This isn’t about pride or anger. It’s about survival.
Colin
December 28th.
Nineteen years.
Today marks nineteen years since I slipped a ring on Ceci’s finger.
Nineteen years since my name became part of hers.
Nineteen years since I stood before God and everyone we loved, promising her forever.
Promises I broke. One by one.
For nothing. For something I thought I wanted.
For a distraction that became my undoing.
The kind of choice that rewires your entire life… and then plays on repeat, day after day, until you can’t remember what peace used to feel like.
The cabin Ceci and the kids are in is less than two miles from here, but they might as well be on another planet. I can feel the distance growing… day after day. I’ve never felt further away from them.
I tell myself to stop thinking about her.
But then I open the photo album.
I took it from my old office the last time I went by the house. I shouldn’t have, but I did. Maybe part of me knew I’d need to see her again—not the version of her who won’t look me in the eye now, but the one who used to laugh so easily in my arms.
My fingers trace the photos like they’re sacred. Like the vows I made should have been for me.
Us at the altar. Me kissing her for the first time as my wife, her veil brushing against my cheek. The light in her eyes when the church doors opened. The handfuls of rose petals raining down as we stepped outside, her laughter threaded through it all.
There are several photos of us dancing. Every angle. Every smile. Our first dance, to the same song playing right now from my phone, the sound spilling softly through this damn inn suite.
All the Way. Frank Sinatra.
The irony doesn’t escape me.
I used to tell her that song was our compass.“Who knows where the road will lead us, only a fool would say...”
Turns out I was the fool.
I can still see her dress. Ivory silk, delicate lace along the neckline, the small satin buttons that I unfastened with reverence on our wedding night, like it was our first time.
She looked like a queen that day.
My queen.
And I… I was the man who vowed to protect her, love her, never let her feel alone.
And then I became the reason she felt all those things.
I rub my thumb over her smile in one of the photos. You can’t fake a look like that. It comes from a place of total safety, of knowing the person by your side is the last one who would ever hurt you.
I ruined that. I ruined her.
I thought I could handle a double life. I thought no one would find out. That I could keep everything—her, the kids, the family we built—and still chase something that made me feel... what? Wanted? Alive?
