Sweetest Release

by Nicole Highland

  It was time to start a new chapter of my life.

  CHAPTER 1

  _______

  Most days, I felt like I was on the right path with my life. I’d gotten married, owned a house, and would someday have children. But as time passed, I became less confident I’d made the right choice. It made me step back and wonder; how every path I traveled, every decision I made, led me to this one specific moment in time.

  James and I slowly grew apart over time, and the excitement and thrill of married life had faded away.

  I wondered where our happiness went. I had suppressed feeling that way for so long, but I wasn’t sure I could find the strength to do it any longer.

  Then the bottom fell out, and everything in my life spiraled completely out of control.

  It started on a Monday towards the end of April. I had just kissed James goodbye before he left for work, and when he departed, I assumed I would get ready for another mundane Monday. I also assumed it would be nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary. Just another start to another workweek, it seemed.

  Wrong. It’s funny how life has a way of dealing you a lousy hand when you least expect it.

  The night before, James had acted peculiar. He was tense and wary of his phone. I noticed the screen on his phone would light up, but his text tone wasn’t playing, and I found that strange.

  On most days, he had his ringtone up fairly loud. And while most of the time he didn’t mind if I picked it up, that evening he was touchy about it. He wouldn’t let me anywhere near it.

  My skin crawled with anxiety. Every part of me was telling me that something was wrong. This seemed like a giant red flag waving in my face.

  I ignored it that night, thinking it was my paranoia again. When you’ve been let down so many times, you come to expect that there will always be another shoe to drop. Disappointment has a way of doing that to a person.

  But as I woke the next morning, it was all I could think about. Naturally, I couldn’t let this go, so I did what any person with my experiences would do. I knew if I didn’t look, the pit in my stomach would’ve become a black hole that swallowed me whole. And I couldn’t let that happen.

  I waited until the coast was clear to walk back into our room. I knew he hadn’t thought about the fact that his messages would be both on his phone, and on the tablet. The tablet rested on the nightstand, and its sleek screen beckoned me to walk over to it.

  I froze in the doorway. I already felt like my heart was racing even though I was a good six feet away from it.

  My life could change forever in the next few moments. I stood there paralyzed, knowing what needed done. I couldn’t let this go. If I did, I would never have the answer I so desperately needed.

  In that moment, the fear of what lied ahead beyond that passcode screen kept me from moving my feet, as though it was anchoring me to the floor.

  Slowly, I walked over to the tablet and picked it up. I walked toward the dresser, tablet in hand, and methodically typed in the passcode. The main screen popped open, and as I opened the message app, I found what was perhaps the most damning conversation I had ever seen in print.

  There it was, right before my eyes, an entire evening’s worth of sexual impropriety staring at me right in the face; the innuendo, the lewd photos, all of it there—literally naked—for me to see. They were sending graphic texts and pictures all night, right underneath my damn nose.

  My heart sank and my hands shook as I grasped the edge of the dresser in agony. All the oxygen in the room disappeared, and it left me standing there gasping for it.

  I couldn’t believe it. Everything in my life was about to unwind, and I was powerless to stop it.

  Four years together, and this is where the beginning of the end started.

  I knew I needed to get ahold of James. I would not let this wait until I came home from work. We needed to have the conversation now.

  With trembling hands, I dialed his number, and waited ages before he finally picked up. By the time he picked up the phone, all of my raw emotions came bursting out.

  “We are done! It’s over!” I screamed into the phone, not even elaborating on what I was even referring to.

  The tears steadily streamed down my face, and I still felt like I couldn’t breathe. The conversation was choking the life out of me. My voice was shaky on the phone, and I felt like at any minute it would give out. It was almost as if, subconsciously, parts of my mind and body were shutting down from the level of duress I was under.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  James acted as if he had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, and his question had an irritated tone, which incensed me even more.

  “I saw what was on your tablet, damn it! Do you care to explain to me what the hell is going on? What the hell were you thinking?”

  What happened was shocking, and him acting as if nothing was wrong was even more shocking. It completely dumbfounded me.

  “Nothing is going on! I don’t know what you’re talking about. Tell me what you’re talking about!”

  “I saw the conversation on your tablet. You’ve been sneaking around behind my back texting Kendra, and I saw the entire conversation on there. Stop bullshitting me and acting like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “Look, I’ll come home and we can talk about this,” James said.

  What would we talk about? How he betrayed me? How I thought he actually loved me? Boy, had he duped me.

  I didn’t want him to come back home. I wanted him to leave forever. I imagined myself throwing every last belonging he had on the lawn. I relished the thought. I couldn’t take this level of pain, and I certainly didn’t deserve it.

  Within minutes, he was back home. I knew he would be late for work, but at this point I could’ve cared less. I could feel the pressure from the anger building inside me, and I instantly felt my blood pressure rising.

  I stomped down the hallway to meet him once I heard the back door open.

  “Do you see this? There isn’t a good enough explanation for this because that would be impossible!” I screamed, as I charged toward him.

  He stood in the hallway taken aback as I lunged forward, shoving the tablet in his face.

  My blood boiled. I finally understood what it meant to ‘see red’ now. An entire sea of intense anger and vehement hatred clouded my entire vision, and the rage made my entire body vibrate. I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d explode.

  I felt like I could cut him to pieces, until then, I had never felt a level of anger like that before. It was a hot, blistering rage, and was almost afraid of what I would do next. Sure, I’ve been mad plenty of times in my life. But never like this. The anger was on a different level.

  “She’s just a friend, Natalie. That’s all there is to it. She was hanging out with us last night after the softball game, and she was acting drunk and stupid.”

  “So, does that mean you were acting drunk and stupid, too? You know, considering the fact that you spent about three and a half hours texting her back and forth. I mean, look at this conversation! Look at it!”

  “We were both acting stupid. But nothing happened. We didn’t do anything. That’s all that matters.”

  He paused for a moment, as though I was the villain for calling him out. Ironic, considering I wasn’t the one who did anything wrong.

  “How could you say that, James? I don’t care whether or not you actually slept with her. This is just as bad. You don’t even talk to me this way! How could you do this with virtually a complete stranger?”

  “She’s not a complete stranger, Natalie!”

  “Even still James, how could you do this? What did I possibly do to you to deserve this? Tell me where the hell I went wrong!”

  “Just give me that,” he commanded, as he yanked it from my hand.

  And with a swipe of the finger, the entire conversation disappeared. If only erasing this enti
re chain of events was that easy. I guess it was that easy for him.

  Oh, if only it was that easy for me. It was never easy for me to get over anything. I had invested so much time into this marriage, and I couldn’t believe it was unraveling at the seams.

  The pain was unbearable. Everything was being destroyed, and I was a bystander, frozen in place. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  “So what, that’s just it? That’s your solution to this? Pretending like this never happened?”

  “Nothing did happen, Natalie! Nothing is ever going to happen, and I don’t know why you would think that anything would,” he yelled.

  Here we go again, I thought. He always made me the bad person and made himself a martyr for all his causes. He wanted me to feel guilty for something I didn’t do, but I didn’t create that mess.

  Sure, Kendra was gorgeous. She was absolutely a ten, no question. But was it worth throwing away a marriage of four years over it? Hardly.

  And then, for some unexplainable reason, Devin popped into my head. My mind flashed to his beautiful face, and for a fleeting moment, I wondered again how different my life would be right now if we were still together.

  I shuttered. How could I possibly be thinking of him at a time like this? This was just plain insanity. The stress was too much, and I cracked under the pressure of the myriad of emotions that were slamming into me all at once.

  I burst into tears. I had made it all morning without sobbing, but I could not fight back the stinging tears any longer. It was too much to process at once.

  He tried to grab my arm to pull me in close enough he could hug me, but I wasn’t having it.

  “Don’t touch me!” I screamed.

  “I want you to know that I love you, Natalie,” he groveled.

  He was nearly in tears. Normally, when he was this distressed, it would tear at my heart. But not today. I couldn’t care anymore.

  I was numb. My mind raced, and I didn’t know if I could sift through any of my emotions right now. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. I felt like someone was choking me, and all I could do was feebly gasp for air.

  He tried grabbing at me again, but I smacked his hand away. The last thing I wanted right now was him touching me. I wanted to be as far away from him as possible. I looked away from him. I was in so much pain I couldn’t bring myself to look at his face.

  “Look at me,” he said in a more stern voice.

  I still wasn’t having it. All I wanted was to teleport to another planet and get as far away from him as humanly possible.

  “How could you do this to me, James? How? I don’t deserve this!”

  By now, I was in complete tantrum mode and I felt the urge to scream more. The tears continued to stream down my face, stinging and burning my skin.

  “Natalie, nothing happened! Damn it, why don’t you believe me? There is no reason for you to act this way!”

  No reason, my ass. I knew what I saw. I wasn’t an idiot. It was clear as day what Kendra wanted from him, and it wasn’t just a good conversation. Yet he did nothing to stop it. Instead, he played along with the game. And that’s what worried me.

  He did nothing to stand up and politely shut down her advances. He did nothing at all. In my mind, sharing the most intimate parts of himself, even if there wasn’t any physical contact, still made him guilty. A real man would’ve proclaimed his love for me to her and clarified that she was of no interest to him. But that didn’t happen. And if he did it once, he’d surely do it again, if another opportunity presented itself.

  His actions were not that of a man, and it told me everything I needed to know. All I wanted to know from him was that I could trust him, but I wasn’t sure I would ever trust James again, nor anyone else for that matter.

  All of my old wounds of my past were re-opening. Every time I tried to let a man in, it always ended in disaster. I wondered if there was even a point to trying anymore.

  James stormed out of the house to head to work, slamming the door behind him. I knew this would be a long day ahead of me. I had not felt this alone in a long time.

  I knew in that moment I could not stay; it would destroy my soul. I felt trapped. Every conceivable, viable solution to this seemed out of reach, and I didn’t know where to turn. I felt like every move I might make would only end in disaster.

  I walked on pins and needles constantly, and every move had to be carefully calculated for fear of violent repercussions or outbursts. And to make matters worse, we were on two completely different ends of the spectrum now. I knew he wouldn’t see things from my perspective. He never did. And that made this situation even more precarious.

  Life becomes intensely uncomfortable when you don’t know if the next thing you say will cause a fist going through a wall. Or worse, even you.

  Even though he had left the house, my tears still flowed, and I was certain they would not stop anytime soon. I knew I wouldn’t dare to look in a mirror, for I already knew my face was burning red.

  Regaining my composure for the day was next to impossible, but somehow I made it work. I wasn’t ready to talk about this to anyone. I had tough decisions to make, and I still needed to time to process everything, and figure out how I wanted to proceed.

  I knew I couldn’t tell my coworkers yet. I knew I wasn’t ready for all their questions, and I especially wasn’t ready for the outpouring of emotions. I knew if anyone tried to hug me, I would fall apart, and I wasn’t about to show any of my emotions at work.

  The workday only worsened my mood. As soon as I clocked in, Mary, my supervisor, walked into my office.

  “Natalie, can I talk to you for a moment?”

  “Sure,” I said, as I motioned for her to shut the door.

  “Well, I don’t know if you’ve been hearing anything or not, but I’ve been hearing some rumors that Jack is having to downsize each department across the company. I mean, I don’t know if there’s any validity to it, but I thought you’d probably ought to know beforehand.”

  I sat there speechless. I really thought the day couldn’t get any worse, but low and behold, it was getting worse by the minute.

  “So, who has been talking about it?” I asked.

  “I walked by Marianne’s office while she evidently was on a conference call of some sort and heard her mention it. And I’ve also heard it from a few other people upstairs.”

  “Does anyone know how many people they’re going to need to cut?”

  “I haven’t heard, yet, Natalie. I wouldn’t worry yet though. Nothing has been officially announced yet.”

  “Of course,” I said, as my voice withered away.

  “Well, I need to get back to my office. I have your back, Natalie. And don’t you forget that.”

  As Mary left, all I could do was sit there, numb from everything that was happening around me. I wondered when the madness would end.

  The rest of the day seemed like a blur. I loved my job, but on days like today, not being able to focus would do no one any favors. My job as a proofreader was very tedious, and I needed look over everything with precision.

  Despite how terrible the day was, the time passed quickly. On a typical day, having the time fly be would be wonderful, but this was far from a typical day.

  Today, I dreaded the thought of going home. I wasn’t sure how the evening would go, and I feared the confrontation that would most likely occur when I arrived back home.

  The evening went even worse than I’d imagined. When I arrived back home, James was waiting at the back door and I stayed silent as I took off my shoes and placed my purse on the counter.

  “Still not going to speak, I take it?” he asked.

  I felt dead inside. This morning’s epic battle took a toll on me. I didn’t want to talk. In fact, if I never had to hear his voice again, I would be ecstatic.

  I had absolutely nothing to say to him and I made a vow to myself to stay in silence for as long as I could. I knew
anything I would say would be blown out of proportion, and I knew James would lash out even more than he already had this morning.

  “Answer me when I am talking to you, damn it,” he growled.

  I stared at him with a quizzical look.

  “What exactly are you wanting me to say? That I forgive you? If so, you can think again.”

  “I told you that it’s not going to happen, Natalie. How many times did I tell you that this morning? How many times?”

  The venom in his voice was alarming, and the look in his eyes was nothing but pure hatred. He hated that I refused to forgive him.

  “Well according to you, words are just words, and talking doesn’t have to mean anything. So how is this any different?”

  He didn't prepare himself for that, and I could tell. His brow furrowed, and I could him tense up. He stared down at the countertop, tightening his grip on the edge, and he refused to look up at me.

  “I guess you don’t like to answer when spoken to, either, huh?” I asked.

  That was the final straw for him.

  Slamming his fist into the countertop, he turned around on a dime with the most hateful look in his eyes. He lowered his face to mine, grabbing ahold of my chin with a death grip.

  “I thought I told you a long time ago to not piss me off to this point,” he snarled.

  As he spoke, he spat in my face. I wasn’t about to say anything about it, though I despised him being so close in my personal space.

  He wanted to scare me. And though I was terrified, I somehow found the strength to not show it. I would not cower in front of him out of fear. I refused to let him have the satisfaction of knowing I was frightened.

  “It seems the only person who should be pissed off here is me. I’m not the one who did anything wrong,” I said defiantly, as I pushed him away from me.

  It was a daring move, which I came to regret. Before I even knew what was happening, he reached over to the knife block, pulling out the chef’s knife.