What Happens After

by Portia Moore

  This is the first time I’ve looked at him since I found out. The first time I’ve ever looked at the man I married and felt anything but love, hope, and strength. It’s funny how a few hours have changed everything for us.

  Seeing him makes my emotions crash against each other. Each second I stand here, I become more enraged. How could he do something so stupid, so selfish, and so . . . unforgivable? And he stands here like nothing has happened, as if we’re going to eat breakfast together and everything will be okay?! Nothing will be okay. I realize this as I stand in my kitchen in front of him, the same place he and his whore ate with me and sat with our family.

  “I can’t believe you did this to us.” The words are automatic, as if triggered by his presence. They hurt to speak but hurt even more to hold in.

  “Gwen.”

  His voice breaks as he tries to approach me, but I step back and push my arms out to let him know to stay back.

  “Please, just let me explain,” he begs. His voice sounds pained, and my heart aches for him—for me

  “I can’t. I can’t. I don’t want to hear it, and there’s nothing that you can explain. Anything you say will only make things worse!” I’m frantic. It’s a lie; I want to know everything, but I don’t think I can survive hearing it.

  “Gwen, you’re my best friend,” he says with tears in his eyes.

  I have to turn away. I grab a chair to keep my balance. To see him like this hurts, but I can’t hurt for him. He didn’t hurt for me. I don’t even know if he hurts for me now. I’m sure he hurts for himself.

  “I never meant to hurt you. I know how that sounds, but if I could take it back—”

  “You did hurt me! Worse than anything I’ve ever experienced, and you cannot take it back.” My voice is loud and unrecognizable.

  His gaze isn’t on me but set on the floor instead.

  “In our home, William. How could you? With Lisa of all people!” I’m close to screaming at the top of my lungs.

  “There’s no excuse for what I did,” he whispers.

  His words make me want to throw something. To see him broken . . . I haven’t seen him like this since I was sick. A chill shoots down my spine.

  “Were you seeing her when I was sick?” I ask cautiously. I don’t know if I can take hearing the answer. His eyes widen, and he approaches me; I retreat again.

  “No. I stopped before I found out you lost our child,” he promises.

  The pain of that memory shoots through me. I know he thinks what he said should give me some consolation, but it doesn’t. It tears open a wound I’ve tried to forget, a wound that has become purulent. “You stopped out of pity. You stopped out of a sense of duty, guilt, and a mournful promise but not out of love. Do you love her?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s always been you, Gwen—”

  My eyes narrow on his. “Except when you were screwing her.”

  He looks defeated, as though he’s given up and realized there’s absolutely nothing he can say to fix this. I feel as though my soul is beginning to crumble. I can’t talk to him about this. I can’t think about this.

  “I need you to leave.”

  “Gwen, please. I’ll give you time. I owe you that, but we can get past this.” His voice deepens with each word to the more familiar, authoritative tone I’m used to from him instead of the sad, broken one.

  “How dare you!” I scream. “You have a daughter, William! A daughter! How can we get past that? Tell me?!”

  He covers his face. “I didn’t know.” He attempts to touch me again, and I swat him away.

  “You didn’t know? You think that makes it better?” My whole body shakes as I shed angry tears.

  Tears are falling down his face now too. He gets on his knees and grabs my waist. “What can I do? Tell me—what can I do? I’ll do anything. Please!”

  I try to get out of his grasp, but he holds me tighter.

  “We can get through this. I promise you we can,” he cries against my stomach.

  I realize getting him to let me go will be futile unless I hit him on the head with one of the table utensils, so I gently grasp his face and make him look up at me. “We don’t have to do anything, and you don’t get to decide that. You decided to ruin us—everything we had, our family, our history, you decided that. I get to decide whether I can even consider the possibility of looking at you without seeing you as the person who hurt me more than anyone in my entire life.

  “You have no idea how this feels, how badly I hurt. You can’t, because if you got it, if you understood, you would leave me alone. You’d know how much it hurts me to see you, to hear your voice as I look around our home and think about how you desecrated and disrespected the place where we built our family. And the very worst part of it all is that I was completely oblivious. I thought we were fine, that we were okay. I’ve been happy!”

  “I’ve been happy too! I haven’t been involved with Lisa in years!” he shouts, and hearing him say her name makes my stomach churn.

  I cover my face, trying to catch my breath.

  “Is everything okay?” my son’s wife, Lauren, says from behind me.

  “William was just leaving.”

  His face falls, his expression crushed. “We have to talk about this.”

  “I need you to go now! Right now, William.” My screeching makes even me flinch.

  He glances behind me at Lauren, then he nods. “If that’s what you want.”

  He wipes the tears from his face. I’ve only seen William cry once in his life besides today, and that was when his mother passed away. Now I have to squelch the instinct to go to him and hug him and tell him everything will be okay. A task made easier as my urge to lash out at him consumes me.

  “I’m just going to get a few things, and I’ll go. If that’s what you want,” he says quietly, his eyes on mine.

  After taking a deep breath, I say, “There isn’t any other choice.”

  His eyes fall to the floor, and he walks past me. As I hear him leave the room, I feel my spirit shatter. The wail I release is embarrassing. I cover my face with my palms, immediately soaking them with tears. I feel two arms wrap around me.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Lauren asks.

  I can’t speak because I can’t stop crying.

  “HERE YOU GO,” Lauren hands me a cup of chamomile tea. She cautiously sits across the table from me.

  In the short time we’ve known each other, we’ve grown close. She has my granddaughter, so that automatically puts her near the top of the list of my favorite people, and she makes my son happy, happier than I’ve seen in such a long time. Things had been going so well until yesterday. When everything came to a head—no, that explanation is too mild. When the volcano erupted and destroyed everything near it.

  “Thank you,” I say, breaking myself from my thoughts. I can’t imagine how awkward it is for her to be here right now. I know that she and Lisa had grown to like one another. Now to be in the middle of all of this . . .”I’m sorry you’re here for all of this. We’re usually quite the normal family.”

  My pathetic attempt at levity falls flat. Her eyes widen, and she shakes her head.

  “No need for apologies. I-I can’t imagine what it’s like to be in your shoes right now,” she says earnestly.

  “It’s not the greatest place to be right now,” I say, successfully coming off a little lighter.

  She nods again and lets out a deep breath. “Chris and I talked, and we would love to have you come back to Chicago with us if that’s something you would like.” She sounds hopeful.

  “Thank you for the invitation. As much as I’d love to have more time with my Caylen, I just don’t think it’s the right time,” I say before taking a sip of tea.

  She nods understandingly.

  “I hate to run from my own home, you know?” I swallow as hard as I can to keep my voice from breaking. “But how can I stay here? Everywhere I look . . .” I lift my hands off the table in disgust. “I don’t know w
here they . . .” I’m too exhausted to complete my thought.

  “Maybe it wasn’t as bad as you think,” Lauren says lightly, and her face scrunches up immediately. “That was a stupid thing to say. I just think sometimes our imagination, the unknown, is so much worse than what actually happened.” She gives a small shrug.

  “It’s almost funny. Yesterday we sat here and ate breakfast, and everything was fine. All was well. Now today—” I stop as my voice breaks. I hate who I’ve become, a sobbing pitiful mess. I push the tea away as I rest my head in my hands on the table. “I shouldn’t have told William to leave. I can’t stay in this house.”

  “Where are you going to go?” she asks.

  That’s the question. I don’t want to intrude on my son and his family just as they’re settling into their life together. I surely don’t want to be around my granddaughter in the state I’m in now—hating her grandfather. She’s only one, but I’m sure she’ll still pick up my feelings rather than my words. I don’t want to be the cloud over them. They’ve had enough gloom to last a lifetime.

  “I have a sister. I can stay there until I get my bearings,” I murmur. “Gia’s great. She’ll be able to put up with my moping.”

  Lauren stands and walks over to me. “I think you’re allowed to sulk.” She gives me a warm smile and a big hug. I can tell her smile is an attempt to cover her worry. “And it’s great that you have someone who can be there for you. I always wished I had a sister or brother.”

  “It’s funny, I always wanted Chris to have a sibling. Now he does,” I say, unable to mask my bitterness.

  “Do you want me to help you pack or drive you to your sister’s?”

  “No. The drive will clear my head. I know I look like a mess, but I’m fine. I’ve been through worse.” Before I leave the kitchen, my feet stop, unable to move, and I feel embarrassed about what I’m about to ask. “Lauren, did you—was there anything you noticed between them since you’ve been here?” I feel more pathetic than ever.

  Lauren walks closer to me and looks me directly in the eye. “No, not once.”

  I laugh at myself. She isn’t his wife. Whether she noticed anything or not isn’t important. I was the fool. I was blind, and what bothers me the most is the little voice in my head that tells me I had this coming . . .

  LOVE IS LIKE a parasite rooting within you. It affects every part of you that matters, tainting it. A virus that spreads so quickly that by the time you realize you’ve caught it, there’s no stopping it from gaining ground. It’s a drug that changes how you feel, how much you eat, what you hear, and the decisions you make. A good day on love is better than any high imaginable; a bad day on love immobilizes you. Love unrequited is even worse than love unspoken. Love—something that you’ve tried to forget about, a door that had been shut though not locked. Yesterday I blew that door wide open, and every foul thing it hid became visible for all to see.

  It’s my worst nightmare. My deepest, darkest secret revealed. My worst fear confirmed. I had to tell the one person who has been one of the only real friends I’ve ever had. A person who never judged me, who loved me like a sister, and I told him something that would destroy him. That did destroy him. I thought that since telling him was the right thing, it would at least make me feel better, my conscience satisfied for the first time in years. But it didn’t.

  It didn’t make him feel better, and with the way he looked at me, I know he’ll never ever forgive me. Time won’t heal the hatred he had in his eyes. The thing I feel worst about is the small glimpse of disappointment he showed before pure malice consumed him. That hurt more than anything, the thought that all the things everyone has said about me and my family—the rumors, everything he refused to believe about me—were true. I didn’t live up to his expectations. Turns out I’m nothing but a whore’s daughter who grew up to be just like her mother. I’m worse actually because to my knowledge, my mom never slept with her best friend’s married father. She never did something so careless to someone she called a friend.

  When you’re young, you don’t think; you just feel. You crave, you want, and you take. I wish I could just blame that on my age, on being a stupid hormonal teenager, but I can’t. Because I’m still like that. As much as I don’t want to, I think of myself first, and as much as I wish I could convince myself that I told Chris the truth because it was the noble, right thing to do, I didn’t tell him because of that. I told him because it was eating away at me. The secret, knowing what I caused to happen, and I was afraid—afraid of being responsible for raising a little girl alone and even more afraid that she’ll turn out like me.

  That scares me more than anything as I look at her sleeping. The same long blond hair as mine, the blood running through her veins that was passed down from my mother and her mother. I want her to stay peaceful, sweet, and innocent. I want her to hold on to the lie that she isn’t a Garrett. I wish more than anything that the lie she knows were real, that her real mother was a sweetheart, that her real mother was selfless and would do anything in the world to make her happy. I wish more than anything to trade places with the woman who deserves to be her mom. I don’t even want to call myself her mother. I don’t deserve that title.

  I gave my daughter away before she was even born. I abandoned her before she was even thought of. I wish more than anything I could trade places with the woman who deserves to be her mom so that she could raise her to be the woman she’s capable of, but I can’t. She’s stuck with me, and my punishment is telling her that the world she knew was a dream, a lie. My daughter’s reality is that she has a mother with no clue how to be responsible for anyone besides herself and a father who didn’t even know she existed.

  I fight back tears because I know out of everyone involved in this, I deserve tears the least. I never meant to hurt anyone, but I guess that’s what every fucked-up person says after they hurt so many people. You don’t mean it though. In that moment, you don’t think about someone else’s hurt—you think about pleasure, your own pleasure. Something that feels so good can’t be that bad, right? That’s what you tell yourself at least, and when you’re young, you believe it.

  “Hey.” My friend, or anti-friend, Aidan stands in the doorway. His expression’s unreadable, and I’m grateful for that. “I’ve got to head out.”

  He looks tired. I’m sure he didn’t get much sleep last night with all my crying and him coddling me. Aidan isn’t a coddler. He’s the friend you call when you want someone’s ass kicked. He’s the doer, not the one who stops and thinks. Aidan is anything but the person you call to sulk with.

  “Are you going to be okay?” he asks, looking at me, but his eyes don’t reach mine.

  I can’t blame him for being unable to look me in the eye. Chris is his real best friend, not the anti-friend he and I are. Enemies who have been friends with the same person for so long we had no choice but to become friends in the most unfriendly way possible. We argue, we tease, but the reason we even tolerate the other is Chris—was Chris. Now that Chris wants nothing to do with me, I wonder how much longer Aidan will be around.

  “I’ll be fine. I have to be, right?” I ask with a fake laugh.

  He frowns at me. “I’ll come back and check on you after I get some sleep. Your couch has fucked up my back. I need to sleep in my own bed.” He massages his shoulder.

  “Thank you for everything, A,” I say, getting off the bed and walking over to him.

  A small smile creeps across his face, showing two dimples. His blue eyes are soft and comforting, unlike the wide grin he usually flashes me after an insult. “You’re good. Well, you’re not good, but no thanks necessary.” He nudges me playfully in the shoulder.

  It’s comforting, our banter. Our petty arguments are the only things I’ll have to remind me of my best friend.

  “C-can you let me know how he is once you talk to him?” I say, sounding desperate even to myself.

  “I-I don’t know,” he says hesitantly.

  “Please, Aidan. I just w
ant to know he’s okay.”

  His eyes fall from my face to the floor, then he puts his hands on my shoulders. “He’ll survive this.” He gives me a reassuring squeeze, and I nod. He opens the door to leave, sweeping his hand over the blond hair that’s grown out from the buzz cut he had during the tour he just finished. “I don’t know a lot of people who can forgive what you did, but if there’s anyone who can, it’s Chris.”

  I nod.

  “I’ll see you later, okay?” he says before heading down the stairs of my porch.

  I shut the door and rest on it once it’s closed. I take a deep breath and wish for my head to stop pounding and for the thousand-pound weight on my chest to give me just a little bit of a break. I sink into my couch and pull a pillow onto my lap. My thoughts are going in slow motion. Everything that happened yesterday consumes me. My mind tries to drift to before yesterday, to a time I’ve done my best to block out.

  I’m thankful when my doorbell rings. Aidan must have left something. I push myself off the couch, open the door, and my heart clenches when I see him standing on my porch. His usually bright blue eyes are dim and squinted at me. His golden brown hair, which is so much longer than the days I used to run my hands through it, looks as if he hasn’t touched it all day. His facial hair has grown since I saw him a couple of days ago, a far cry from the five o’clock shadow covering his rigid face. His presence is overwhelming. Anger and sadness radiate off him, his emotions so strong that if they were a physical being, I’d be knocked down. It’s been so long since we were this close, since we were alone. I don’t know why I haven’t prepared myself for this moment, but I’m completely vulnerable.

  “I thought you understood, Lisa,” he says, his voice not matching his heated gaze. His voice is quiet, somber, and broken.