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Chapter 23 – Can't Believe It

When Troy woke up the next morning, he had a horrendous headache and he had a girl in his arms. But the girl was not his wife. She was a blonde…Stacy. Oh….shit! She was looking up at him with a smile on her face.

"It feels so good to wake up in your arms again." She leaned up and tried to kiss Troy but he shoved her off of him as he climbed out of bed and put his boxers back on.

"Stacy, what happened last night should not have happened. It was a mistake. I'm married to a wonderful woman and happier than I have ever been. This can't be mentioned to anyone."

Just then the doorbell rung and Stacy slipped out of bed and put on Troy's shirt from last night to go answer the door.

A couple minutes later, Troy went downstairs in search of some aspirin for his headache. As he was walking through the living room, he heard a familiar voice and looked over at the door where Stacy was standing and locked eyes with his wife.

Hurt and confusion filled her eyes along with unshed tears. "So this is why you sent me away for the weekend? So you could have a little rendezvous with your ex?" Tears starting streaming down Gabriella's face as she stood there, looking from Stacy in Troy's shirt to Troy in his boxers. "I thought you were better than this. I thought we were past all the struggles we were having with our exes. But I guess you had different thoughts." Gabriella turned to go. "Have a nice life, Troy."

"Brie, wait! Can't we please talk? I don't love her. I love you!"

"Yeah….right! The way you are both dressed says it all. And besides…even if we did talk it would probably all be lies coming out of your mouth. How long have you been lying to me, Troy? Has our whole marriage been a lie? You know…I came back early so that I could be with your for an extra night without the kids because I missed you and because I actually thought you cared about making sure our marriage was ok. But I guess it's not now."

"No…I haven't lied to you Brie. I do care. I can promise that. I know we have been having difficulties, but that is why I wanted you to have this weekend away, so you could relieve some stress. I promise that what happened last night between Stacy and I was a pure mistake. It wasn't planned. We were both drunk and it just happened. Please believe me when I say that if I had been sober, I would have been at home last night wishing you were next to me."

"Bullshit! Stop lying to me Troy! I'm tired of all the lies. Just take your whore and go! It's over!"

Gabriella ran down the driveway, not looking back When she left Stacy's house, she immediately went to the only person who she knew could help her…David.

David opened his door to find Gabriella in tears. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her, letting her cry as he led her to the couch. He sat down and pulled her down with him, still hugging her.

When her sobs had subsided, he waited for her to speak.

"Troy cheated on me."

"What?! That bastard! I'll kill him!"

"No! You won't. I left him. I told him it was over."

"But what happened? I thought you were going to be gone this weekend."

"I was gone. I wasn't supposed to get back until this evening, but I decided that I wanted to come back early and surprise Troy because I felt like we needed some extra time to patch things up between us. But apparently he had other plans of patching things up between him and Stacy."

"Stacy? His ex?"

"Yeah. I went home last night to an empty house. Troy was no where to be found. When I tried calling his cell, it just kept going straight to voicemail and he never called me back. So when he never came home last night, I started to get worried and went to the only place I knew of that he had plans to go this weekend…Stacy's. She answered the door in only Troy's shirt. I started to ask her if she knew where I could find Troy but as soon as I saw his shirt, I knew. Then a couple minutes later he walked through in just his boxers."

David hugged Gabriella tighter as her crying increased again. He began rubbing her back, trying to comfort her.

"Thanks, David, for being here. I hate it that I keep coming to your door crying, but you're the only one who knows me well enough to always make me feel better."

"Well, you know I'm always here for you."