Chapter 10
When Andrew left the next day, I felt like I could finally breathe.
Like I had been holding my breath since the moment I found out he wasn't cheating on me... he was cheating on his wife with me.
While he was with me, wrapped in his arms, wrapped in his words and reassurances.
.. I could see it, everything he was telling me.
.. the promises... the words he was using were so perfect.
The story of a forced relationship, without love, without hope.
. until he found me. It sounded just like the fairytale ending he was promising.
What I hadn't learned yet was that fairy tales had vastly different endings depending on the perspective.
I soaked up his promises that he would finally find a way out; he would because I mattered enough to him to finally break free.
But then he left, and in the light of day, I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror.
Everything came crashing in on me at once.
The fear that the man whom I thought I would make my entire world revolve around was cheating on me, then a brief moment of relief, where he said he wasn't cheating on me.
And then...
And then.
He was fucking married.
All those warning bells, the flags... all the things I ignored because I loved a man who wasn't mine to love.
Oh god... he wasn't mine.
All the intimate whispers of our future. The house he'd build us. The family we would have.
The kids he so wanted, that I would give him.
I didn't realize I was crying until my tears hit the window I was standing in front of.
I had come to my window to make sure Andrew was gone.
And I hadn't moved, I was frozen, paralyzed by the truth that was slamming down on me from all sides.
I angrily wiped at my face.
This was never how I saw myself.
This was not part of my plan.
My parents had taught me the way to love someone, and I had thought that I had found it.
But I hadn't.
I had stolen moments of someone else's happily ever after.
I had taken what wasn't mine.
And I didn't even know I was doing it.
Andrew wasn't going to build me a house.
I wouldn't carry his babies.
We wouldn't be getting married or growing old together.
Despite his words, his promises, his staying.
He was married.
He wasn't mine to keep.
He wasn't my anything.
I took in a shaky breath and walked through my apartment, seeing evidence of him everywhere. The gifts he had bought me, his things, he had started to leave when I started asking questions.
OH MY GOD... had everything been a game. A give and take. A push and pull.
Had it all been a lie?
Every gift, every promise, every time I had felt off in our relationship, and he made sure to smooth the worry, pull me in tighter, flashed through my mind.
I dropped to my knees before I made it to the bathroom.
I couldn't take another step.
I wanted to call my sister, Clara, or my mom... but how could I explain to them what my life had become?
I had left my perfect bubble of a life because I didn't like feeling that my family was my whole identity, like I was the black sheep in the perfection that was the Morgans.
And what had I done? I was still ghostwriting. I had yet to take the plunge and write a story that was wholly mine, and then I took a man... loved a man, that wasn't wholly mine either.
How could I explain this to the women in my life who lived on fucking pedestals?
I don't know how much time had passed, but when my phone had gone off and snapped me out of whatever I had been in.
.. the sun had shifted... the world had shifted, and I had still remained.
I was still on my bedroom floor, mourning something that was never mine to begin with.
I knew I had to get up, eat, shower... live.
My phone went off again, and the name on my screen made me want to cry, rage and puke in the same breath.
Last First Date
I didn't even read his text. Tears started streaming down my face in angry waves as I went through the choppy motions of changing his contact information.
With all the shame and anguish swirling in me, I had missed one central thing.
One thing that would have ended it all right there.
How fucking dare he?
How dare he make me this...
How dare he promise me everything when it wasn't me he should be giving it to?
How...
A sob racked through me again.
My phone went off... again.
Andrew: Baby, why aren't you answering my texts?
I powered my phone off and dragged myself into my bathroom.
I still smelled like him.
The thought sent something crashing through me. Did I need to get an STD test done? Oh.... what if it got back to Dad or Chase? All the hospitals and doctors knew one another. They all knew who I was...
It was bad enough going in to get birth control pills from one of my dad's friends when I was in high school.
I needed to shower and get my head on straight.
I realized Andrew still had a key and quickly ran to the door to throw on the deadbolt.
I couldn't have him come back now.
How could I... what would I say?
I moved back through my space, cataloging everything I needed to fix, change, get rid of... and then I got myself into a scorching hot shower.
With one question lingering on my mind... how did I come back from this?
This sickening feeling in me.
I wanted to trust the words that Andrew had told me... about us, his wife... his responsibilities, what he was doing to break free for us.
But a bigger part of me was screaming that he made me this ugly thing.
And how do you come back from that?