Page 51 of Chosen Road

I peeked out at Minty from under my arm, waiting for her answer. This was an interesting development.

“No one. But that doesn’t mean I’m content to leave it that way. All our talk yesterday about being victims and owning our decisions made me realize I’ve got some bad decisions of my own to claim, and maybe some decisions to unmake.”

“Well! Alrighty, then! Let’s go ladies! We’ve got mountains to climb!” Ruby enthused.

“Oh, God! Enough with the metaphors!” I grumbled.

Minty laughed her tinkling laugh, then dropped a pillow on my grumpy face.

My grumpiness was all an act. I loved them both so much.

I so missed having another adult in the house.

Chapter 17: Hope

Amber

Though we invited Minty to come to Yiayia’s, she declined. She rarely came. I’d asked her once and she explained that she was picky with her food. Even though I tried to convince her to come, I wouldn’t be Greek if I didn’t, she was firm in her refusal.

Ruby jumped into the shower first while I worked to convince my body of the necessity of getting up. The condo was quiet, far too quiet without Alex, and my mind wandered to places I did not normally allow as I wondered where Gus and I went wrong.

I sat up in my bed and pulled my journal from the bedside table. When I bought them for my office, I bought one for myself as well. The last time I’d taken it out to write, I’d gotten no further than the date. I never liked to put pen to paper, or leave evidence of my musings, but my thoughts had become so convoluted, I needed to see them in ink. I wrote slowly, the words trickling out like water through a clogged drain.

We think we have it all figured out.

We make our plans, determine our path, and forge ahead.

But we’re careless.

Unthinking.

Arrogant.

We think we have time, and infinite grace, for our mistakes and transgressions. It makes us careless with one another, as if we have all the time in the world to make up for our neglect.

Unthinking, we allow our emotions and our darker thoughts to lead us down pathways we should know better than to traverse.

We are arrogant, enough, to believe we can find our way back, when we’re good and ready and not a moment before.

One bad decision, one wrong turn, faced me away from him.

One wrong turn led to another and another, and the distance, between what I had and what I wanted, grew.

Because I know, now, what I want. I knew even before Ruby and Minty challenged me to admit it.

I want my husband.

I want the life he offered me back in our beginning, the life he continues to offer me even now.

But I was still the same woman who screwed up everything we had.

And I still did not understand how my brain fooled me into believing something that wasn’t true.

If I couldn’t figure that out, how could I stop it from happening again?

One thing I knew, given the chance, I’d make different choices.

I tried therapy before, but it hadn’t worked. Ironic considering my profession. I had no great revelation that led me to believe it would be any more successful now. Because of my work, I went regularly to help me to deal with the residue of the painful situations I dealt with daily, but I never permitted myself to broach my own festering wounds.

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