh loved me, so she started making excuses for him, wondering if he was going through a temporary breakdown. Sasha backed her up, both of them still assuming I was the one who had it all wrong.

  “What makes you think it means he’s not just taking a break?” Sasha asked. “He didn’t actually say he wanted a divorce, right?”

  “He didn’t have to say it. I know my husband. I know what he’s saying just by listening to the tone of his voice. Today his tone was saying goodbye for good. I’m sure of it.”

  “Okay, so he said he was leaving,” Rae clarified. “What reason did he give?”

  I crossed one leg over the other, bit down on my lower lip.

  “Wait a minute,” Rae continued. “Did you ask him why he was bailing?”

  “I didn’t—”

  The tears rushed back like a leaky faucet, refusing to be quelled. The floodgates had opened. There was no stopping it now.

  “I ... umm ... didn’t ask.”

  Rae’s eyes rolled back. “Callie!”

  “What?! He said he was leaving; I gave him what he wanted. I told him to go.”

  “How do you know that’s really what he wants? He’s a guy, for heaven’s sake!”

  My frustration boiled over. “Look—I came here for support. Support for me, not for him. I’m not here for a lecture on how I could have handled the situation better.” I stood. “I gotta go. I’ll call you guys later.”

  Sasha pointed at the sofa. “Sit your ass back down. You’re not going anywhere, sweetie. Not until we figure this out.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out.”

  “I believe there is.”

  “Like what?”

  “For starters, I’d love to know what it is you’re not telling us.”

  I smoothed a hand over a wrinkle in my T-shirt. “I don’t know what you mean. I told you what happened today.”

  “I’m not talking about today,” Sasha said. “I’m talking about the events that led up to him making a decision like this.”

  “How should I know?”

  “Oh, come on, Callie,” Sasha said. “You’re the most socially repressed person I’ve ever met—even around us. If you think about how things have been lately, really think about it, I think you’ll be able to figure out what happened.”

  Kenna walked into Rae’s house, said, “What did I miss?”

  “A lot,” Rae said. “You better sit down.”

  They filled her in, and all eyes were on me again.

  “He’s been sleeping in the spare room.”

  I hated to admit it, but there was no point denying it now.

  “For how long?” Sasha asked.

  “Three months.”

  Sasha’s brow rose. “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do,” Rae sighed. “Come on, Callie. Let your guard down. Talk to us.”

  “No matter what’s happened, we’ll always support you,” Sasha added.

  “I’m telling the truth. I really don’t know.” Neither seemed convinced. “I promise. If I did, I’d tell you.”

  “Let’s try this another way,” Sasha said. “What do you know? Think about it. He didn’t just wake up one day and say to himself, ‘I think I’ll start sleeping in another room.’ There had to have been some kind of trigger.”

  My mind wandered back to an event a few months earlier.

  “We had a fight one night after dinner,” I said. “It was around the time this all started.”

  “What about?” Sasha asked.

  “It was Josh’s weekly poker night. During dinner, he kept looking at the clock, checking the time, fidgeting like he wanted to get out of there. I asked him what the rush was, even though I knew the answer. I guess I just wanted him to admit how much he’d rather be with his buddies than at home with me.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said they were starting early, and the guys were waiting. I flipped, said I didn’t want him to go. I was tired of always being alone. He seemed shocked, like he didn’t believe that was what I really wanted. He said I only wanted him to stay because I wanted my way. I guess part of me did, but another part really meant what I said. I felt like we hadn’t been connecting lately, and I didn’t know what to do about it.”

  “What did you say?” Sasha asked.

  “I asked him why things seemed different lately. He looked at the floor, acted disappointed, and the next night he was sleeping in the spare bedroom. I figured he was just mad, giving me the silent treatment, but then he just kept staying in there, night after night.”

  “Are you saying you two haven’t had sex in—”

  “Three months. Yep.”

  “You do know that’s not normal, right?”

  “Of course I know.”

  Kenna, who’d remained quiet up to now, stood, grabbed a bottle of red wine from the kitchen, popped it open, brought it out to the coffee table, and set it down. She filled my glass to the brim and handed it to me with a nod and a grin like she knew I needed every last drop. And although I didn’t indulge in wine very often, it didn’t stop me from swallowing it down like I’d been deprived of liquid for days. I finished, handed the glass back to Kenna, and was given an immediate refill.

  “While Josh stayed in the other room, did you two still talk, or do anything together?” Sasha asked.

  “We had dinner together sometimes, pretended everything was okay, but at the end of the evening, he’d still just say goodnight and walk away.”

  “And you never thought you should talk to him about what was going on?”

  “Of course I did. Every single day. A few times, I even crept over to his door, but I never knocked. I felt like an idiot standing there, not knowing what I’d say if he caught me.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I thought if I didn’t push, eventually he’d tell me what was bothering him. It was stupid. I’m stupid, and now I’ve lost him.”

  “So that’s it,” Sasha said. “You’re just going to give up then.”

  “He doesn’t want me. What else can I d
o?”

  “What you can do depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Whether you’re a fighter or a quitter.”

  “I ... I don’t—”

  “Do you love him?” Kenna asked.

  “I don’t love what’s been going on lately. I don’t love how he’s been treating me.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “Of course I love him. I’ve always loved him.”

  “Figure out what the hell his problem is then,” Kenna said. “Fight for him, Callie. Don’t let your marriage end. Not like this. Not when there’s a chance you could still save it.”

  I didn’t know if it was the wine kicking in, or logic talking, or both, but I did something I hadn’t done in a long time—I got angry—with me, with him, with all of it. Earlier I’d let him go without the slightest opposition. Could my friends be right? Had he wanted me to ask him to stay? Was he waiting for me to come to him—to make an effort? I had to find out.

  The following morning I showed up at Charles’s house well before Josh usually left for work, hoping we’d have a chance to talk. I knocked and waited, nervous about what I was going to say, even though I’d rehearsed it on the drive over. Seconds later, I was greeted by Charles, who didn’t look pleased to see me.

  “Callie.”

  “Charles. Is Josh here?”

  “If he is, he’s in the guesthouse out back.”

  Having answered my question, I thought he might turn away from me and close the door. He didn’t. He stood there, eyeballing me. Well, not even eyeballing, really. It was more of a glare, the kind of glare that made me feel unwelcome. I could have been offended, but I wasn’t. He was standing up for his friend, just like my friends would do for me in the same situation. I didn’t blame him.

  “Whatever you need to say, say it,” I said.

  He crossed his arms in front of him, leaned against the doorjamb. “Who said I have anything to say?”

  “I can tell by the way you’re looking at me.”

  “Even if I do have things I’d like to say to you, it doesn’t matter what I think. What’s going on with you and Josh is your business.”