Desperately Seeking Epic(25)

My eyes teared up. I hadn’t realized the toll this trip had taken on me emotionally until then. The man that killed my parents left me half his business. I couldn’t get over that fact. What a mind trip. My heart swelled as I took in the room, the beautiful candles, and my handsome husband. He was my rock; my steady.

“You’re home,” Kurt sputtered, his tone uncertain.

“Yeah,” I sighed as I shut the door and flung myself on him. His arms gingerly wrapped around me. “I love you so much. Thank you for this.”

“Clara,” he grumbled my name as he peeled me away from him. “We need to—” The sound of the toilet flushing in the hall bathroom interrupted him, causing me to jerk back. Did I just hear that?

“Who’s here?” I asked as the sink cut on for a moment before cutting off again.

Kurt dropped his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s not what you think, Clara.”

I stared at him a moment, waiting for him to clarify, but he didn’t have to. The tall, leggy woman with long, brown hair that emerged from the restroom and froze when she saw me was enough clarification. Her eyes darted to Kurt, then back to me, then back to Kurt.

“Yes, that’s right,” I finally said. “I’m his wife who showed up unexpectedly. And you would be . . . ?”

“You should go Daisy,” Kurt interjected.

“Her name is Daisy?” I asked in disbelief. Daisy, to her extreme credit, grabbed her purse and left. Kurt immediately turned the lights on and started blowing the candles out. My heart sunk realizing what a fool I was. I thought this was for me. But how stupid was that? Kurt didn’t even know I was coming home. Of course it wasn’t for me.

“Who is she?” I quietly gritted out.

“A friend,” he mumbled as he lowered his head.

“How long have you two been seeing each other?” My anger anchored me, allowing me the strength to question him without breaking down right away. My voice was calm and steady, my gaze direct even though Kurt looked anywhere else but at me. Coward.

“I haven’t slept with her,” he stated as he picked up two candles and walked past me to the kitchen. “She’s a friend.”

Turning, I crossed my arms, my blood pressure rising as each second passed. “So you always hang out with your female friends in candle light?”

Shoving the candles into the cabinet, he shut the door and leaned his head against it for a moment before turning to face me. My stomach flipped when his gaze met mine. I could read his thoughts before he even spoke. He didn’t love me anymore. Not like a husband should love a wife, anyway.

“I haven’t cheated, Clara. I need you to know that. But if I’m being honest . . .” He paused and clenched his eyes closed before opening them again, “I’ve wanted to,” he finished.

I blinked furiously in an attempt to stop the tears, but they fell anyway. “I thought things were better. I thought we were better.”

Running a wide palm down his face, he squeezed his eyes closed and groaned. “I don’t want children, Clara.”

“But you wanted to try too. You agreed. We spent a year trying—”

“I wanted to make you happy,” he interrupted. “You wanted a baby and I thought if it makes you happy, why not? But then when we got into it and it didn’t happen . . . you changed.”

“And I put it off to work on us,” I defended, my voice raspy with hurt.

“Yes, but it feels like you’re only going through the motions. Yeah, we hang out and have sex, but I can feel it in you. You’re biding time until we can get back to trying again.”

“That’s not true,” I cried. “I’ve given it my all.”

He walked around the counter until he stood two feet before me. “And so have I,” he said quietly. “But sometimes,” he sighed with a frown, “that’s just not enough.”

“Kurt,” I whispered his name ever so quietly, the word a plea for him not to do this. And even though I could reach out and touch him, I could hug him, claw him, or tear into his flesh with my teeth . . . it wouldn’t have mattered.

He was already gone.

“I’m going to go stay with my parents for a while. I’d like to keep the apartment, but I know you’ll need some time to make arrangements.”

With that, he walked back to our bedroom and began packing his things. I sat on the couch, crying, holding my face in my hands, wondering if anything could possibly hurt as much as this. Little did I know, many years later, I’d discover what pain really was.



Ashley scoots back in her seat, visually uncomfortable, her mouth in a tight line. She’s so young; only a senior in high school. I doubt she can even comprehend the magnitude of the story I just told her. Or, maybe she can. Maybe she wasn’t expecting this kind of brutal honesty or so much detail.

“Kurt sounds like a dick,” she surmises.

I almost choke on my saliva as I laugh. So she does understand . . . kind of. There was a time when remembering that conversation with Kurt would send me into a fit of tears, but now, it seems like something that happened in another life.

Seeing my reaction, Ashley chuckles, but she’s determined. She wants the story, so she goes on. “So what happened after that? What brought you back to Virginia?”