Page 59 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

“Drinking and drugs aren’t my poison of choice, no. Women are.”

“Me, you mean. You think I’m your poison?”

“When we first got together, it was just casual, and you know that. I wasn’t only with you.”

“Yes, but then you committed to me.”

“I’m married.”

“And you told me that you never slept with your wife. Obviously, that’s not true.”

I shook my head again. “Last night was only the third time I ever slept with her. The first being when I got her pregnant, the second about a year after she had our son, and the third was last night.”

She gasped. “Are you serious? You’ve been married for almost four years!”

“Yeah, and I didn’t lie when I told you our marriage wasn’t real except on paper.”

“Only now, you’re calling that woman your wife, you slept with her again too, and I’m pretty sure I just heard you mention that you fell in love with her at some point.”

“Yeah, that’s all true. Only I fucked it up because this morning, I thought it was you in bed with me and I told you to scoot over, only…”

She laughed at me then. “So, you called out my name and she got pissed? Now, you’re back here to what? Be honest with me and get back together because your wife doesn’t want you when she realizes exactly who you are in the harsh light of day?”

“No. I came here to be honest with you and let you know that it’s over between us. Even if my wife won’t ever have me again after this shit, I have to try to show her that I was serious and I can’t do that with another woman waiting on the side.”

“So, you came here to tell me that you’re suddenly in love with your wife and that you’re dumping me?” Tears fell from her eyes as she asked the question.

“I’m here to tell you exactly that. You’re a good woman, Shaina. You deserve to be someone’s one and only.”

“And up until last night, I was your one and only, you bastard!”

“No, you weren’t.”

“So, you’ve been cheating on me?”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t sleeping with anyone else, Shaina, but my heart has never belonged to you. My heart belongs to Lily. I didn’t have sex with anyone else since I told you I wouldn’t, but I was never yours.”

“Get out!” She shouted at me then, and I stood to leave. “Don’t come back here again, Damon. I don’t want to see you right now. Maybe never again.”

“I understand.”

I left without looking back and made my way to the clubhouse where I found Boone and Robbie unpacking a fucking eight-foot-long gator from the back of Rob’s truck while my son tried to help by hefting its tail.

“What the fuck?” I yelled.

“Now, Son…” Boone started with a placating tone.

“Lily will kill you!”

“Well, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt,” Boone began to say, but he cut himself off from anything further when Robbie interrupted him.

“I think we all know that things we think she doesn’t know hurt her all the time.” His eyes pierced mine then.

“I just broke things off with…” It was my turn to censor myself in front of my son. “I’m going to try to do this the right way from here on out.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Whats da fucks?” Deck mimicked. The two shit-for-brains grandfathers laughed and ruffled my kid’s hair while I rolled my eyes.

---