Feel Again.

I sat up in bed and rubbed my forehead. I didn’t want to wake up and face another day of this strain, it was killing me inside. The forced smiles, the strained hugs, the hesitant kisses. I loved my husband, but all of this was putting a lot of pressure on our relationship.

The constant fights were something I’d grown accustomed to, nothing could surprise me anymore. None of the harsh words, the almost punch to the jaw. Here I was working my ass off at my job and my other duty while he fucked around behind my back.

I had known for months, but I was just too tired to call him out on it anymore. I was well past the point of caring, if sleeping with some random skank kept his ‘needs’ at bay, then I didn’t care. I didn’t have time for a love life anymore.

Too bad it wasn’t just some random skank then.

No he had to go and sleep with one of his ex girlfriends, someone he used to love, someone who he used to share feelings with. I knew he loved her, I could see it in his eyes when she came around with Brian’s fiancée.

I couldn’t believe his reasons for cheating on me were that I was always ‘too busy’ with work. Well, sorry if I wanted to make my own living and not just sponge off him. I wish I had never gotten that stupid job and then Val would have never attended that barbeque that I couldn’t attend because they wouldn’t have had sex in the toilet.

I knew all of this was true because Matt admitted it to me in one of our fights. I would always remember that night, the look on his face when he realised what he’d just admitted. The look of devastation on his face when I repeated the words back to him.

All those times when he was ‘out with the guys’, all lies. He was at her house, I knew it. He would come home at 2am all red faced and breathless, not smelling of a single drop of alcohol. I told him one night that if he ever had sex in our bed I would kill him.

Everything else though, I was past the point of caring.

I got out of the bed and headed downstairs just in time to see my husband walking through the front door. I rolled my eyes and brushed past him and strolled into the kitchen to get a drink of something a bit stronger than water.

“It’s too early to be drinking.” He piped up. I turned around and glared. He leaned against the door frame and glared at him.

“Not when you’re me, it’s not.” I replied, cringing as the clear liquid burned my throat.

He threw his jacket on the kitchen stool and placed his sunglasses on the marble counter before taking the bottle from me and pouring it down the drain. When the last drop slithered down the drain, he placed the empty bottle on the counter beside him before turning and smirking at me.

“And that’s exactly why I drink.” I muttered quietly as I looked down at my bare feet.

He took a step towards me and sighed, “And what’s the supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean, Matt. Why don’t you just go back to her? I know you much prefer her! So why don’t you just go, huh?”

“You know that’s not true, Alyssa. I love you, and I always will,” He murmured, placing his hands on my hips, his beautiful eyes gazing down at me. “She means nothing to me.”

“Do not lie to me, Matthew,” I spat, pulling myself out of his grasp. “I know for a fact you love her, I can see it in your eyes. The tension in your body when I just so much as touch you! It kills me! You only started this because I wanted a to make a life for myself!”

The look of hurt on his handsome face killed me a little bit more inside. I couldn’t win, even when I was in the right, he made me feel as if it was my fault.

“What tension, huh?” he spat back. “Things are fine between us!”

“ha!” I yelled, getting right up in his face. “Everyone can feel it in the room when we’re together, it doesn’t just suffocate me! It suffocates everyone! Do you know how humiliating it is for me to sit and watch you two make eyes at each other?!”

“None of it matters.” He replied, trying to pull me into a hug.

“This doesn’t matter,” I muttered, taking a step away from him. “The distance between us is killing me, Matt. I can’t live with this for much longer, it’s like being a stranger in my own home, do you know how that feels?”

He shook his head, his eyes starting to glaze over. “Are telling me we’re through?”

I nodded and placed a hand on his chest, my own eyes beginning to well up a bit. “Yes, I can’t do this anymore. I just think you’d be happier with her, no sneaking around, no hiding your feelings for each other. No awkward conversation between your wife and your mistress?”

“It’s not what I want.” He replied, trying to comfort me.

I slapped his hand away and sighed, “It’s over. We both need this, I can’t sleep, I’m late for work and It’s driving me crazy.”

“I’m sorry.”

I nodded and headed for the door, a smile etching its way onto my face. I didn’t dare look back at Matt as I placed my wedding ring on the table beside the front door. When I got outside, I felt free for the first time in a long time.

I felt real again.