Page 74 of Heartless

“Don’t you need to get home to your wife?”

“No.”

“No? Just no?”

“She left me, Sharla,” I explain.

“What?”

“Two weeks ago today.”

Nodding, she says, “That’s what’s been going on with you. I’m so sorry. She didn’t take the news about us too well, I’m guessing?”

Nodding, I reply, “I never had a chance to tell her. She saw our text messages.”

“Oh, my God, Onyx. I’m so sorry,” she says, hanging her head.

“So much for what happens in Vegas staying in Vegas.”

“I never should have texted you.”

“I never should have cheated on my wife.”

She nods.

“Are you going to try to work things out with her?”

“I want to. I don’t know if she’s open to it, though. At least not right now. She won’t even take my phone calls. I regret that I hurt her.”

“You still love her.”

It’s a pronouncement and not a question. I look at Sharla for the first time and realize that, somehow, I mislead her.

“Of course I do. I never meant to make you think that I didn’t.”

“I don’t...I um...” she chews her bottom lip and frowns. “I guess I thought that you had fallen out of love with her. That maybe you were staying with her out of obligation.”

“No. Never that. I love my wife, but we just weren’t in a good place. And I’m sorry that I dragged you into that.”

She reaches out and touches my hand. “You didn’t drag me into anything, Nyx. I willingly insinuated myself into your life in a way that I had no right to.”

I pull my hand from hers and drag it down my face.

“I wish that I could turn back the hands of time. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Sharla says, “Maybe counseling might work.”

“It would if I could talk to her. I have no idea where she’s at, if she’s safe, or how badly she’s hurting over this. She told me not to call her.”

“Oh, my God. I know you’re hurting.”

I look up and see the sincerity expressed in Sharla’s eyes.

18 – MEADOW

AUGUST

I press a hand over my mouth and cry for the dozenth time, wondering how my life took such a spiral. One minute, I loved life. Then the next minute, I was packing up my things and leaving for good.

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