His face shifts for a quick second, almost, until the sadness is pushed to the background and replaced with indignation.
“You don’t need me? I paid offallyour debts.”
“Yeah, and that’s what I would have done for you too, asshole.
Honestly, I would have rather taken the debts than this horrible heartache that you gave me as payment for paying them off, you fucking piece of shit. I hate you and I wish you theworstluck in life,” I say as I walk away and down the street.
When I get to my hotel and settle down after taking a shower and washing my hair, I lotion my body, and when I finally take a breath and everything is quiet, all of my emotions come crashing down and I release all the pain that I’ve been holding, pretending that I didn’t feel it just to be strong in front of Lincoln.
The truth is I love him so much. If I didn’t, it wouldn’t hurt this bad. I wish more than anything there was a way to turn off these emotions.
It almost feels like this isn’t my life. Like he wasn’t my husband and this is all a bad dream I’m going to wake up from. But this isn’t a dream.
This pain is too real, so stark that I would have woken up by now.
“Lincoln…” I cry as I fall onto my side from my seated position, crying into the pillow, hugging it tightly, missing him so much. Missing when I thought he loved me more than anything, when I thought just recently that we would be okay and that nothing could ever pull us apart.
For me he was my soulmate, but clearly he didn’t feel the same.
Why did he marry me?
Why did he do all of this and let everything get this far just to leave me wounded like this?
Everything I said to him about how I was affected by it.
I meant it.
Maybe not in the heat of the moment, but my heart is aching for him, and I would give everything to turn back time so I could hold him again, make love to him once more, and have him tell me that I was truly the only one for him… and mean it… and me to believe it.
-??-
Chapter 23
The July summer air hums through the cracked window as I put my hand on the steering wheel of the rental car, listening to Andrew Lockington, Wolf Camp, from my playlist.
I’ve been traveling across the country for the past few weeks.
Nothing but driving and sleeping in the back of this big car.
It’s the only thing I could do to bring myself peace. Lincoln and I used to do this sometimes, just drive across the country, mostly when there was an event going on, and we would go together.
All I get are flashes of his smiling face looking at me from the driver’s side.
Aside from using the data, I’ve silenced all of my notifications from people, only checking in with my dad every now and then.
I never wanted to talk about what happened, but my dad figured it out. Wasn’t hard, when apparently he got a call from Lincoln checking up on me and showing up at his house.
Good thing I decided not to stay with my father.
I just needed to reset, and it was so painful going over the last image I had of my husband before I found out that we were separating for good.
On the rare occasions I checked my notifications, most of the text messages were from Lincoln’s mom asking me if everything was okay. Later messages said that Lincoln was a mess, and Lincoln’s mother begging for me to come and talk it out.
Two days after leaving, his mom sent that message, then left a voicemail on my phone:
“Gabina… I’m so sorry for what my boy did to you. I’m so… hurt for you. I wish you were here… … so I can hold you and tell you how sorry I am. No matter…whathappens or what you guys choose to do, I willalwaysbe your mom-in-law. Love you sweetheart.”
This made me cry. No more checking messages after that, and now I’m about five states away somewhere in the Midwest, making my way back to the East Coast.
