I know it’s wrong, but sometimes you can’t turn your back on someone, especially when that someone makes you feel so good.
The wedding came and went and I suffered alone through the honeymoon. He did his best, or so he told me, to remain a good loving husband to his new wife. Notice the missing word in that description? Yeah. Faithful. That was one virtue he fell rather short on.
And it was all my fault.
At the time, it didn’t bother me. After his proposal, Macy became über-bitch, demanding certain things for the wedding, for the house, for her own enjoyment. She spent less and less time at home and snapped at Jonas every time he opened his mouth. When confronted, she pleaded nerves from the wedding planning, but I think she was lying. He played the long-suffering husband and went along with her demands. He figured it had to be easier that way.
I had a sneaking suspicion that she married Jonas strictly for the benefits it would provide her, not out of the love it should have been for. But when you’re raised with access to everything you could ever desire, I suppose you look at things in a different light. You figure that you marry for security and you can find love later.
I dunno. I wasn’t raised with access to anything, but that’s a whole other novel. And one you’d rather not read anyway, I’m sure.
Jonas used to have the patience of a saint. Those first few months of marriage changed that. She tried his patience, his endurance, his sanity. One day, she’d be sweet as sugar and the next you’d think she was trying out for the Wizard of Oz. And not for the part of Dorothy, either. Then, suddenly, she’d disappear for a day or two, only to return home as fawning and lovey-dovey as any newlywed. Jonas had no idea what was going on. I’m almost certain he was afraid to know the truth.
I blamed it on the body snatchers, but well, maybe that’s just me.
The day she ordered him upstairs to change his clothes was the beginning of the end. He’d been on his way to um, see me, and had dressed the way I liked him best – old jeans, Armani t-shirt, sneaks… very casual and very manly on him. She, however, didn’t approve. Insisted that any man of ‘hers’ wasn’t going out in public like that. That’s about the moment the fight started.
That’s also the weekend he shacked up with me, refusing to go home.
Jonas showed up on my doorstep, looking pathetic and just done in. He spilled his heart to me, right there on my doorstep, with half of my neighbors listening in, I have no doubt. So, I took him in, rubbed his shoulders, fed him, and took him to bed. All in the name of helping him mend his marriage, I promised myself. I was helping him work out his frustrations and his anger and…
…and I got pregnant.
Damn him.
Hell, damn me too.
I knew that what I was doing, what we had been doing, was more than just wrong. It was lying, it was cheating, it was immoral… it was all that I had and I couldn’t let go. He’d hooked my heart that very first night we’d met, all that time ago, even knowing that I probably wouldn’t ever see him again. Even knowing later that I had zero chance of winning his heart, I still hung on, I still tried. And I still lost.
So, where does that leave me?
Hell if I know, but it sure as heck hurts.
But as I think of this child that I carry, I know that in the end, every last ounce of suffering has been worth it.
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