Page 3 of Indescribable

“A man?”

He hangs his head and nods.

I try. I really do.Don’t laugh at him. Don’t laugh at him.

I repeat those words in my head praying they’re going to stick but it doesn’t do any good. My laughter bubbles out of me before I can stop it. Laughter so deep in my belly I end up wheezing and making a complete scene. Soon my eyes are tearing up and I’m gasping for air.

“Are you seriously laughing at me?” Wyatt asks angrily.

“Oh, yeah,” I admit, still laughing and wiping the tears from my eyes.

“Nice. I’m trying to pour my heart out here and you’re laughing at me.”

“Pour your heart out?” I ask incredulously, my laughter dying down. “All you’ve done is told me what I already knew. You found out something that bruised your ego and instead of talking to me, you chose to stick your dick into anyone who would let you.”

“You say it like it was that simple.”

I shrug. “Wasn’t it? Sure seemed that way. Like you were deciding on pizza toppings or whether you want to order wings, too.” I lift my hands in the air, palms up, seesawing them up and down. “Cheat on wife? Talk to wife? Cheat on wife? Talk to wife? Such a conundrum you were in. I see how it was such a difficult decision,” I say sarcastically.

“Can you be a little sympathetic?”

“Sympathetic?” I scoff. “For you cheating on me?”

“For the fact that my fucking manhood was taken from me!” he shouts.

I tamp down the small twinge of pity I feel and remind myself that he cheated on me. Multiple times. And is trying to useourpain as an excuse?

No.

Absolutely not.

I stand back up again and he follows. With my finger in his chest, my voice lowered, and my eyes narrowed, I say, “You don’t get to do this. I was right there with you every single step of the way as we were fighting and struggling and not once did I even think about turning to someone else. Not once when I thought the problems we were having were on me did I take it elsewhere. I cried to you. I let you hold me when I didn’t think I could hold myself up. Actually, when IknewI couldn’t hold myself up, I turned to my husband because you were my person. You think that was easy for me? I didn’t want to be weak and admit I wasn’t capable of giving you everything we dreamed of. Especially the one thing we talked about for years. But I did, because that’s what you do in a marriage!” I shout.

I’m growing angrier by the minute and know my face is turning red but I’m not done and by the look on Wyatt’s face, he’s right there with me. “All you had to do was come to me, not come in others, you jackass! We had a bump in our perfect road. Granted, it’s a big bump and it was a super shitty neck-jerking bump, but it was just a bump. We could have maneuvered through it but instead, we went off the road because you didn’t want to stay on track. We made vows. For better or worse, Wyatt. When it got worse, you bailed.”

“You’re acting like this is all on me.”

“I’m not the one who cheated! Even two nights ago you were with another woman! I smelled her all over you when you walked in the door the next morning. You’re trying to tell me that if we get back together you’re suddenly going to become a one woman man again? You are who you are.”

“Why do you think I did cheat, huh? You think there was no reason for that?”

“You told me the reason. You needed to feel like aman,”I say, emphasizing the word man with a deep voice and doing a little shimmy.

“Because you didn’t make me feel like a man anymore!” he shouts.

I raise my eyebrows at his outburst and will the laughter not to come. How could I have loved this man for so many years? “Well, I’m sorry that apparently I forced you to feel like you needed to have sex with other women to feel like a man.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

“Actually, I don’t. Explain it.”

He glares and I motion for him to go on.

“Every time you looked at me, I could see it in your eyes. The disappointment, the way that I failed you. I knew you wanted more from us and I couldn’t give it to you!”

“You’re an ass. First of all, if Ieverlooked at you that way, I’m sorry. I think you’re full of shit because that never once crossed my mind, but I am very sorry. Second of all, as I mentioned earlier, all you had to do was talk to me. I could have listened and explained that I never saw you the way you saw yourself.”

“So this is all on me, huh? We’re done because of me?”

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