Not What I Expected

“Are you mad?” Bella mumbled as I helped her out of her clothes and into the shower.

“Did you try to drive home?”

She shook her head as her groggy eyes fought to stay open while the sour stench of her vomit—intensified by the steam from the shower—turned my stomach. Vomit odor twice in one day. Lucky me.

“Then I’m not mad. It’s okay to be young and curious. It’s the stupid part I’m not okay with. If someone has to drive you home and carry you to bed, I’m okay with that. I just need …” I choked on my words for a few seconds. “I just need to know you’re always coming home.” My lips pressed to her head for a few seconds before I helped her into the shower.

Bella vomited two more times before falling into a restful sleep around three in the morning. I never fell asleep.

I stared at the ceiling, feeling every inch of empty bed beside me. The sheets felt colder.

The air heavier.

The silence more deafening.

The void Craig left started to feel like a black hole.

And there I existed on the edge of it. The guilt said I needed to fall into it, attempting to fill it. The little voice in my head—the same one that gave me the courage to ask him for a divorce—it said I needed to walk away from everything that pulled me toward that infinite life of despair. Break away from the shackles of that guilt.

“Give me grace,” I whispered to … someone.

God?

Craig?

My children?

My church friends?

Where was the light? I had never felt so lost. Was that freedom? Did I need the very boundaries I tried so hard to tear down?

Some of my friends said that when they became empty nesters, they had to get reacquainted with their spouses again. And they’d hoped they still loved that person they fell in love with before parenthood took center stage.

I didn’t make it that far.

I didn’t want that second first date with Craig Smith.

I wanted out.

He wasn’t the one I needed to get to know again. It was me. I let myself get so completely lost in everyone else. And I wouldn’t have changed one single thing about that life. I didn’t regret those twenty-two years.

However, I knew I’d resent each new day that I pretended to still be in love with him.

“Do you hate me?” I said in a thick voice as a tear slid down the side of my face. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I … I just didn’t know how to say it, how to explain it. Then it just …” A few more tears followed the first one. “It just came out all at once. Like my…” I pressed a hand to my chest, curling my fingers into my skin “…heart exploded. The truth needed to be set free. I needed to be set free. I needed to stop hating myself for feeling the way I did. We were too real to ever live a lie.”

I sniffled and shook with silent sobs as I fought to finish. “I wanted to let you go.” Those words burned my throat as the faint outline of the idle ceiling fan blurred on the other side of my tears. “But n-not like th-that.”The boys assured me they’d get Bella fed and hydrated the second she awoke. I said I needed to check on Amie.

I lied.

Myra had that covered.

“Just sex,” I said as soon as Kael answered his door, looking unfairly sexy in low hanging black sweatpants and no shirt.

Hair wet and messy from a recent shower.

Pine and cedar scent swirled around him along with a nuttiness from the coffee cup I handed him.

He grinned. “Just sex.”

I stepped inside and took off my boots while simultaneously shrugging off my wool coat, letting it drop to the floor. His walls might have had crazy bright paint on them. The floor might have been all hard surface with scattered area rugs. The ceilings might have been vaulted with rustic fixtures hanging from long chains. And there was a possibility he had a Christmas tree in a sitting area off to my right.

I wasn’t entirely sure because I took no more than a passing glance as I made my way into his arms the second he sipped his coffee and set it on a small credenza to his right.

My hands pressed to his bearded face as our lips moved together—that indescribable kiss. When he pulled back to appreciate my eagerness, my brows drew together. “I might cry. Promise me you won’t stop, and you’ll ignore it.”

He mirrored my furrowed-brow expression.

I lifted onto my toes and brushed my lips over his as the tears filled my eyes. “Just promise,” I whispered.

After a few seconds, he blinked. “I promise I won’t stop.” He lifted me until my legs encircled his waist, and he carried me down the wide hall to his bedroom. As he laid me on his bed, his mouth covered mine, his tongue making deep strokes while I dug my fingers into the thick muscles along his back.