It was not that she did not believe it was a possibility when she had said yes but as Temperance watched the words blur on the tear stained face she couldn't help but contemplate the exact point everything had fallen apart. She had it all, the house with the white picket fence, an adoring man to come home to and the most amazing daughter she could have asked for. But as she read the words delicately scrawled in an all too familiar script she knew as soon as she put her pen to the paper it would all be lost.
"Seeley…" She sputtered out in irrational fashion, "Why? Why? Why"
But even as she repeated the word that had become her new mantra, Temperance knew the answer.
She knew she may not have been the best, most caring wife; but when it came to loving him unconditionally she knew no one could do it better. Being able to fall into his love day in and day out was the one thing that often kept this rational scientist from falling off the edge. His smile held an inner peace that no one else could compare. It did not matter how hard she had to fall, she knew in the end he was always there to catch her with arms and a heart wide open.
As the recent months flashed by she knew one thing was true, loving him would never be enough. He was a man that needed proof, proof she was unable to show without losing him completely. The last showing of adoration would come with a price that would rip this fragile woman into a million pieces. She knew he had long been looking for a way out long before he had ever verbalized it but damn it was her one chance at true love too. Who was he to dictate the way her life would unfold?
Sure, she saw the warning signs for months but when you devote yourself to someone even the most rational person does irrational things. She had given him her all just to watch it being thrown back in her face with every passive stare and lonely night. He said he was always the one that knew she was would finally be his but somehow Temperance had always known he was the other half to her heart. Without him she knew she had a long and empty road before her, a path that was never meant to be her own.
She was meant to be with the man lying in a drunken stupor on their living room floor, not left to raise a child that was never fully her own. With a deep, inner growl Temperance pushed up against the table once more at the beast laying before her.
"I… I can't" Temperance screamed at the top of her lungs at the divorce decree sprawled across her coffee table, "I don't care what he thinks, no one will be able to love him like I can. He may want to be lonely but damn who says his heart was ever his to gain."