You Left Me to Remain With All Your Excuses for Everything

She hadn’t moved from where he’d left her standing when he’d walked out of her room, and seemingly out of her life. It was as if her body couldn’t respond to her irrational emotions and commands. So many things were running through her body, through her mind, from shock and hurt to anger and hate, how could he do that to her? How could he live with himself knowing that not only was her hurting her, but his wife? How could any man do that and sleep at night? How could he know how much she loved him and use it to manipulate her into staying with him just so he could use her for sex? So many questions raced through her head at once it was making her head spin a little bit.

Josh came into the room then and looked at her with sympathy and concern. She turned her head a little to look at him with burning red eyes and all of a sudden her face contorted into an expression of utter pain and suffering and all of her emotions rushed out of her in a harsh scream of sobbing and her knees gave out under her body and she went down. Josh caught her before she could hit the ground and he got her into a standing position and walked her a few steps back to her bed and sat her down. By the time he had her sitting on the bed her sobbing had become hysterical and she was having a hard time breathing. He sat next to her on the bed then and put his arms around her in a comforting way and ran his hand over her back a few times gently.

“No!” she screamed and pushed him away a little bit. “Don’t sit here…and hold me…and comfort me…and lie to me the way he did! I don’t…need another…man…to lie to…me and…make me think he actually gives a damn…about me…” she cried with that hysteria still coursing through her body.

“Calm down Jackie, calm down,” he said gently as if talking to a child. He continued to stroke her back and her hair and she finally clung to him and cried violently. “We’ll get you through this, honey, one way or another,” he said gently. She continued to sob violently and hysterically until finally she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder. He sighed and adjusted her so that she was lying with her head on her pillow and he pulled her sheets up over her and left the room.

Tyler parked his car next to Christine’s silver BMW in their drive way like he always did and he pulled down his sun visor and checked the mirror like he did every time he came back from Jackie’s apartment. His jaw was red and puffy where Madison had punched him, and he had two bite marks from the night before on his neck. He sighed and got out of his car and walked to the front door of the house he shared with his wife.

He opened the door and walked into the house to see a Post it note stuck to the wall and he sighed again. So far this hadn’t been a good day. Now he was remembering her phone call and how upset she had sounded. He pulled the note off the wall and looked at it. In the kitchen, -Chrissy it read in black sharpie marker. He walked into the kitchen to see her sitting on the counter with both of her hands closed around something. He looked at her with a smile and leaned in to kiss her cheek. He was surprised when he leaned away from him.

“Where were you?” she said with anger lacing her voice.

“I told you, I was out with the guys,” he said. “I had too much to drink and found it best not to drive, I’m sorry. I did get your message though, and I tried to call you back three times. What happened, you seemed upset,” he said.

“With the guys,” she repeated with some sarcasm in her words and she smiled a little bit to herself. “Then what happened to your face?”

“Yea, we went to a bar and you know, there are little bar fights, not a big deal,” he said. “I’m sorry, I know I don’t spend enough time at home with you when I’m not on the road. I’ll work on that, I promise,” he said and again tried to kiss her with the same reaction he’d gotten the first time. She nodded her head a little bit with annoyance before pulling her hands apart a little bit. She passed her thumb over the soft material in her hands and let out a harsh breath.

“Maybe you can answer me a question for me then , Tyler,” she said and spread her hands further, displaying the black panties she had found in his pocket the night before, “like which one of the guys wears these, and what the fuck they were doing in your pocket!” she screamed then and threw the panties at him before slipping off the counter with anger and rage blazing in her eyes. He looked at her and then down at the panties in his hand. He remembered the night he’d taken them from Jackie in the restaurant with his wife sitting just outside the restroom he was in with his mistress. He was lost for words.

“Chrissy…I can explain these…” he started.

“I don’t want your fabricated explanation! I want the truth!” she screamed and shoved him with all her strength, causing him to take a step back to maintain his balance.

“Christine, you are over reacting,” he said. She looked at him with anger and slapped him across the face then as he tears started to run down her face.

“I’m over reacting?! How dare you say I’m over reacting! You have women’s panties in your pocket and fucking bite marks on your neck! How long have you been fucking this bitch, Tyler?!” she screamed. “Just tell me the truth, I am your wife! I deserve to know!”

“Christine, I’m telling you, it’s not what you think,” he said and put his hands up in defense for the next slap that came towards his face.

“God, I’m not fucking stupid, Tyler! Stop lying to me like I’m a little girl! I just want to know the truth! Why is that so hard to just tell me the truth!?” she screamed and pushed him again.

“…It was a year yesterday…” he surrendered. He knew he wasn’t going to win. She stared at him for a long time with tears running down her face. Her head was clouded and spinning with emotions. She looked down at the ground and put her hand on the counter she’d been sitting on for support.

“A year?” she asked in almost a whisper.

“I’m sorry, Christine. I don’t know how it happened…I met her in a bar…I was drunk and you and I had just had a fight…and she was so pretty and she was so easy to convince to let me buy her a drink…it just happened,” he said gently.

“How does that explain a year?! A one night stand is one thing, Tyler! But a fucking year?!” she screamed.

“She was good…” he shrugged. Then a boiling kind of rage exploded inside of her and she took hold of a frying pan that was in the sink and swung it at his head. He ducked fast enough for her to just miss and hit the cabinet that was next to him.

“That’s what you have to say for yourself?! She was good?! What I’m not good enough for you?!” she screamed and swung the frying pan at his head again, missing for a second time.

“Stop swinging that thing around!” He protested as she swung it again and started to back him out of the kitchen.

“Hold still and I won’t have to keep swinging!” she screamed and swung again. This time he caught her wrist and fought the pan handle out of her hands.

“Chrissy, please,” he started.

“Don’t! Don’t start with your bullshit lies again! I will not sit here and be your little bitch while you go and fuck some other girl behind my back! I am your wife, Tyler! You promised me this kind of shit wouldn’t happen when you put this stupid ring around my finger! Obviously it was just another one of your fucking lies!” she cried and pulled the ring off of her finger and threw it at him the way she had the panties. This time though, he didn’t catch it after it hit his chest. He just watched at it hit the floor at his feet.

“It wasn’t supposed to be that way, Christine. It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. When I married you, I never intended to hurt you like this…” he said.

“You have nobody to blame but yourself! I’m not the one with the secret fucking boyfriend! I sit here, waiting on you while you’re on tour, missing you, wishing you were here. I’m here when you come home, I’m always happy to see you, ready to spend the little bit of time with you that I have! Then what, I find out that the time I have with you, some other girl is counting on too!” She cried.

“I know…I’m sorry…”

“Sorry because you got caught maybe,” she sniffed. “Just tell me why, Tyler? Why did you do this to me…why couldn’t you just…just leave me or something…? Why would you have this affair for a year, with some other woman, and then come home to me? I don’t understand,” she cried.

“I don’t know Christine,” he said. “It wasn’t supposed to go that far, you know. It was only supposed to be one mistake. Just a one night, drunken mistake,” he continued, as he tried with all his worth to find an answer to her question that was something other than what kept popping up in his mind. “But she gave me her phone number before we got into the back of the truck…and I called her the next day to make sure she was alright, because when I left her in the parking lot she couldn’t walk and she was puking a lot. When I first called her, I just wanted to make sure she got home alright…but I don’t know if it was my ego or what, something possessed me to ask her out again. But then she said no…and it pissed me off. Then it was my ego, because I started pursuing her. I had to prove myself or something. I had to make her want me…”

“That still doesn’t explain why this went on for a year! It took you a year to prove that she wanted you?!” she sniffed. She knew where this explanation was leading, she could see it deep down in his dark eyes.

“I guess I…dated…her for a while. I took her to dinner and shit, I told her what I did for a living…I flew her out to shows when I was on the road. After five months, I realized I couldn’t keep that up. I couldn’t keep doing that to her, lying to her, taking advantage of her like that. I had you, it was fair to her, because she didn’t know I was married. But then, the night I told her I was married…she was so broken…and I couldn’t let her go…”

“Get to the point, Tyler,” Christine snapped then. She looked at him and noticed how far away his eyes were. He wasn’t even looking at her. His gaze was fixed on some memory that she couldn’t see.

“She was crying…and she asked me if that meant I wasn’t going to see her anymore. At first that had been my honest intention…to let her go and be happy with someone that she could have for herself. But when I was looking at her sitting there, I could tell how hurt she really was, and I just couldn’t cut her loose like that. At the time I didn’t know why…but now…I think…somewhere over the course of needing to prove myself, I fell in love with her,” he said and rolled his eyes back onto his wife. “I’m sorry.”

Those six words hit her harder than she’d ever expected, and she choked on her sobs. Her mind started racing again and she looked at the ground in an attempt to catch the breath that had been knocked out of her lungs when he’d said that he’d fallen in love with someone else. “Just…leave…” she choked. He looked at the ground as well and took a deep breath before reaching his hand out to touch her arm. “Just leave! I don’t want to see you here anymore! If you love her so much, go back to her!” she screamed then as new tears started to run down her face in salty waterfalls.

“Christine, I’m sorry…I love you…I swear I do. More than I can even begin to tell you…”

“Just go! Damn it, Tyler, just fucking go! Don’t lie to me anymore, please! It won’t work this time! Just go be with her, go back to her!”

“Even if I went…she won’t take me back…” he said more to himself than to her.

“I don’t care, just leave!” she shouted.

“I do love you, Christine…but I won’t try and make you forgive me…I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” he said and walked away from her. He went into their bedroom and packed his clothes quickly. He couldn’t get the thought of how much she was hurt out of his head, and for the first time in a long time, he felt genuinely guilty for his actions. Once he was packed, he slipped off his own wedding ring and looked at it for a long time before setting it on the dresser in the room he’d shared with her for so long. In over four years, he’d never taken that ring off. He walked out of the room to see Christine’s cats sitting in the hall way looking up at him with almost sadness. He sighed and crouched down to stroke their heads a little bit.

“Meow,” one of the cats cried.

“I’ll miss you too…” he said and scratched the cat’s ears, “But I’ve made some poor choices and I can’t stay here anymore.” Both cats just stared at him, and he stood up then and took a deep breath before he finally walked out of the house. Christine stood in the door way with tears rolling down her cheeks. He put the suitcase full of clothes into his SUV before turning to face his wife. “Goodbye, Chrissy,” he said gently. She looked at him with hate for a second before stepping back into the house and slamming the door shut without a word. He sighed harshly before getting into his car and turning on its engine. Finally he pulled out of the drive way and onto the main street. As he drove away from the house, he couldn’t stop thinking about the things he’d said to Jackie, or about the fact that he never realized it would be so hard to leave the house he’d worked so hard to have with his wife. How could everything just end in one afternoon, without warning?