Sweet Temptation: A Trick-Or-Treat Collaboration

Fear tortures my insides, churning my stomach into tense cramps the longer we continue to sit in silence.

“You have to understand how devasted I was when I got the divorce papers…”

The calm before the storm is well over. I know the exact words that are going to leave his mouth, I’ve heard it over and over again. I’ve listened to this countless times. Lived my own personal hell when the news made its way to me that fateful evening. I watched my sister break into a million pieces.

“Just say it.” My tone is a mixture of frustration and hurt.

“I-I…” he stutters. “The night I stayed in Chicago, I met someone.”

The bile rises in my throat, unknown as to why this information has come as a massive shock.

I know this happened.

What did you expect to happen next? You never expected anything to happen because this is some sick, twisted joke. Stupid love got in the way again, and this time, it’s a million times worse. His words cut so deep, scarring me just like it had done to Morgan.

“You have to understand it meant nothing. I was hurting. I never wanted us to be over,” he pleads, reaching out for me.

Swiftly, I move my arm away creating distance between us, standing as far away in the room from him as possible. I’ve fallen in love with him, harder than I thought possible, and the lies I fed myself believing this was real are deep ocean currents, invisible, yet surface with a sudden and brutal ferocity.

My mind carelessly replays the night Morgan came running to my house, crying bitterly as her heart shattered into a million pieces because the man she married had created a family somewhere else. I held her in my arms, shedding my own tears quietly. Confused by his need to destroy my sister yet mourning the loss of my own careless dreams.

She eventually fell asleep beside me, at some late hour, only to wake up screaming his name, realizing her nightmare was now her reality.

In the midst of her breakdown, she demanded unreasonable things, pushing him out of the house and throwing his clothes from the second level. It was just like in the movies. While I begged her to rethink her actions, the pain had consumed her, and no one could stop her.

And now I knew exactly why she acted the way she did.

Inside, I’m drowning in pain. Reliving every moment we had spent together over the past few days just like she had done. Repeating every conversation, every confirmation from him that he only wanted us forever.

Now, it’s me staring at a tarnished dream of us living happily ever after.

But this was never meant to be my dream.

Nor my life.

“Say it, Noah. Say what it is that’s eating you alive right now.”

The room falls silent, just my heavy breathing and fallen tears can be heard. Noah lifts his head to meet mine, his eyes are bloodshot and remorseful.

“The woman… she’s… pregnant.”

It’s the final stab in my heart, deep and unforgiving. This was never meant to be my mess to clean up, and he was never meant to be mine, but it doesn’t erase the pain ricocheting to every part of my body and killing me second by second.

“Morgan, please say something…”

My tongue is tied and begging for forgiveness is a man who broke me in every way possible. A man who has no idea that the wound inside which he so easily created, is bleeding once again from his careless actions.

“You’re dead to me.” My voice is steady, artic, and void of any emotion. “You’ve made your bed somewhere else, now go lay in it.”

Racing out of the room, the calm interior drastically switches to panic and hurt. The air inside my lungs becomes trapped, chained down, causing a meltdown within me. I catch my breath through my sobs, desperate to leave this all behind.

Unable to think straight, my mind is riddled with too many possibilities, I grab my keys and cell, opening the front door before I stop dead in my tracks.

Looking around the hallway, my gaze drifts toward the simple ivory walls with frames pinned up displaying what was once a happy family. I take it all in one more time.

I always begged for Noah to love me. To experience him in the best way possible.

I wanted everything that Morgan had.