Chapter 1

 

Tori Gesner left school early. She had actually managed to finish three finals with enough time to spare to have a two-hour break before her forth. That should give her time to pick up her husband from the airport. She had dressed in designer jeans that showed off her curvy figure to perfection and a sapphire blue sweater. Tori thought it really brought out the blue in her eyes and made her auburn hair stand out. She had missed him so much she did something she never tended to do. She fiddled with her makeup kit, for an hour, trying to figure out how to put the stuff on. She managed to get the eye shadow looking decent and got the mascara on without poking out an eye. The powder was easy, just rub in. All in all she wasn’t completely dissatisfied with the results. She looked the best she had looked for him in a while and was more than a little excited, even a little nervous of all things, to get him back home. He had only been gone week but to her it felt as though it had been a year. She laughed at her own clichéd thoughts as she drove.

 

She couldn’t wait to see his face-to-face reaction to the news she had given him a few days before. Tori knew he would be excited to see the test results for himself. They had tried so long to have a baby and finally it was happening. She thought of what they would do that evening after she got out of school and her thoughts trailed to the next nine months of baby clothes shopping, doctors appointments, and the gathering excitement of the coming new life, a life they had created together.

 

Tori thought she would ask him tomorrow if they could afford to fly her mother out for a visit, so she could be present for at least part of her pregnancy. Everything she had dreamed of since she was a little girl was finally falling into place and she couldn't be more thrilled.

 

              She was so caught up in her thoughts she almost missed the exit for the airport but she caught it just as the dotted line turned solid white. She navigated to his airline’s terminal and her excitement and nervousness increased with each passing minute. In but a few moments the love of her life would once again be in her arms. She knew it had only been a week but even that had seemed to her like a year.

 

              Before heading to his terminal she checked to make sure she hadn't somehow ruined all the hard work she put into her face that afternoon and finding it satisfactory she headed inside. His plane was just unloading when she reached his terminal so she waited anxiously searching for his face. When he emerged from the crowd her heart stood still, as it still tended to do after 2 years of marriage. He was so handsome with his dark semi black hair and soft blue eyes. He stood 5'8" which wasn't much but was just enough for her to have to look up into his eyes. He was Tori’s perfect picture of handsome. His eyes found hers in the crowd and her stomach clenched she knew something was wrong right away. Her smile wobbled when she saw his lack of one but she fought to hold it firmly in place.... he is just tired... she told herself and ran up to kiss him hello.

 

                 She couldn't believe it she leaned in to kiss him and he avoided, he kissed her on the cheek instead of the lips. With each passing second that she spent in his company her heart got tighter and her lungs more constricted. Something was seriously wrong this was not her husband but some shell of a man that looked like her husband. Though Tori knew something was bothering him she was too scared to ask what, she had never seen him like this, and she was imagining the worst she could think of, that would make him be this way.

 

           They rode in complete silence, him not speaking, and her too scared to.

 

           "My friend wasn't a man." He said quietly.

 

            "What?" she didn't know why she asked; she had heard him clear as day. In fact she had heard him too clearly.

 

            "Chris is a woman; I met her in the marines; so that wasn't a lie. We went on a road trip to see the race; so that wasn't a lie either. I comforted myself that I never lied to you but by not telling you something I did lie."

 

            A weight started to lift off her shoulders and her heart felt lighter to think he was just worried about lying to her. "Is that what all this was about? You were all indifferent because you had left something out? Sweetie its ok I don't care that she's a girl and not a guy, that you felt you had to keep it..."

 

            "We slept together..."

 

            Tori felt like her heart would explode, and that her lungs already had, she couldn't breathe. She didn't hear what he said after that because the drumming in her ears was so loud it drowned him out. “I- I’m sorry, you what?"

 

             "We dated in the marines- 

 

            "Wait, she wasn't just a girl but and ex girlfriend?" Tori pulled the car over to the side of the road because she felt like she would kill them if she attempted to continue driving. She ran both hands through her hair in a gesture he recognized as one she only used when her emotions were high. “That is something that should certainly have been mentioned. It’s not that I don’t trust you, which apparently I shouldn’t, but something like that should at least be mentioned in passing.” She clung to control like it was a rope that was keeping her from falling over a cliff. One she was dangling precariously from. She could pray for that rope to hold because if she fell from that cliff it could destroy everything that she had dreamed of. With every passing second however she could almost feel that rope slipping through her fingers. That strand of sanity that she had been clinging to since those horrible three words had come out of his mouth was slipping away little by little. She could almost visualize the threads of the rope unraveling one at a time with each new word coming out of her mouth. Another thread unraveled each time the pitch of her voice rose in octaves. Still more threads escaped that that rope as, unbidden; the picture of her husband with another woman entered her mind. She knew she should stop the conversation until she could find those threads and repair the now too thin rope but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from the destructive path of needing to know everything. “Why couldn’t you tell me this? Why did you feel the need to hide it from me? Did you go on this trip with the intent to sleep with her or did you just think it was a possibility? I mean you had to think it was for you to keep it from me.”

 

              “Don’t be that way Tori.” He didn’t say it with more resignation in the tone that heat or anger. It was almost like he knew the words were futile and only said them for form. If he did think they were futile he was right. For the first time since she had known him she didn’t think about how tired he looked. She didn’t think about the bags under his eyes or the tears streaming down his cheeks. She didn’t care that he was pale or that he had pain in his eyes. All she saw was that he couldn’t look her in her eyes. All she cared about was that the man she loved had betrayed not only that love but also the vows he had exchanged with her. He had broken that link of trust that had always been so strong between them and then had the nerve to tell her not to be upset.

 

              “Don’t be what way John? Don’t be mad? Of course I am mad you deliberately left out truths to betray me. Don’t be hurt? Well, you tell me how it is you think a woman should act after she learns the man she loves slept with another woman. Was I supposed to jump for joy and congratulate you on you conquest? Did you expect me to pat you on the head and tell you it’s okay?”

 

              “At least I told you about it.”

 

             “This isn’t kindergarten. You don’t get a gold star for telling the truth. You don’t get a lesser punishment if you don’t lie. That’s not how it works. You can’t tell me something like this and expect me to be okay with it. If you wanted me to not freak out you should never have done anything you’d have to tell me about. That’s how it works. It may hurt your ego to know this but you don’t get to play God and determine how I am supposed to feel. You did the cause now you have you have to deal with the effect. Get over it.”

 

                 Having said her piece and, for that moment at least, feeling more in control of her actions Tori started the car and back onto the highway. As she drove she prayed that she would get to school on time and that somehow by the time she got there she would forget the last hour had ever happened. She also prayed she would find some way to erase the signs so no one else would guess it had either.