Beyond the Break: Healing and Moving On

On our sixth wedding anniversary, my wife said she had a surprise planned for me.

I waited for over three hours at the mountaintop, even through the pouring rain, but she never showed up.

Instead, her childhood friend, William Thomas, posted a location-tagged photo from a hotel halfway up the mountain.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” read the caption.

In the photo, the two of them were lying on a bed covered with rose petals, fingers intertwined.

The ring finger of the woman’s hand was conspicuously bare.

On her half-exposed chest were a few red scratches and faint bite marks.

A wave of nausea hit me, and I commented under the photo: [Better get that bite checked out – don’t want to catch something nasty.]

——

My first thought when I saw the photo was: Diana is tainted; I don’t want her anymore.

So when Diana Hernandez called uncharacteristically to explain, I said one word: “Divorce.”

There was a moment of silence before Diana spoke again.

“Why are you getting jealous over nothing? William and I grew up together; we’re like siblings. What’s wrong with a little joke? Only someone with a dirty mind would see something dirty in this. Besides, we just ran into each other by chance. It was raining outside, and with his health, I didn’t want anything to happen to him, so I brought him to the room to wait out the rain.”

The more she explained, the more guilty she sounded.

It seemed she had completely forgotten that the only reason I had handed the company over to her was because of my own health problems, enduring people’s jabs that I was living off my wife.

Impatient, I interrupted her, “I’m still at the mountaintop.”

I had waited for her for three hours and stood in the rain for another hour.

There was no shelter up there, and I couldn’t risk going down in the storm.

Hearing that I was in a dangerous situation, Diana sounded worried.

“Wait there. I’ll come get you.”

I waited another hour.

The rain stopped, but Diana still didn’t show up.

The mountain path, made slippery by the rain, was treacherous.

After just a few steps, my clothes were splattered with mud. I sneezed several times, feeling as if my heart had sunk into the mud too – heavy and sickened.

When I got home, I took a hot shower.

Then I saw another post from William: [Others have their Prince Charming; I have my White Horse Princess. No rain is too heavy – my Princess will bring me home.]

Diana, who had never liked or commented on any of my posts, commented under his: “Always protecting my prince.”

When I refreshed the page, her comment had disappeared. Maybe she had blocked me.

My head was pounding. I took a few cold medicine tablets and fell into a deep sleep.

Not long after, Diana yanked the covers off me.

“Why didn’t you wait for me? I’m hungry, get up and cook for me. And make some ginger tea while you’re at it. William got caught in the rain, and I need to bring some over to him.”

I woke up with a start, my head throbbing even more.

My tone grew colder. “William didn’t feed you enough?”

Diana’s face flushed with anger instantly as she stood up and glared at me.

“Grady! Will you stop already? Didn’t I just explain everything to you? I was late because of traffic, and now you’re picking a fight on our anniversary? And to think I went out of my way to prepare a surprise for you.”

With that, Diana threw a small box at me.

The box hit the corner of my eye, causing tears to spring up from the sudden pain.

Diana seemed surprised and rushed over to check the injury, her concern momentarily disarming her.

As she leaned closer, I caught a strong whiff of a familiar scent – William’s shampoo.

I could almost picture her running her fingers through his hair with that soft, tender expression on her face.

Disgusted, I pushed her away and my gaze fell on the box that had fallen to the floor.

The watch inside had tumbled out – one I had admired for a long time, the same one William often wore.

But the cheap sheen of it gave everything away.

In this marriage, William had the genuine article and true love.

All I ever got were lies upon lies.

I didn’t even care enough to ask her who the surprise at the mountain villa was really meant for.

“It’s 1 o’clock now.”

I looked up slowly at Diana. “Our anniversary is over. So is our marriage.”