My name is Sarah Garrison and this is my story.
In that certain part of my life I felt I was like sleeping. Every day was the same, smiling and chatting on parties, sitting in silence next to my husband and escorting him everywhere. Always looking perfect and elegant, playing the perfect wife of a perfect man in a perfect world... Yes, everything was perfect except one thing, that inside my soul I was dying... I was like a living corpse, smiling all the time, while I felt only emptiness and loneliness. I was desperately lonely although I had a husband and many people around us. My world was a golden cage and there was no way out.
This was my life for quite a few years when from nothing everything changed. Maybe someone up there took pity on me and made an end to my sufferings. I was totally depressed that day also, but chatted and smiled on that party as nothing would have happened, while I could not really feel that I'm smiling or not. Suddenly Katie, my husband's assistant said she would like to introduce me to someone... and there he was, Pete Garrison my new bodyguard. I exactly remember the moment when I turned around and a man next to me turned towards me at the same moment holding out his hand to greet me. And that was it... that exact moment, our hands touched, our gaze locked and time suddenly stopped. I've never ever looked so deep into someone's eyes before, I could see the most tiny details of his friendly ocean blue eyes. Thoughts were running through my head, I felt inexplicable coziness, I felt that I finally arrived home. Like when you are in a foreign country feeling lost and lonely and suddenly your best friend shows up to join you. In that moment I exactly knew that my life will change forever.
From that day, life was colorful again, and I slowly started to came back to life. The meetings and parties were not so depressing anymore, because my thoughts were always on him. I felt his eyes on me in every minute, we often exchanged a look or even a smile when no one was watching. I loved when he touched my back or held my arm to help me out of the car and he took every chance to do it. A few times, mostly at night we could spend a little private time together, our favorite thing was walking in the garden, where we finally had real privacy.
We spent hours and hours with walking and chatting about everything, trying to get to know each other as much as we could. He always offered his jacket what I accepted happily, because that way I could feel his warmth and his intoxicating smell I loved so much.
I had eating disorders those years and thanks to him I slowly but surely felt better and better each day. He always paid attention to my eating habits after he discovered my problem, he often had dinner with me when my husband was away, so those times I ate normally and he knew it. To our walks he always brought some sweets; chocolate, candies or tangerine. First I thought it's just for fun, but soon he admitted he wanted to be sure that I ate at least something and I was so grateful for that. He was the only one who really cared for me and I have to say he was the one who brought me back to life.
My favorite night snack on our walks were candies and tangerine. Candies were so much fun, because I always selected the green ones while he the red ones, and in the end we went halves the rest of it. But my most favorite thing were tangerines. I think there was something intimate in eating this fruit together. I always peeled it and separated into two parts, giving the half fruit to him. It was a cozy feeling somehow, and one day when he peeled off even that little white membrane from it - because he knew I didn't like it - then gave it to me section after section I could not helped myself anymore and leant closer, really close... and kissed him fully on the lips. That was our very first kiss, sitting at night in the garden, kissing lovingly and feeling the sweet taste of the tangerine in our kiss.
I remember when we softly pulled apart a little, he just smiled against my lips and whispered... "I hope you know that there's no turning back from here."
"I know." I whispered and let him to pull me fully to his embrace. His arms were so warm and inviting, stroking my back softly while I totally lost myself in his closeness.
That was the day when everything became reality, my fantasies became real and I loved it so much. We continued our night walks, but instead of just chatting we usually found a hiding place and spent time with kissing and just enjoying the moment.
Our first night together happened at the beach house a few weeks later, because inside The White House our life was totally under control. My husband wanted to spend a long weekend at the beach house, but something came up and John had to travel back, so I stayed there for the weekend with the staff, while the whole first floor was mine with a security guy outside my door. So when Pete was on duty that night, he came into my room, everything happened so fast and we ended up in bed, making love passionately.
From that night on we knew that our place is the beach house, where we can be finally really together, so I tried to go there as much as my schedule let me to do it. My husband simply thought I just needed a little peace and relax, so it was easy... yes, easy I thought, until one day we got caught.
Someone sent Pete an envelope full of photos about us in the bedroom and hell started. From that day I was extremely nervous, I feared for him, for us, for our relationship what made me so utterly happy in the last few months. Soon I had to realize that the fear I felt when he got the envelope was nothing compared to the feeling when he was out in the country running for his life, because he was framed and everybody thought he is the one who wants to kill my husband. Those days were the worst in my whole life, especially when Pete left me a message on my mobile as saying goodbye. I had to do something and if it costs to reveal our affair then let it be. I really had no other choice... Life is strange, sometimes the thing we try to avoid the most is the solution for everything. Soon I had to learn that decision was the best I could make for both of us.
After that day in Toronto I totally revalued my life, I was afraid of nothing anymore... I finally knew what I want and mostly what I have to do to make it happen, to finally live the life I've always wanted, so when Pete told me about he wants to be retired, I told him that I will go with him, leaving everything behind. I was a bit afraid when I told him about my plans moving to Maine, but after I realized he played a little joke on me, I finally saw in his smiling eyes that he wanted nothing more.
So this is how my story began... the story of living with the man of my dreams...
To be continued...
