Beautiful Burn(5)

I drove the few miles home that afternoon, my mind replaying the conversation I'd had with Auburn. She'd asked me how I was and I'd glossed over it, but there was a piece of me that wanted to open up to someone about what was inside my head. And I had a feeling Auburn would listen. Even in high school, she was never one to speak before thinking and always chose her words carefully.

Pine-scented Michigan air whipped through the cab of my Blazer as I drove the twisting miles along the west bay, my mind falling back to the moment I'd finally decided to make the change I'd been so desperate for.

“What?!” Her accusing eyes had spun to meet mine. She'd clutched at my hand, held it so tightly in my own, as if holding on tightly would keep me here, bound to her as I'd always been.

It wouldn’t.

“I want a separation. I know it’s cliché, but it isn’t you, it’s me. I swear, Mel,” I pleaded with my wife as she sat hurling insults from the overstuffed leather couch in our spacious four-bedroom home.

“Bullshit, Reed. Fucking bullshit.” Her delicate hand had ripped from mine as she stood and stalked across the room.

“I swear to you, Mel… I’ve been so fucked in the head lately.” I'd followed behind her.

“Stay away from me.” The pain in her voice still resonated in the dark chambers of my heart.

“Mel.” I'd reached for her. She'd shrugged me off then and shoved a palm into my chest. I clutched as if she’d grabbed at my heart and tightened it in a vice grip. It had felt like I couldn’t breathe, it still felt like I couldn’t breathe most days.

“Let’s just talk for a minute,” I pleaded.

“Talk?! What have we been doing for the last year and a half in therapy?! Did you just go to appease me? Because clearly you weren’t invested in our marriage like I thought you were!” Her cold sneer rattled my bones.

“Oh please, all we do is fight when we sit on that couch. Please, Mel. I just need some time to think things through. After everything we've been through…”

“You can't leave me, Reed. What about a family…” We'd had the kid conversation multiple times, but it'd never felt like the right time. Now I knew why.

“I'm sorry. I need to get my head together. I feel like…” I tried to swallow down the words, lock them in my throat to shield her from the scar it would leave, but I was desperate for honesty. “What I want has changed.”

“Reed.” Her eyes narrowed. “You think I haven't changed? That I don't think about a different life sometimes with someone better off, less moody?!”

I remember I'd clenched my jaw so tightly it'd ached. Mel was always pressing me to make more money, do more with her friends and their husbands. I was tired down to the marrow of my bones of all of this. “I'm sorry Mel, I am.” I muttered sincerely, though still determined. “I’ve just lost me somewhere in this life we’ve created…” I trailed off because there was nothing more to say. That last statement was the crux of my deep-seated unhappiness.

I'd sat silently, watching her work the words over in her head. The pain, the anger, the frustration, the confusion. After all, we had everything. I was a teacher at the high school we’d both attended in our small town of Sutton's Bay, Michigan, where she was a substitute teacher waiting for a permanent position. We'd married in college and bought our first home, a four-bedroom ranch on a quiet cul-de-sac, with a heft downpayment from her parents. I'd protested, uncomfortable with taking anything from them, but Mel had insisted, and I'd relented.

But at some point, our dream had crumbled before our eyes. She grew irritable waiting for a teaching position to open up in our small town and began talking about moving to a bigger district. The stress mounted, and before long we were bickering more than loving. Two years of fighting later, and I'd finally come to the sad conclusion that adversity doesn't always bring two people together, sometimes it shines a spotlight on the things that aren't working, magnifying them until you realize that love isn't always enough.

“I’ll get a hotel tonight.” I'd stood, grabbing the packed duffle that I'd tucked behind the recliner near the door.

“Reed…”

“This is for the best, Mel. We both know it.” I'd said, my muscles aching with a bone-deep fatigue I'd never felt before.

I suddenly found myself wondering if the instant attraction, the spark that came to life when Auburn and I were together, was something I'd drummed out of a fantasy. Maybe I only felt that way because my marriage was falling apart, because I was looking for a distraction from all the things on my mind.

But that wasn't how it felt. It felt like the earth had slammed to a halt when our eyes connected in class two days ago, all but erasing the last three years. It felt like my heart galloped at triple speed when she laughed. It felt like the soul-shattering awareness that comes when your soul connects with it's match.