Chapter 47 Becca
Becca
Did I expect everything to go back to normal as soon as he came home? No.
But did I expect to feel like we were walking on eggshells for as long as I did?
Also no. It was awkward for a while. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked all those questions that night.
I thought I wanted to know everything, but then I wished I didn’t.
It took some time not to think about her every time I looked at him.
To not wonder if it was her when his phone made a noise.
We never talked about it. I told him I wouldn’t bring it up, so I didn’t, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
For a while, it felt like it did before he left.
He barely talked, and I wondered if there was even a point to us trying to be together again.
I asked him once why we were even back together, and it blew up.
We didn’t talk for three days. I’m sure it didn’t help that we weren’t sleeping together like a married couple should.
You know, making time to be husband and wife, like his mom would awkwardly bring up sometimes.
Did I think that was counterproductive to moving past an affair?
Maybe, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Whenever I thought about having sex with him, I thought of her, of them together.
I definitely couldn’t initiate it. Part of me hoped he would, even though I didn’t know how I’d respond. I still wanted him to try.
I didn’t know how we were going to make this work, but everyone knew he was back, so we were going to make it happen.
When COVID hit, both of our jobs basically stopped. Once we were quarantined together, we had no choice but to finally confront it head-on. The weirdness between us. There was entirely too much time in the house together for us to avoid each other anymore.
Natural conversation started slowly but eventually returned to normal, well, like two years ago normal. The more time we spent doing everyday tasks like cooking, cleaning, learning how to place online grocery orders, and binging TV shows together, the better we got.
It wasn’t until I started feeling the baby steps towards a better place that I finally felt a tinge of guilt for the first time.
Guilt for not telling him my whole truth.
I told him no more secrets, yet still hung on to one of my own.
I thought about telling him, but knew it may change his mind.
Wrong or not, I couldn’t let that happen.
We were going to come out stronger from this.
Even though I did finally feel a little guilty about being the one with a secret, I still stood by the fact that I did what was best for us.
And I was still doing that by not telling him.
Plus, my secret was nothing compared to what he did to me, so I was content with living with my omitted truth.
It took a good three or four months from quarantine to actually get to the place that felt good again. And I knew we officially made it when we finally slept together. It had been just over ten months, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but felt like forever.
It was midday, during a Netflix session, when he just leaned over on the couch and kissed me in a way that I had forgotten.
We didn’t even leave the couch. It was after that when I finally felt like a husband and wife again.
I chose to ignore the voice in my head pointing out that Autumn had just once again left town.
The timing was just a coincidence.