Life Without You

by S. P. West

  I’m still unsure how I got home; everything was a bit of a blur after I left Alex earlier. I vaguely remember a very kind woman putting her arms around me, letting me cry on her shoulder while my world crumbled around me. After that, it’s a blank until I walked into the apartment. It’s as if my brain shut out the trauma of the day.

  The tears that had been flowing since I left him standing on the street have stopped for now. It won’t be long until they start up again; I can feel them there, underneath the surface waiting to flow at any goddamn moment. It hardly takes anything for the floodgates to open; I must have gone through at least two boxes of tissues. At the rate, I’m going I may have to buy shares in Kleenex.

  I’ve done nothing but lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering how on earth I’m going to get through this alone.

  My heart is broken. No, not just broken. Shattered. Shattered into so many pieces that that I don’t think that it’ll ever be possible to put it back together again.

  All I want is wake up and for this nightmare to be over. I keep hoping that any second now Alex will come bursting through the door telling me that I’ve been having a bad dream. Except it’s not a dream is it?

  I saw my husband kissing another woman in public. The same husband who made a vow to forsake all others, was messing about with a slut from his office for the entire world to see.

  He’s been gone a week and already he’s found my replacement to warm his bed.

  I have been such an idiot. I can’t believe that I trusted him. Everything is making sense now – the late nights, the texting. How could I be that blind? I really thought that we had a chance, that somehow we could repair the damage to our relationship once he found out about the baby.

  Instead, I’m going to have to face the fact that my marriage is over.

  Dead.

  Alex doesn’t want me. He wants her.

  No, there is no going back as far as my husband…ex, is concerned. He doesn’t care he already has someone else.

  Oh god, is he living with her already? Did he leave me and head straight to her?

  I can feel that tears begin to fall down my face again and I curl myself up into a tight ball on the bed. I want to sleep so badly but my mind is assaulted by images of him and her together. Questions race through my fragmented mind - How long has it gone on for? Has there been anyone else? Is this really the end?

  I brush my hand over my still flat stomach; maybe he’ll have a change of heart. According to the baby book that Violet bought for me the other day, my baby is no bigger than a grape. Not even born and already yet another child facing being brought up in a broken home. A life spent travelling between two homes, possibly between two countries and God forbid if Alex marries his... what do I even call her?

  Slut, Whore, Mistress, Bitch…. she who shall not be named like some slutty, husband stealing version of Lord Voldemort.

  What if he marries her and they start a family? Will I have to watch while he starts a new life with her? Always on the outside begging for scraps from the man I love?

  All I know for sure is that the future I thought I’d have is gone. It’s been snatched away from me.

  It’s as if I am in the ballroom scene from the Labyrinth. Trapped in a nightmarish bubble, unable to get out. In another bubble, floating far, far away from me is the life and future that I thought I would have with Alex. In the yet another, Alex is with his her. They are standing in a cookie cutter house with its perfect lawn and picket fence. A couple of kids are chasing the family’s black Labrador. In his arms is a newborn baby who he looks at with such tender devotion while she looks on smiling.

  Is that the future I have to look forward to?

  Whatever happens though, I won’t let them hurt my baby. Alex will not turn round to me and say that the baby was the result of a pity fuck. This child was made by the love that its parents had for one another. I refuse to believe that it was anything else. It’s certainly not as if two strangers conceived the little bundle of joy growing in my belly. No, a man and woman… husband and wife who loved each other, who had vowed to love each other until the end of time, made this baby.

  I can’t walk away from this. I hope that Alex will see sense and not want to walk away from it either.

  I need to try to see if we can fix this, I’m not sure if that’s possible but I have to try and make him see sense. Oh, don’t get me wrong. Part of me, a big part, wants to swear and curse, telling him to go to hell and hope that his dick falls off along the way.

  The other part; the part that loves him with all my heart, the one that is willing to do anything and everything to make this right, knows that we need to sit down as a couple and work out what we want as our future. Perhaps we could look into counseling, work out our problems. See if we can get over the fact that my husband went from my bed straight into someone else’s.

  Everything is so new…so raw. I sway from wanting to kick him to the curb and file for divorce to getting on my knees, begging him to come home. From one extreme to the other.

  Why couldn’t he have just sat me down and talked to me like I wanted to?

  Just sit down as adults and talked about what was going on. I hate not knowing what he is thinking; I hate the fact that he won’t talk to me unless it’s on his terms. I hate that fact that he is so willing to walk away from us that he would lie to me.

  How exactly do you come back from what I saw today? Is it possible to forgive and forget?

  I don’t know. I really, really don’t know.

  Don’t get me wrong I want to hate him; I want despise him. He deserves my anger, to be shouted and screamed at but what good would that do? It wouldn’t. If I turn into a screaming harpy I’m afraid that he’ll never come back to me. It could backfire spectacularly and push him further into her arms.

  I don’t believe him when he says that he only started seeing her this week and I can’t believe that it was the woman from the picnic. I knew I didn’t trust that bitch, I knew it, knew it, knew it!

  He’s thrown me…us… away. Did he ever love me at all? What about all the plans we had together? All our hopes, our dreams, our future together meant absolutely nothing to him.

  What about the baby? If I tell him about the tiny child I carry, would he change his mind? If he doesn’t do I want to stay in the States, or do I go home?

  What do I do? Someone please tell me what I do.

  Round and round these thoughts fly through my brain, never letting up or giving me a moments piece. All I want to do is shut my eyes, to go to sleep and not wake up.

  Anything to stop the voices in my head; to stop the images of him and her together.

  What I can’t understand is why. Why would he do this? What have I done so wrong that he had go and find someone else?

  The only thing that I’m slightly relived about right now is that the sharp pains I felt in my tummy earlier have been replaced by a dull ache.

  A faint knock on my door pulls me from my thoughts, “Sum…”

  I bury my head under my pillow hoping beyond hope that Vi will go away and leave me alone.

  “Sum.” She tries again, “Sum I’ve made you a cup of tea. It’s decaf.”

  The true sign of being English and our faith in the restorative power of tea. I remember that my nan always used to give me a strong, sugary cup of the stuff whenever I fell and hurt myself because according to her tea make everything better.

  “I’ll just pop it outside your door then.” I mentally count down in my head before she starts to speak again. “Sum, what happened today? What did that bastard do to you?”

  “Leave me alone,” I whisper.

  “No. You’ve been in your pit sobbing your heart out for the last five hours. If you don’t want to talk about it, then fine. I’ll wait.” I know full well from the dramatic pause that she is standing in front of the door with her hands on her hips, silently cursing me for my stubbornness. “You need to eat Sum. If not for you then for the baby.”

&nb
sp; That does it for me – I have to think about the baby. Just as I’m getting off the bed, I hear the familiar ping of my mobile before Violet lets out an expletive exclamation.

  “Shit.” And I wonder what shit storm I’m about to face.

  “Summer, you need to come out now!”

  I yank the door open with enough force that Violet almost falls on top of me. It would be comical if I wasn’t so upset. I silently hold out my hand for my mobile, which she is currently clutching to her chest. She shakes her head no.

  “Give me my phone Vi.” Again, she shakes her head. “Just give me the fucking phone.”

  She continues to hold it away from me. I notice that her eyes are puffy and red, she looks like she been crying. I know for fact that I mirror her.

  “Before I give you your phone, there are three things I need to tell you.” I glare at her before reaching to grab my cell. She shifts her body so that I can’t reach round her.

  “Number one,” she says again moving away from me, drawing me towards the living room, “do not, under any circumstances what so ever, check Facebook.”

  What possible reason does she have that I shouldn’t check my computer at a time like this?

  “I’m serious; you don’t need go on there Sum. In fact, don’t go on any social media at all. Just give me all your passwords and you can go on there to your hearts content after I finished.” She pisses me off on the process by not giving me any more information. “And two. Becks called to see if you are okay. He wanted to invite us both round to dinner at his and Lyssa’s place. Which I thought was very sweet seeing as he barely knows me.”

  I’m still in a panic, thinking the worst about why Vi doesn’t want me to check any of my social media. What is on there that is so bad? It doesn’t make sense.

  “Why don’t you want me to check Facebook?”

  “I’ve said yes by the way. He did ask if we fancied going there tonight. I told him you’ve had a really bad day. He said we‘d have to take a rain check. How cute is that? No one has ever said that to me before. Is it an American thing, do you reckon?” She rambles on, ignoring my question.

  “Vi?”

  “I’m not sure that I should tell you the third thing, it’ll just upset you. Maybe you could go out for a while? Pop and see Del? O,” She says her whole demeanor brightening up at the brilliance of her idea, “you could see if Del’s mum is free. She’s a qualified relationship therapist. It’ll do you good to talk to someone who knows what their talking about.”

  “VIOLET!” I shout at her before she can draw breath and start on the next thing in her attempt to distract me, which causes her to jump. Her mouth opening and closing like a guppy, no sound coming out, clearly shocked by the fact that I had shouted at her. I take full advantage of the fact that I have managed to stun her into silence.

  “Shut up for just a minute, for Christ’s sake!” I demand, “For one, you are talking so fast that I can’t take in what you are saying. First thing first – dinner with Becks and Lyssa is completely fine. I really appreciate you fielding the call for me and yes,” stopping her as she opens her mouth to speak, “you were absolutely not to agree to it being tonight. Thank you.” I take a breath looking at her dead on as I continue. “Now, I’ve had a shit day Vi. Instead of giving my husband the joyful news of his impending fatherhood, I found out in the worst way possible that my husband is seeing someone else and while I really appreciate your need to protect me. I am not in the mood for any more bullshit today. I’m on to you and your ninja diversion techniques, Violet May Frye. You did the same thing when you didn’t want me to find out that you had murdered Fluffy!” Violet turns the brightest shade of pink as she lets out an outraged gasp at the mention of her carelessness with my pet hamster all those years ago.

  “So stop trying to divert my attention and just tell me why I need to avoid all forms of social media? And,” I jab my finger in her face. In the back of my mind a little voice is telling me that I shouldn’t be talking to Violet like this. None of what has happened today has been her fault, I know that I’m unfairly taking it out on her but I’ve done enough crying today, now I’m angry as hell and poor Violet is, once again, getting the brunt of it. “What the hell is the third thing?” My breath is coming out in heavy pants, as though I have run a marathon. As I realize that I hardly took in a breath during my diatribe.

  Violet, to her credit, gives me a withering look, her hands on her hips. “A,” She starts checking off on her fingers, “Fluffy was eaten by Mr. Smiggles, he escaped from his cage - I didn’t murder him! I’m sorry it happened but I can’t believe that you are bringing that up again!” Clearly annoyed that I’d brought up that fact that her long-dead, crotchety old cat had eaten poor Fluffy. “B. I was only trying to protect you.”

  “What is so bad that you don’t me want see it?” I interrupt in desperation.

  Her whole body sags in defeat, the look in her eye sad. “Before I show you. I just want to say that I’ve spent the last five hours listen to you sob you heart out over, what I can only guess, something that dick head of a husband of yours has done. I completely understand it and Lord knows how many times I’ve cried over a man.” She sighs and looks at a picture of Alex and I that I know is on the wall behind my shoulder. “I kind of figured that you’ve had some really crap day, I didn’t want to make a bad day worse for you.”

  “I’m not a child Vi. I don’t need protecting.”

  “I know babe,” she half smiles, “I know. I just get so angry on your behalf. I can see what all this is doing to you and it kills me seeing you go through it. You’re my best friend Sum - I hate seeing you hurt. You’re my sister from another mister, you know that.”

  Violet pulls me into a welcome hug. “Now you going to tell me what happened today. chickadee?”

  I cling to her as the tears begin to flow again, as tell her what happened earlier she remains remarkably silent through the whole thing. As the words tumble out I can feel myself getting angrier and angrier. As I finish my tale with a very angry exclamation of the that motherfucker! I notice that Violet has guided me to sit down on the couch. I can see that she had placed a box of tissues and a large hot chocolate in front of me without me even realizing it.

  “I was wondering when angry Summer would make an appearance,” she smiles sadly. “You need to get angry.”

  “I don’t want to be angry or sad,” I whisper brokenly, “I just want my life back.”

  “And I wish I could give it to you. I really do.”

  “Sometimes I think that this is all a bad dream. That any second I’ll wake up and Alex will be lying in bed next to me, his arms around me. It’s not a dream though is it Vi?” I can feel the tears begin to track down my cheeks again.

  “Hey, hey! Strong Summer, remember? Angry Summer,” Vi does a crap impression of the Hulk as she hands me a tissue before I can wipe the tears away with the back of my hand.

  “I can’t do this Vi without him.”

  “You can and you will.”

  “He might change his mind. What if he changes his mind? Has a little fling and comes back to me?”

  “I don’t think he will Sum…”

  “He might though. He might come to his senses.”

  Violet rubs my right arm in a soothing gesture. I catch her tortured expression before she schools her features into something more neutral. “I’m going to show you something.” She gets up and grabs my laptop, placing it on the coffee table and tilting the screen away from me as she sits back down. “I didn’t want you to see this before as I know it will upset you even more than you already are. That’s not good for you or for junior. But I think you need to see this.” It’s then that she turns the screen back round so I can see. It takes me a minute to realize the page I’m looking at is Alex’s profile page.

  There is the profile picture of him on the beach that’d I’d already seen.

  On the page itself, I see that he had been tagged in quite a few pictures by the bitch Rachel. I
choose to ignore these and continue looking down the page, still unsure as to what I was searching for.

  “I think he forgot to un-friend me,” Vi says as I my eyes flicker across the screen.

  I see that quite a few people had recently posted him messages of congratulations. Confused, I continue to scroll down until I see a message posted by a mutual friend, four days ago that read;

  What happened with you and Summer? Are you getting divorced?

  To which he hadn’t replied.

  My brow furrow’s as I see more and more messages asking him what had happened between us. A little way down, I finally see what everyone had been referring too. A small, innocuous little message that broke my heart that little bit more.

  Alex Thorson is in a relationship with Rachel Slaine.

  I put my hand over my mouth to stop myself from howling from the agony that I feel; yet strangely, no tears come.

  The bastard.

  That cheating fucking arsehole had changed his status two days before he walked out on me. Next to me, Violet doesn’t say a word only taking hold of my hand in a form of silent solidarity. I give her hand a quick squeeze as a form of thanks, and then continue staring at page wondering if it can get any worse.

  “Did you know?” I ask, my voice horse.

  “Not ‘til today. When I had a quick look.”

  Stupidly, I hadn’t paid attention to the top of the page, which would have shown me what I needed to know without further hurt. Instead, I can see that people have posted comments at the relationship change.

  “Don’t do it.” Violet whispers next to me. “You’ve seen what an arsehole he is. Don’t torture yourself anymore.”

  “I have to,” I choke out and click.

  I read each comment underneath the death knell of my marriage; most of them questioning Alex’s sanity until I see one from her.