Betrayed

by Carly Fall

  Chapter 25

  Driving home last night, Jeff had been beyond angry. It had taken everything he had not to knock on Adela’s apartment door and tell her about her husband, partner, or whatever he was to her, being a lying, cheating son of a bitch. She deserved so much better than Liam. But, once again, he decided it wasn’t his place to meddle in others’ affairs. Instead, he had gone home, stretched out on the couch, and tried to sleep. As he tossed and turned, he decided that he would up his chiropractic appointments to three times a week.

  He was pathetic. He should just move out of the apartment and start over. Everything in here reminded him of Sara, and he couldn’t even sleep in the bed. However, the fact of the matter was that in the deepest recesses of his heart, he hoped that Sara would come back to him, and he wanted to be where she could find him. Because he was a police officer, his address was redacted from public records. If he moved, there would be no way for Sara to find him again if she ever decided to look.

  As sleep overtook him, his dreams took him back to a time when they were happy together. They had enjoyed taking hikes up Camelback Mountain on crisp fall mornings, and heading up to the San Francisco Peaks in Northern Arizona on sweltering summer days to escape the heat. They were content to spend a lazy afternoon making love and dozing, and they both enjoyed the Coyotes hockey games. Sara knew all the players and would whoop it up at games louder than anyone. He missed seeing her happy.

  The dreams were vivid, and he could feel her soft skin, smell her lavender shampoo, and hear her light and airy laugh. The happiness in his heart brought tears to his eyes. When he awoke in the morning to the cold, harsh reality of his life, he felt the blackness of sadness engulf him. That was the thing with those types of dreams: they were wonderful while they lasted, but when consciousness came, the pain could be overwhelming, the feeling of loss worse than when he went to bed.

  He tried to exercise the demons away, but it seemed that no matter how many push-ups or sit-ups he did, they gripped his heart like a vise. It was anger, heartbreak, and depression all rolled into one ugly fuck-all. The ugliness was growing within him, and he didn’t know how much more he could take, but he didn’t know what else to do but wait and hope that Sara would return.