TEMPLE OF LOVE (WHY Book 3**Moving to GALATEA)

Bella POV.

I wish I were a child. I could fall to the floor and cry. But I am not.

I don’t want to.

I wish I could go around telling everyone that my dreams came true, that I got married to the only man who ever loved me, and that we lived happily ever after.

But I can’t.

I wish I could tell my father how much he meant to me, how much his ‘Unfinished Heaven’ mattered to me, and that I could do anything — absolutely anything — to finish what he started and live up to his expectations.

But the truth is, I haven’t been able to live up to mine.

Marriage is a milestone, a dream, a turning point in one’s life. They say you ‘settle down’ after marriage, and start a ‘new life’. I suppose it’s all true.

But why does it not feel that way in my case?

Three months have gone by since that fairytale wedding to Alex. He has never left my side since then. He made Saltwater Creek his new home, and adjusted his life and schedule to suit mine.

But why wasn’t he happy?

Was it because he had to give up his greatest love — his sports career — to prevent further damage to his eyes? Or, was it the drudgery and monotony of daily routine — his sitting at home while I went to run Dad’s business — that dented his self-esteem and hurt his pride?

My seventh grade teacher, Mrs. McCarthy used to say that what gives flavor to life is the continuous cycle of ups and downs, happiness and sadness, triumph and defeat. Without grief, there will be no joy, and life will lose its flavor.

It will get bland and boring.

Perhaps that’s what happened to my life. The life that Alex and I decided to build together once we tied the knot three months ago. The vows we exchanged then still remained intact, our trust and love in each other still remained unshaken, but something else crawled into our dream world.

Despair.

He was despondent because he lost his identity as a champion athlete. Dad was despondent because he lost his pride and the jewel of his ‘heaven’, the lavender farm.

And I was in despair because I couldn’t keep these two men happy. Nothing mattered to me more than their happiness and the smile on their faces.

And nothing shattered me as much as the realization that the only two people I loved in this world were slowly sinking into gloom and self-pity.

Dad was a broken man, even though he didn’t show it on his face. He maintained a steady facade of self-confidence and control all the time. But behind that facade lay a man who was getting sicker by the day, weaker by the day, and more resigned to his fate than ever before.

His health was failing rapidly. He was terminally ill, so it was expected. I had braced myself for the eventuality of pain and sorrow that his illness was supposed to inflict on everyone around him.

But something far worse than his health seemed to have broken him.

He never said it out loud, but losing his lavender farm to Senator Paul simply crushed him. He loved that farm as much as he loved me, if not more. For twenty years, he had built that place inch by inch, with his blood and sweat, only to have it snatched from him by the Senator’s evil designs.

He felt humiliated and devastated. He felt broken.

And he didn’t have the courage or the desire to bend fate and make it submit to his will.

But Alex was worse.

I had never seen him happier than he was on our wedding day. His sparkling smile never left his face, his warm hugs got tighter every minute, and his love for me seemed never-ending and infinite.

That day was indeed the beginning of a new life for me. But not the life I had dreamed of.

That day, he had vowed that love was the only thing that mattered, and that our love was strong enough to withstand any obstacle.

He was wrong. We both were.

Things went downhill without warning, and have been in a free fall since then.

And it all started the day we went on our honeymoon.

***

A day after our wedding, Alex and I went to Alberta, Canada for our honeymoon. There were a lot of options to choose from, particularly in Europe, but he chose the Alberta Ski Resort as our honeymoon destination.

“Let me book your reservations for the Swiss Alps,” Dad said to me disapprovingly. “If skiing is what he wants to do on your honeymoon, let him take you to Switzerland. I will make all necessary arrangements.”

“No, Dad,” I remember declining his offer. “Alberta is where he had a skiing accident in his teens. That accident shattered his dream of becoming a professional skier. He wants to revisit that place in order to revisit his past. Nothing more, nothing less.”

And that was that.

We landed in Alberta in a few hours. We headed straight for the ski resort even before unpacking our bags.

Alex was immensely excited to be back on the ski slopes again after a gap of many years. So much so, that he wanted to teach me skiing.

And that was when a couple of sports journalists spotted him from a distance.

Like flies to honey, they flocked to him, surrounded us, and lobbied a volley of questions in his direction.

“Alex, we have heard unconfirmed reports of an eye injury that could jeopardize your career. Could you bother to elaborate on that?”

Alex didn’t respond, but I watched his eyes turn dark and dead in a second.

Those journalists didn’t know when to quit. They kept pestering him and poking him for a sound bite.

“Alex, how bad is this eye injury? Is it a career-threatening one? What would you do if your sponsors decided not to renew their endorsement deals?”

“What are your retirement plans, Alex?”

He fumed silently, his face turned red in anger, but he uttered nothing.

“What’s wrong with you guys?” I blurted out in outrage. “Is this the way you treat a couple trying to enjoy their honeymoon? By mobbing them? Can’t you leave him alone? Can’t you be a bit more sensitive?”

My appeal and admonishment fell on deaf ears. They were vultures, nibbling on juicy sound bites and sensational quotes from celebrities. Privacy held no value for them.

My yells eventually shooed them off, but the damage had already been done. Alex left the ski slope, left the ski resort, and left Alberta that very day.

Our honeymoon was over even before it began.

And Alex turned grumpy and miserable shortly thereafter.

He would snap at me every time I asked him about his health, especially his eyes, as if it was a taboo topic, and was not meant to be discussed.

He would avoid reporters and journalists like the plague, one time running away so fast to evade their cameras that he forgot I was left far behind.

He stopped watching sports news and sports channels on TV. He stopped going on his daily morning run.

And I realized how bad things had turned when he stopped working out in the gym.

The heartthrob of millions, the pride of America, and the soulmate of an ordinary girl like me began to sink into the depths of despair and resentment with each passing day.

Right in front of my eyes.

Even his best buddy failed to motivate him to do something productive with his time.

“I tried talking to him, Bella,” Brad told me a couple of months later, "but he refused to budge from his inertia. He won’t let me drill some sense into him. It breaks my heart to see him give up on life like that. That guy had never been a quitter before.”

It shattered my heart, too. But there was little I could do to ease his pain. I could not give him his career back.

And he wasn’t interested in words of solace and comfort from me.

Dad surrendered to his fate, Alex surrendered to his self-pity and suffering, and I kept praying for a tiny glimmer of hope that would dispel the triangle of sadness that our lives had become.

That day finally arrived three months later, when my phone rang with an unknown number displayed on the screen.

That call came from Latvia.

And it was Nancy’s voice on the other side.

“Emily, I have something important to share with you. Do not disclose this to anyone, not even your husband or your father.”