I HAD NO clue how long I’d been on the road. The minutes turned into hours, and before I knew it, I recognized the street signs once again. One readLong Beach 35 miles.With each passing mile, I was getting closer to home.
And further from Jude.
I was certain nothing would have ever pulled me away from him again. Despite the challenges I knew we’d face, spending the rest of my life with Jude was the only thing I wanted. And I knew I’d have to tell him about Simon and Delilah eventually, but certainly not like that, not under these circumstances.
Just when I thought my life was going to unfold in a way that I’d actually be happy, the other shoe dropped. After Jude had left for camp yesterday morning, the world fell from under my feet.
After the door had closed behind him, I looked around the living room. Sarge stared up at me, begging me to fill his water bowl. “I guess I have been a bit of a slob, huh?” I asked him, scratching the top of his head.
As I began cleaning up the mess I’d been living in for the last few days, I tried my best to sort out my thoughts. Before I came here, I’d given up on therapy, but I hung onto one or two tried and true methods to help me get through my rougher patches. It didn’t take too much thought to figure out what set me off into this depressive tailspin this time around.
That dream.
Knowing I’d eventually have to choose between Simon and Jude was tearing me apart.
For days, I’d worked out a million options, trying to figure out how I could keep them both. And unless I could actually be in two places at once, my chances of being happy with my lover and my son were pretty dim. That was when I sank to my lowest of lows.
Being with one and not the other would never be enough. It was too much for me to process and there was only one other person I trusted enough to help me.
Jude.
I had no clue how I was going to tell him about my other life, but the time had certainly come. So I cleaned the rest of my mess, planned a nice dinner, and figured today would be the day I would drop the bomb on him that I had a wife and kid.
A wife who I never loved and a son I couldn’t imagine living without.
After the house was cleaned and the last load of laundry was folded, I collapsed on the couch, exhausted by it all. The chores were a welcomed distraction from the marathon of what ifs racing through my head. But the second my body stopped moving, the pounding in my head picked up. Figuring it would be a long night, I closed my eyes, hoping to get some rest.
Before I could even get comfortable, my phone rang. When an unfamiliar number flashed across the screen, I didn’t answer. No voice mail, so it couldn’t have been too important. Then it rang again. The same number. It was a California area code. Unease twisted my stomach into a tight knot as I answered the call.
“Hello,” I greeted nervously.
“Is this Micah Hudson?” a woman’s voice asked. There was noise in the background, people talking, moving around, a voice over a loudspeaker. “Hello?” she asked again, pulling my attention back to her.
“Uh, yes. Why?” I asked defensively.
“I’m a nurse at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. You were listed as the emergency contact for Delilah Hudson,” she explained.
“She’s my wife,” I admitted, the words feeling foreign on my tongue. “What’s wrong?” I asked, standing from the couch.
Pacing the small room, I waited for what felt like hours for her to say, “She’s been in a car accident. She’s in surgery.”
“My son,” I choked out. “Is he okay?”
“We’re not sure yet,” she answered, her voice steady and in control. Maybe she’d made plenty of calls like this in her career, but never in my life did I ever think I’d be on the receiving end of one.
“I’m on my way.” I didn’t need any more details before ending the call.
It didn’t take me more than ten minutes to gather my belongings and leave. I considered leaving a note for Jude, offering him a weak and pathetic excuse for why I’d left.
But I loved him too much to make the same mistake I made when I left Simon and Delilah. He deserved my words.
And as difficult as I knew it would be to say them, I had to tell him to his face why I was leaving.
“Fucking fat lotta good that did me, huh, boy?” I asked a snoring Sarge who was sleeping in the passenger seat. In the twenty hours since I’d left, he hadn’t called. And I certainly didn’t have the courage to call him. He had every reason to hate me. Even though I never got to tell him they’d been in an accident, his reaction to their existence was enough to shut me up and send me on my way.
Like a dog with his tail between his legs, I’d run away.
I was a coward, just like Jude said I was.
