This Is My Love

The following night, we went out to celebrate the engagement with his band and mine, along with all the rest of our closest friends. The next week we held an engagement party. Again, all of our closest friends attended, as well as our many acquaintances and butt-kissers from work. The next night, Pete left to go on a two month tour while I stayed behind to plan the wedding for exactly two months from then, mostly over the phone and the Internet, as it was to be held in our home state of Hawaii only a couple days after Pete finished his tour.

It was now the 7th week into Pete's tour and one week before the wedding.
"So, how's the tour coming along?" I asked Pete over the phone. He gave a heavy sigh.
"Same old, baby, same old. I miss you like crazy, Ano," he whispered, sounding, to anyone else's ears, tired. Yet there was a hint of some sort of emotion in his voice that I could not place, but the way it laced his voice threw me off balance.
"I miss you too, Bruno," I paused a moment. "Bruno... Is there something wrong?" I asked him, wanting to reach through the phone and grab him. Such concern overwhelmed me that I didn't know what to do with myself. He sighed again in that same heavy manner he did earlier causing my heart clenched so much it hurt.

"Everything's okay. I'm just tired is all," he tried to assure me, but I wasn't buying it. I knew him better than that.
"Is it the wedding? Peter, if you get cold feet at any point or have any doubts whatsoever, no matter how small, please tell me. If you don't want to go through with it anymore, I don't want you t-"
"Baby, stop," he interrupted me. "I don't have any doubts, you hear me? My feet are toasty warm and I more than want to go through with it. I can't wait to be with you, for better or for worse, for the rest of my life," he pressed, and I could tell that about this, he was telling the truth. Pete and I could always tell whether or not the other was lying about anything. If only we could read each other's minds and so easily access the truth. I now knew that he had no doubts about the wedding, or marriage to me in general, but what was with throwing in the 'for better or for worse' part? Out of all the lines he could have picked... Yes, there was definitely something wrong, and by God I was going to find out what it was before the wedding one way or another.
I could tell it wasn't a little white lie, either. My "Petey Senses" were tingling, you could say.
There was something wrong.

I decided to let it go with him for now, because I also knew he wasn't going to talk about it that day. So, we told each other how much we loved one another, Pete more adamant than usual about me knowing just how much, and hung up until that night. Pete had informed me that he was about to hop in the shower (and that he would be "thinking about me") so I knew it would be safe to phone Phil. I quickly tapped in his number, which I knew by heart and so didn't bother wasting the time to go through my contacts to find him. It rang only a couple times before he was greeting me excitedly.
"Ano! Hey, beautiful! What's up?"
"Hey, Phil. How have you been?" I asked him, trying not to sound too anxious, but apparently failing.
"I'm good, but you sound worked up. Is everything okay? What do you need?" I decided to cut right to the chase.
"Good call. I am a little anxious. And I was wondering, Phil... I just got off the phone with Pete and he sounded sort of... Not himself?" I couldn't think of a better way to explain what I had heard. Sad... Anxious... Upset? "I was wondering if you knew anything that might have caused it? He won't tell me, but he forgets sometimes that I know him better than I know myself, and I know that something is bothering him," I explained. Phil gave a sigh, and my heart skipped a beat, fear gripping me by both shoulders and shaking me until my brain rattled against my skull. It was the same kind of heavy sigh that Pete had given me on the phone just a minute ago. Something was definitely wrong, and Phil knew what it was.

"Listen, Ano-"
"Before you go any farther I want to let you know; you'd better be honest with me, Phillip Laurence, or I'm driving up to Albuquerque and punching you both in the nuts until one of you jerks confess. I will sacrifice Pete's reproduction capabilities," I warned him, anger making me more prone to lashing out at him. Luckily, Phil knew me by now, and he wouldn't dare test the extent of my frustration.
"Okay, alright. Really though, in all honesty, I can't tell you. But, it's only because I don't believe I'm the one who should," he confessed. My heart lurched into my throat and my stomach began it's process of rejecting the contents of that morning's breakfast at Phil's words. What the hell happened?
A whole list of possibilities ran through my mind, but first and foremost, my biggest fear was the most obvious...
"He's cheating on me..."