"I do," Paul gazed into his soon-to-be bride's eyes. As the officiant closed out the final part of the ceremony, he couldn't help but to think of how lucky he was that she finally said yes.
As they made their way back to the hotel lobby, he noticed his new wife hadn't said a word, "is everything okay babe?" He leaned over, planting kisses on her cheeks, "you haven't said anything since we said, 'I do',"
"I don't know," she buried her face in his chest, "I just want to go back to our room,"
"Yeah, okay, let's go," he swiftly wrapped an arm around her and took her towards the elevators, "you want to talk about it?"
She shook her head as tears pooled in the corners of her eyes, "no,"
He opened the door to their room, feeling defeated, "please let's talk about this. What's wrong? Why are you upset?"
"I guess I just feel guilty, I don't know," she lied as she began to undress herself, knowing how to keep him from asking, "let's just please do this and take my mind off it,"
"Um, okay, sure," he started to unzip his slacks, "are you sure you want to? It feels kinda wrong because you seem upset about something,"
She laid down on the bed, smiling as he covered her in kisses so he wouldn't think anything was wrong. She couldn't believe she married him after everything he admitted to her. Especially everything about Kelly but also what he mentioned about other women he'd been with while simultaneously in some type of relationship with her. She stared at the ceiling the entire time he was above her, replaying his lies over and over in her head, trying to make sense of it all.
"Babe," he groaned as he came to his end. He rolled over onto the bed but quickly sat up, "why did we do that?"
"I can't stop thinking about you…" tears rapidly fell down her cheeks, "and her," she squeaked through sobs, "and them."
"Stephanie, why did you marry me if this was gonna be an issue?" His fingers ran through his hair as he stood up, "what do you want me to do, or say? I've apologized like a dozen times, but I can't take it back even if I tried,"
"When was the last time you slept with her?"
His mind raced, part of him wanted to lie and keep the peace, but part of him just wanted to admit the truth and move past it all, "okay, um, the truth is," his eyes squeezed shut, he couldn't believe what he was about to say, "every time you and I had a fight or argument about you not wanting to marry me or something along those lines, I went crawling back to her,"
"You piece of shit," she cried out, remembering all the times he had previously asked her to marry him and it came to an argument, "when was the last time?" She asked through clenched teeth.
"3 weeks ago. We fought about you not wanting to tell Maryse about us, you went to bed angry, I went to work and drove to her house after my shift was over,"
"You had sex with her while I was living with you? While Sofia and I were living with you?"
He nodded, unable to look at her, "yes, and please believe me when I say this, I regret so much when it comes to our relationship. Please don't take this badly, but I regret sleeping with you those first couple of times. You deserved so much better than getting pregnant at 19 because I was stupid and didn't wear a condom. You deserved better than having to lie to everyone about who Sofia's father was. I know we've gone down this path before, and we've had this argument before, but I just wish we would have come clean then,"
"I realize now that if I would have just told everyone the truth then, I wouldn't have had to marry you today and then find out you slept with someone else less than a month ago," she zipped her dress back up and began gathering her belongings, "I learned my lesson Paul,"
"Where are you going?"
"You are going to pack up your shit and take us home. As soon as we get there, I'm leaving and going to my parents house while I wait for MY daughter to come home. You are free to do whatever it is you need to do," she threw her suitcase down at his feet, "oh, and don't worry, I'll make sure we get the annulment as soon as possible. Just in case you want to just marry Kelly now, cause I'm sure she's the only one who will be putting out from now on.
"Can we please talk about this some more?" He followed her to the front door, "Stephanie, please,"
"There's nothing else to talk about, I'm absolutely done. I'm done with you, I'm done with us. I am so mad at myself for marrying you. I can't believe I did that to myself."
"So that's it? We got married just to get divorced in the same day? I'm going to take you home and you're just going to tell everyone about Sofia, and us, and…"
"Yep, I'm going to go home and tell everyone about Sofia, about how I fucked up by getting involved with you, and how you are just the biggest asshole I've ever met."
"Stephanie, please just hear me out. I will explain everything if you just listen."
"No," she shook her head, "I don't want to listen to your excuses. On our way here, I thought to myself that the worst was over, you explaining about her being just an old girlfriend. I thought that it wouldn't get any worse, so I agreed to marry you, thinking you were telling me the truth. Just to find out that it was still going on 3 weeks ago. What else are you not telling me?"
"Nothing, I swear over my life there is nothing else I haven't told you,"
"I'm gonna go downstairs and talk to the front desk about our room, just bring everything down and get the truck, and I'll see you then," the door opened and slammed shut, while Paul fell to his knees in anguish.
