A/N: Thanks for all the reviews and everything, I really appreciate it. I think this story should be wrapping up next chapter, so just be aware of that. Hope you enjoy, reviews would really help, so help a girl out. :)
She thinks too much.
She was the kind of person who will just sit there and think, and the thinking gets deeper and deeper until she's in a hole so large she can't dig herself out of it. That's kind of like what her affair with Chris felt like. At first, it was something to stave off the loneliness that Paul's absence from her life during his rehab. Chris was a warm body, a friendly smile, and a delicious lover. He felt the same way. The road was lonely, and seeking a body was usually a sticky business, but she'd been willing and clean.
Eventually though, as most affairs do, feelings started to run deeper than either of them were prepared for. It was supposed to end when Paul came back from rehabbing. She was supposed to forget about him, and he was supposed to be faithful to his wife. It was an agreement they'd made so many nights when they'd lay next to each other and they would promise they'd be better once Paul came back. After he came back, they would be faithful, they would leave this behind, and they would be better people.
When Paul came back, they'd stuck to their promises for a time, a short time, barely a couple months, and suddenly, they were together. It was riskier then, the threat of Paul loomed large, but both of them realized they couldn't do without this. They could not keep away from each other, but neither of them would let the words that would seal the deal pass between them, but like most things in their lives, they caved to each other, and they were really gone then. It was too much.
Chris didn't call her back after their last conversation. She didn't really expect him to call though. She'd broken his heart so many times, with so many different, pathetic reasons that she'd pretty much forced him out of her life. His words rang in her head, he loved her, but he could live without her. Therein lied the problem; she wasn't sure if she could live without him. The thought of him never coming back into her life terrified her.
It wasn't even within her right to be scared of his absence. She had a husband, he had a wife, the two of them, her and Chris, had no connection between them but the love they kept between the two of them. Their lives could so neatly cut in two, and she had no real claim on him or even his love. She'd stolen it from its rightful place with his wife. She was nothing but and adulterer and a thief.
"Mom?"
Linda had opened the door to find her daughter's tear-streaked face and she was immediately alarmed. "Stephanie, what's wrong? Is it Paul? The girls? Is everyone okay?"
"I'm not," Stephanie told her, her head down as more tears fell from her eyes. When things got too tough for Stephanie, there was always one outlet she could use. She'd grown up thinking her mother her best friend and this had not changed as she entered adulthood. Whenever there was something Stephanie could not figure out, she would go to her mother because her mother always knew what to do.
Her mother was her guiding force, the calm beacon of light that beckoned her back on track when the waters got too rough. Linda stepped forward and wrapped her daughter into a hug. Stephanie sobbed into her mother's neck, hating herself for breaking down like this because it wasn't her style. It wasn't her style to break down so harshly, and it wasn't even her right. She had no right to cry for a man that was not hers.
"Sweetheart, you have me worried," Linda pulled her into the house. "Come on, let's go into the study, and I'll make you a cup of tea, alright?"
"Okay," Stephanie mumbled as her mother led her into the cozy study where the comfiest couches in the house sat. She sunk into one, tucking her legs underneath her as her mother quickly left the room to get Stephanie a calming cup of tea. Stephanie leaned her head against the back of the couch, closing her eyes and taking in the familiar scents of home.
She wanted to be rid of this feeling. She wanted to be rid of it all, but she didn't know how to do that. She didn't know how to let go of Chris, but she didn't know how to let go of everything else. That's what it felt like to her. There were two sides of her life, and Chris was on one and everything else on the other. Stephanie had never been one who could decipher the many areas of gray that separated the two sides.
She wished she could close her eyes, open them, and find herself a ten year old kid again, sad because she'd scraped her knee. She didn't want to be a 36 year old woman with a scraped up heart. "Stephanie?"
Stephanie opened her eyes to see her mother hovering over her, and she wondered how long she'd sat there, thinking of nothing and everything all at once. Linda sat down and handed the cup of tea to Stephanie. She held the heated cup in both hands, a slight twinge of burn flushed through her hands, but it felt good to feel something like that. She wanted to hurt because she'd given hurt out like it was a playing card and she was the apathetic dealer.
"Talk to me," Linda pleaded with her as Stephanie bit her lip and looked off towards the bay windows that led off into the backyard. "Sweetheart, whatever is wrong, I will help you."
Stephanie turned her red-rimmed eyes to her mother and said the words she'd never dared to say to anyone, "I had an affair."
Linda's eyes widened momentarily, but the judgment over her daughter was kept at bay. Linda started to reach out for Stephanie, but then thought better of it, "You had an affair?" she asked as if she needed clarification.
"Yes," Stephanie nodded, "I had an affair, a long one, a very long one."
"Oh," Linda responded, pursing her lips together. Her mother was going to hate her. Her mother had been cheated on by her father, repeatedly, had been humiliated by him, and she was her father's daughter now. Her mother would look at her with the same look of disappointment, but she deserved it. "Okay, well, I don't condone that of course, but who with, what's going on? Is it over? I think I need more details."
Stephanie took a sip of her tea, as if it were truth serum and once she took a sip, all the lies would come spilling forth from her mouth in a torrential waterfall after the dam broke. "It was with Chris Irvine."
"Chris," Linda breathed his name, "I should have known. That man has always looked at you like you were something special."
Oh God, her mother was actually making it worse and a sob tore through Stephanie's throat. Her hands started shaking so hard she was afraid she would scald herself spilling her tea. Linda quickly took the mug from Stephanie, sitting it on the coffee table before she gathered up her daughter in her arms. Her mother's hand brushed its way through her soft locks. Stephanie whimpered at the contact, wanting to bury herself in her mother's arms where everything was safe and nothing hurt.
"Shh," Linda whispered soothingly, "did he do something?"
"Yes," she told her mother, pulling away and looking at her face. "He fell in love with me."
Linda's sigh tore through Stephanie's gut because it was sympathetic and not angry, "Oh, sweetheart, that's the problem with affairs, they always leave this kind of thing in their wake. People are always hurt, there's always collateral damage."
"I know," Stephanie shook her head, looking ashamed, her eyes downcast and studying her hands as she wrenched them together. "I know, and we both knew that, and we both said that it wasn't going to get that far, we wouldn't let it get to that. We always promised that this was just a fling."
"How long has this fling been going on?"
Stephanie grimaced. The truth was difficult and even harder when telling it to someone else. "On and off for eleven years."
"Eleven years!" Linda gasped. "The girls?"
"They're Paul's," Stephanie said, "they were all conceived during our off periods, none of them are Chris's."
"Okay, well, that's…something at least, but eleven years, Stephanie, that's not a fling, you love him back, don't you?"
Tears leaked from Stephanie's eyes as she nodded, "I shouldn't, Mom, I know I shouldn't. I made a commitment to Paul, and I shouldn't have fallen in love with someone else, and I feel so guilty about it. Everyday, I wake up and I feel so guilty for betraying someone I promised to cherish for the rest of my life."
"This started before you were married, I just…how?"
"When Paul injured his quad. It just kind of happened," Stephanie shrugged, "but Chris was already married, and I figured, well, I need to settle down, and I loved Paul, so it made sense, but now nothing makes sense anymore. Chris…Chris wanted me. He wanted me, and he left his wife for me, and I rebuffed him."
"So what's different now?" Linda asked, trying to remain objective about all this. Stephanie could tell she was biting her tongue, letting Stephanie get everything out before she doled out anything.
"I fired Barbie Blank because I was jealous," Stephanie laughed and cried at the same time over how stupid that sounded to her now. Now she knew why Chris had been on her case because it was so damn obvious what she'd done. "Chris dated her for a while, when he wasn't with his wife, right after I rejected him. I've hated her ever since so when the opportunity arose, I was a petty bitch and I let her walk. I didn't even negotiate with her, and I was so relieved to rid her from my life."
"And?" Linda could sense there was an "and" coming from her daughter.
"He called me out on it," Stephanie shrugged, "he knew why I'd done it, and he called me out on it. And then we talked yesterday, and he said he could live without me, that he was essentially done with me. He's never said that he could live without me before. He's never said anything in that tone before, and…he's gone, Mommy. He's really gone this time, I can feel it."
"I hate to say it, sweetheart, but maybe this is for the best," Linda told her. "If he's out of the picture, maybe you can get back to your life now, really commit to Paul. Don't you think he deserves that?"
"No," Stephanie cried, "he deserves better, actually."
"He would forgive you, you love him. If Chris is really through, Stephanie, you have a life here, with your husband, your daughters. But…I don't know what went on with you and Chris. How do you feel about this? Obviously this has torn you up. You…you don't want him out of your life, do you?"
This is where the fear came in, this is where the fear would always set in. She'd think about the future, and that fear in her stomach would branch out, settling in her toes and her brain and everywhere in between. She was so scared of the unknown, so paralyzed with the thought of change. She backed away from it, ran from it, and ultimately, she burrowed herself deeper into her hole of stagnancy.
"I don't," she confessed, her voice just below a whisper so Linda had to strain to hear it. "I never want him out of my life."
Linda closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before casting her eyes back on her tortured daughter, "Why have you let it go on so long?"
"Because what I feel for him," Stephanie waved a hand in the air. "What I feel for him is so much more than I can describe, Mom. Being away from him, I feel like I'm hanging from a hook, dangling and trying so hard to get any kind of footing. I love him, I love him so much more than I've ever admitted, even to myself. I'm scared though, so terrified of everything that comes after this. What if I leave this all behind, try with Chris, and fail? What if we were never meant to be more than what we are now?"
"And what are you now, Stephanie? What is it even now? Is it anything?"
"Yes, it's everything!" Stephanie said passionately. She was taken aback at her own fervor. "I can't…I can't live without him. He may be able to live without me, but I can't live without him."
"Sweetheart, I think that's all the answer you need right there. I may not agree with what you've done, I may not even agree with what you're doing, but I will always support you. If you love Chris, if you want to be with him, I will welcome him into this family. I always favor your happiness above all else, so does your father, so does your brother. We are with you, 100%, whatever you decide."
"I just…I'm scared."
"Is he worth it?" Linda asked. "At the end of this, if you go through with a divorce, if you tell everyone the truth, if you go through all the hard times, and at the end of it, you have Chris, and you can be happy, do you think it would be worth it?" Stephanie didn't even need to think.
"Yes."