Sorry for the long wait, but here's the chapter in which something actually happens. (I hope people are still reading this.) Please review and tell me what you think:

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Chapter Four

'Cause I've relied on my illusion

To keep me warm at night

And I've denied in my capacity to love

But I am willing to give up this fight

-Sarah McLachlan 'Dirty Little Secret'

It's over. And as you sit in your darkened living room waiting for your husband to return you realise that maybe you never really had it to begin with. Maybe your marriage was nothing more than comfort and companionship, free from the intense passion you read about in books. You always told yourself those stories were unrealistic and that love wasn't this all- consuming force that encompassed your very soul and made you feel so much for one person that you would gladly give up your own life just to protect them. Not that you're not a romantic, you believe in love, you believe it is strong and powerful and you believe you feel it for your husband and he feels it for you. But you don't know if that's enough.

A key turns in the front door and you look up to see him enter. His face registers surprise at finding you in the dark, and then concern upon flicking the light switch and seeing your red eyes and suitcase. He asks you what's going on and all you can think about is whether he looks at her with the same concern and love that you can see in his eyes as he looks at you.

But you know you cannot be sidetracked. You know you have to do this, and so you tell him. You tell him that you cannot stay and you are going to your sisters while you work some things out. He asks you why and you suddenly feel a wave of anger at him for having the nerve to ask when it's so obvious you sometimes wonder if strangers on the street can see it. Your husband is in love with another woman and you refuse to be second best. It isn't fair of him to do this to you, to stay with you when you are not the one who owns his heart. All he is doing is keeping you in a sub-par marriage out of a misguided sense of duty. You know he is too honourable a man to leave you for another woman so you have to do it for him. You see nothing honourable about staying married to a man who doesn't love you with all his heart, let alone keeping him from his true love. It may be selfish but you want your husband to look at you and see the most important thing in the world to him and you know you will never have that with Michael.

After you have explained your reasons to him he protests as you knew he would. But you can tell he's conflicted and there is a part of him that is overjoyed at your decision, although he would never consciously say or even think that. He tells you that he loves you and you pause, allowing yourself to believe that maybe you made a mistake, maybe he is yours after all, so you stop and look into his eyes and ask him. You ask him if he can honestly tell you that you are the love of his life. It feels like a lifetime before he answers and all your hopes are dashed. Strangely you feel angrier with yourself than him, angry for allowing yourself to hope when you knew what the outcome would be. He looks down and apologises and you pick up your suitcase and walk past him without a word.

As you're walking down the hall you hear him call out your name, asking you to stop, saying that you can work this out. If his plea came from his heart you know you would spin on your heel and run into his arms in a second, but you can tell it's firmly based in duty. You hear the hollowness of his voice and know that he doesn't really want you to come back, he just feels like he should. So you don't stop. You walk out of the house and out of your marriage and out of his life.