Page 124 of The Accidental Wife

“But I want you. I want to be with you. I want YOU, Shayla!” I shout, and she shakes her head sobbing.

“Cole, you’re making this so hard, please. It’s done.” She cries, and I look up at her miserably.

“I can’t accept that it’s over for us.” I groan, and she looks down at me.

“You have too, we both do. We can’t be together, Cole.”

“Then I don’t want to be Shayla..” I whisper and end the call. She frowns and looks at the phone then at me. “I love you,” I whisper. I kiss my fingers, and I press them to my heart.

“Cole?!” Shayla calls out to me, and I shake my head, getting in my car. “COLE!" She screams after me, and I slam my foot on the accelerator and tear away from her street. I see her name flash on my phone and turn it off. I didn’t want to speak to anyone. I just needed this constant feeling of failure to stop choking the life out of me. I wanted to vanish. I’m backed up into a corner, and I can’t seem to find a way out. I just keep sinking deeper and deeper into this giant hole of emptiness, and I hate it. I don’t want to pretend that I’m okay anymore. I don’t want to watch the girl I’m crazy about fall in love with someone else, and most of all, I don’t want to resent my child for the rest of its life for being the one keeping me from being with her—from being happy.

I contemplated ending it all by driving off the road, but I just kept seeing Shayla’s face, and every time I press down harder on the accelerator, something stops me, and I ease off again.

* * *

I didn’t knowwhere I was going until I pull up at the graveyard Grandpop was buried. If there was ever a time I needed his advice, it was now, even if it was from beyond the grave. I walk through the eerie graveyard till I come to his headstone and hit my knees in front of it.

“Help me, Grandpop,” I whisper, closing my eyes, tears streaming down my face. “Please help me. I’m in a dark place, and I’m so scared of what I might do. What do I do, tell me, what do I do?!” I bellow as loud as my lungs allow. “I’m so in love with her.” I sob helplessly. “How do I let her go and continue to live when she’s got my heart? How am I supposed to watch her fall in love with someone else? Please tell me how?” I whisper wiping my face with the back of my hand. “I’m holding onto her for dear life as you said, but she won’t let me.”

“Then you set her free son.” I jump when I hear a voice behind me. I turn and look at the elder man standing there with his hands in his pockets, a kind smile on his face.

“Who are you?” I ask, and he shrugs and walks over to me.

“Just an old, wise man who also lost the love of his life.” He says, looking at my grandfather’s headstone and then back at me. “Only I lost mine to cancer last year.”

I blink up at him and wipe my face. “I’m sorry to hear that. Why are you here at this time?”

“Oh, I come and talk to her every week, fill her in on everything that’s happening. You know, just in case she can’t keep up from where she is.” He explains with a smile and opens his folded-up chair and sits on it beside me. “I heard your shouting before, and it sounded like it came from someplace real broken. Would you like to talk?” He offers, and I shrug silently, and he reaches over and pats my shoulder just like my Grandpop used to, and my eyes well up. “You’ll feel better, I promise.”

I nod and sit down on the floor with my back pressed against the stone around my grandfathers’ grave. “I found the perfect girl, fallen out of my mind in love with her, then fucked it all up, and now I’m losing her to my best friend.”

“Ouch, that’s very unfortunate. Is she the one?”

I nod and bite my lip taking out the ring I gave her in Vegas and look at it. “She’s the only one,” I whisper. “I fell in love with her without even realising it. Her love just consumed me like nothing I’ve ever felt in my life. We got married by accident in Vegas…” I explain, and he listens while I tell him about our whirlwind love story. “And now, she wants to move on with him, and I don’t even know how to even begin to let her go.” I look at him, and he sighs, rubbing his palms over his thighs. “What do I do? How do I chose between the girl I love or my child?”

He sighs and leans forward, regarding me seriously. “You do the right thing and set her free because that’s what love requires. Sacrifice. Have you never heard the expression, set what you love free, and if it returns, it was always meant for you, and if it doesn’t, it was never meant to be?” He expresses, and I sigh.

“It’s just easier said than done, though, Isn’t it?”

“Son, there are two types of love, there’s selfless and selfish. Love is not only for the good times you share with someone but more so about the hardship you share and doing what’s best for the other person. For example, like your girl, she loves you so much she walked away and let you be with the one you thought you wanted to be with. That’s selfless love and what you have is selfish love. You’re only thinking about what you want, your pain, and you’re not sparing a thought to what she needs. What you’re feeling, she’s feeling tenfold, but she’s doing the right thing and letting you go and be the man you need to be for your child without resentment and blame.” He explains, and I close my eyes and nod. He was right. “That’s an extraordinary woman.”

“How do I let her go?” I whisper, staring at the ring in my hand.

“I can’t tell you how son, but I will tell you this— it’s going to hurt more and more each day you watch her slipping further away from you. However, you’re going to keep telling yourself that it’s what’s best for her because she deserves to be happy. You do whatever you need to do to push her away, and you’re going to take that knife to your heart, and you’re going to bleed, but one day, when you see her smiling happily, it will all be worth it because you helped her get there, even though it’s killing you inside you’ll smile for her.”

I nod and look at him, tears stream down my face, and he smiles sadly. “Thank you,” I whisper, and he pats my shoulder again.

“Count yourself, lucky son; you’re living a love most would only ever dream of. The love you only ever see in old movies and read in great books.”

“I don’t feel very lucky right now if I’m honest with you,” I admit with a sigh closing my eyes. “Lucky would be, having her in my arms where she belongs.”

“Son, most people search and yearn for a love like yours and never find it. The fact you found yours in this day and age where people take love for granted is a beautiful thing, and you should treasure it.” He explains eruditely, and I nod in agreement.

“I do, of course, I do. I’m going to love her forever.” I say earnestly and close my eyes when I feel him squeeze my shoulder supportively.

“You absolutely will, and I promise you, she will bury her love for you in the deepest corner of her heart and love you secretly till her very last breath. You’ll be the great love she will tell her grandchildren about.” He assures me with a sigh, and I choke on a sob when I remember what she told me the first day we met, “I’m going to show you a night you’ll remember when you’re sitting in your rocking chair at eighty years old, Mr Cole.” She not only showed me a night I would never forget, but she changed my life in ways I didn’t know was possible. If I had one wish right now, it would be to go back to that very first day, marry her all over again and never let her go. Ever.

“The love of a good woman can make or break a man, my sweet boy.” I nod and look at him, smiling sadly.

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