Chapter 1
“I love you, Holly, but I’m not in love with you anymore.” Those words cut deep as he said them and I felt my throat tighten up.
“What?” I finally got out after a minute of trying to process what he had just said.
He looked at me, with a sorry look on his face. He knew this was going to kill me and as much as I wanted to scream at him, I knew this was hurting him too.
“After EVERYTHING?!” I cried. “We just got married! We have a daughter! We have a life together and YOU cheated but when I want to make this work, YOU’RE the one walking away?!” I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I could feel the world spin around me and I wanted to throw up.
“Holly, we never should have gotten married. I never should have let it happen and I am sorry. I really am. I never should have done what I did. There is absolutely no excuse for it. But, I’ve had a lot of time to think about everything and we’ve been broken way before all of this happened. And it’s about time we face that.”
I sat down as I digested his words. Even though deep down I knew what he was saying was true, I didn’t want to believe it. Sure, we had our share of down times, maybe more than our happy times lately, but we loved each other so much. How do we just give that up and walk away?
“So, that’s it? You just throw in the towel on our family? How can you do this to me? To our daughter?!” I asked him, flabbergasted.
“Holly, I am doing this to us. I am walking away from us. I am not walking away from Kinsley.” he said calmly. How was he being so calm? Why does he keep calling me by my first name? He always calls me ‘babe’. Why is he doing this?
“Are you seeing her?” I asked him through gritted teeth.
“No, Holly, I am not seeing her or talking to her. She didn’t even matter.” he said to me. There he goes again calling me ‘Holly’, already distancing himself from me.
“Please don’t do this” I whispered to him, as tears start rolling down my face. I hated that I was begging but I didn’t know what else to do.
“Please”.
“Holly…” he shook his head. “Please don’t make this more difficult than it already is. I didn’t want to hurt you. Not like this. Never this.”
I looked down at the floor and put my elbows on my knees and buried my face into my hands and just cried.
He grabbed a few items and clothes and stuffed them in a bag. He walked to the door and then hesitated.
“Look, let’s take a breather. I’m going to stay at work tonight and we’ll discuss things about Kinsley and everything else later, okay?” he said to me.
I just looked at him and didn’t say anything. After a moment, he turned and walked out the door.
I immediately reached for my phone, dialed my Mom’s number and began to sob hysterically.
