The Real

Three years into my marriage I realized my wife was a spoiled, entitled, wreck of a woman who needed things fixed by everyone else, to feel safe. I couldn’t fix her, so she broke me first with her words and then with her fists.

And Abbie . . . Abbie was much-needed evidence life was still worth living. I wanted to tell her about Kat before we got physical, but I got caught up in our whirlwind and I never wanted out. Being with Abbie gave me clarity. I brought nothing of my life with Kat into the new relationship, and it wasn’t in vain.

I discovered more of who I was without the battle scars of my marriage blurring my vision. And I felt better, though I could never deny my life before Abbie, and I had every intention of sharing that part of it with her. But without that burden of truth, I felt free to be the man I wanted to be with her, where I’d been paralyzed for years with Kat.

I’d already separated myself from my wife in every way. Kat’s denial was toxic, so much so that my final attempt at finishing what I started when I left her backfired into a loss I would never recover from.

I lost Abbie.

Goddammit!

Kat imploded in the seat beside me as I stopped her again from retrieving the bottle from the back seat.

“Can you,” I muttered as I wiped some blood from the fresh cut on my lip and studied the dark purple polka dot next to my eye in the rearview—no doubt a result of the connection from her wedding ring, “for one fucking minute, talk to me like an adult. I’ve been good to you, Kat, even when I shouldn’t have. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“I hate you,” she screamed as she did her best to get a rise out of me.

Defeated, I stayed mute until I pulled over to the shell of the home we used to share before she jumped out. I whispered the truth under my breath. “I hate you too.”

I dialed her father’s number as she ranted and smashed her palms against the passenger window. “Unlock the fucking car!”

It was no use. If I didn’t give the pills to her she would be roaming some shady neighborhood to get a fix in a matter of minutes. Kat slammed the car door after retrieving her bottle and made a beeline for the house.

When she opened the door, she would see the petition for divorce on the counter. I had no doubt the divorce papers would be looked over the way they had been for months. She would take a few pills and make herself busy until she took two Xanax downing them with a glass of blanc to pass out. In the morning, she would take two more pills before her feet hit the floor, and two more with her ten o’clock cup of coffee.

With Kat safely inside, I got out of the car as her father answered. “Cameron?”

“Billy.”

“You ended it,” he said with a sigh.

“It’s been over. I don’t know what she’s told you, but I left her a year ago. I can’t do this anymore. I won’t do this anymore. She’s an addict. She needs your help. And I think tonight is going to be bad.”

“Can you just sit tight until—”

“Listen to me,” I yelled. “I’m done. I’ve bled enough over this shit, Billy. I’m done chasing her around the streets. I’m not taking her phone calls anymore. I’m done. If you give a damn about your daughter at all, get her help. Get her clean.”

“I’m sorry, Cameron. I’m leaving the office now.”

Walking over to the mailbox I tossed Kat’s keys inside before I hopped into my SUV. My plan had been simple. Pick her up without any way of escape and make her face reality. But my plans were as delusional as Kat remained. Tomorrow she would call me without giving it a second thought. It wasn’t that phone call I was afraid of avoiding. It was the one I would avoid that could save her life.

I coughed out my emotion as four years of my life was laid to rest and guilty tears soaked my face, for Kat, for Abbie and for the abomination that had become my life, my marriage, and my new quest for happiness.

Every light on the house went on as Kat moved around in another pill-induced rage. I could hear her screaming at me from inside of the house, daring me to set foot inside.

I wiped the clotted blood from my lip and held it in front of me before I glanced back at the house remembering the day we moved in. So much had changed, except for the number outside of the mailbox on the porch.

The first few years of our marriage that number meant life and the rest of mine. The number was now the bane of my existence. It mocked me and told me I was a fool though a certain level of relief passed over me when I knew I would never have to see it again.

No matter what happened to Kat from that moment on, I wouldn’t be there to witness it. I couldn’t.

And I had to let the fear go and I tried my best as I drove away.

I thought I’d hit rock bottom the first time Kat hit me. I was wrong.

Shivering in my jacket, I watched her approach. She stopped when she spotted me from her gate.

“Abbie,” I said, moving to stand on her porch, my breath blowing in visible clouds of regret in front of me. It was well after midnight, and I hated that I was itching to find out where she’d been. I hated the hypocrite I was, but with her, I couldn’t rationalize anything I felt.