You don't know how one argument ends up with you sitting outside in the pouring rain, thinking about your friend and co-worker's relationship with her wife. There's one particular detail that bothers you. She cheated. She cheated, and she's being treated like dirt. You have not said a word because it is not your place. It is not your relationship, and you are merely a friend of the two women, and all you can do is stand by, and hope that they will get through this. Thoughts of your friend, makes you doubt this, though. She's pushing her wife away, and you know that her wife has ptsd. Her wife needed help. You're not troubled with that detail, though. You're not troubled about the ptsd, you're troubled by how she's treating her wife. It bothers you. You tell yourself that if you were in your friend's situation, you would react differently.
You would listen to your wife's side of the story before flaring up in anger and pushing her out. You would try and make it work. But as you think of what you would do, delicate thoughts of your former wife dance along your brain, and you shake your head. You were a good husband, and your current wife could vouch for that. But why was it all troubling you?
Satan.
You distinctively recall your friend throwing out the fact that her wife had just cheated on her. She had spoken this in a room full of doctors, as you introduced them to your son.
Adulterous bitch.
You shake your head and stand up before sucking in some cool, fresh air, pacing around on the front lawn, or what could be considered as the front lawn.
What is she still doing here?
You shake your head again, pulling your phone out of your pocket, dialing a number you hadn't dialed in what seems like decades. You wait as it rings twice, before you hear an all too familiar voice, that makes you smile just a little bit.
"If I asked you to be honest and answer a question for me, would you?" You ask before your ex wife has a chance to speak. You're afraid of her answer. All you want to do is hang up, and forget about it. But you can't, because your friend and her wife can't even be in the same room as each other, and all those thoughts are plagued with the thought of your ex wife. And they weren't good thoughts.
You hear a sigh on the other end, before she speaks. "Derek?" She says in that soft, velvety tone of hers that first drew you to her all those years ago, back in medical school when the two of you were in your early twenties.
You don't know what to say, because there are so many words that you want to say. Which one was the most appropriate of all? You did not want to stall. You were a man of action. You acted, and sometimes you had a tendency to act, before you thought. If was okay, when you found your ex wife in bed with your best friend. You'd had every right to be angry. It was okay, when you went to Seattle. But thinking on it now, and on your relationship with your current wife, you realize, that it wasn't okay. You thought it was okay back then, but it wasn't.
And then it all comes flying back. You'd thrown her clothes out onto the street, and pushed her out in the pouring rain. You'd left her in New York and went to Seattle. You'd called her an adulterous bitch, and satan when she showed up in Seattle. You gave her false hope about your marriage working out. You promised her that you two would manage to work things out, and that the two of you were okay, now. You'd promised her, when all that time, you'd been lying. You'd been flirting and having an emotional...thing with your current wife, and you realize that it all wasn't okay. Nowadays, you would have gotten mad, yes, but you would have stayed and talked or argued it out.
"I'm sorry for being a bad husband to you." You mutter quietly into the phone. There's a moment of silence, before you hear her suck in a breath, and then hear her let out that breath a second later.
"Derek, it's ten in the evening. Why are you calling me now, and why are you telling me all this now? Why..."Your ex wife begins, before you hear silence, and then a soft sob. "Do you have any idea..."She began, and trailed off, and at her reaction, you realize, that you're a hypocrite. You can think all the things you want, about your friend. You can think how wrong she is, for taking her anger out on her cheating wife in a public place, but you realize that you're no better. You were no better, because you'd done the same thing, except worse.
For some reason, you cannot help but want to apologize to your ex wife, to her face. You'd like to say this all, with her standing, or sitting in front of you. You'd like to apologize, explain, and make things right. After all this time, she'd been targeted as the bad person, and you were no better. You'd emotionally and physically cheated on her as well, except for longer. "I want to apologize to you in person." You finally tell her, and as soon as those words are spoken, you feel as though a weight has been lifted off of your shoulders. It's like a huge boulder that has been sitting there for the past few years since you'd been in Seattle, had gone. Your only hope, was that she'd say yes.