This isn't supposed to be happening. Gabriella thought to herself as she closed her eyes and dug her hands into her temples and leaned back into the charcoal leather chair she sat in. She was on autopilot, absentmindedly flipping through cooking channels and QVC, thinking that ordering some unnecessary household appliance or gaudy earrings would fix this mess that had taken over her marriage.
A miserable aching feeling began to creep over her. The news she had just learned had threatened to destroy everything she had just achieved. She wanted today to rewind, the week previous to rewind, so she could prevent this terrible situation she now found herself in, and saw no reasonable way of getting out of. this wasn't as simple as ignoring a call, returning something you realized doesn't go with anything else in your closet, or ordering something different off the menu because the sauce isn't quite what you'd thought it would be. This was a real life, married life problem.
One she never thought she would go through. She was supposed to have a perfect life. With the suburban house and the golden retriever and the BMW and white picket fence.
Okay, so they didn't have a white picket fence or a golden retriever.
But even so, this life, her life, their life. It wasn't ever supposed to involve this situation as a chapter. This happens to that unstable couple down the street who got married based purely on the great sex they had. This happens to the friend of a friend's cousin who's marriage has been on the rocks since the day they said "i do". These are the couples you feel sorry for. That you send fruit baskets to in "sincere" apology. Gabby and Troy were now one of those couples. The couple who will never be the same. She couldn't see how going forward would solve anything, she didn't see how this damage could ever be undone. How either of them could look one another in the eye and just simply erase the unforgettable mishap that tore them apart.
All the flowers, all the chocolates, all the jweelry and all the big teddy bears in the world would never make her forget this. Tiffany's necklaces, trips to Hawaii, a private table at the most exclusive restaurant would never reverse this. Gabriella deemed it irreparable, and the embarassment she imagined going through, explaining it to her family, friends, neighbors and coworkers made her sick to her stomach.
Oh no. she remembered. what was really making her sick was what she was going to do about another dilemma. She had seven months to figure out the latter. but the first, she knew it would never be okay until she decided it was so. Her life had shattered into a million pieces, and she hadn't the slightest clue on how to begin to put it back together.