Leaving Amy (Amy #2) (32 page)

“I should’ve never kissed Ashley. I should’ve never—”

“Why?”

He lost his track of thought and looked up. “What?”

“Why shouldn’t you have kissed Ashley?”

“Well, mainly because we’re married.”

“Did you want to kiss Ashley?”

His lips remained closed.

“I repeat: did you want to kiss Ashley? Have you been thinking about it for a while now? Has there ever been a day that if Ashley walked up to you and forced herself on you that you would’ve pushed her aside and told her no?”

“I don’t know what you’re driving at, Amy. I married y
ou
.”

“That’s what I’m driving at, Wesley. Should you’ve even have married me? I know you went to see her before we said our vows. For what that’s worth. I know, from experience in high school, that she’s the only person you’ve ever loved. Did you ever love me?” I wiped a tear that crawled down my cheek. “Or was I the closest thing to her that you could have? On a silver platter if you’d wanted.”

“Don’t.” He stood and walked toward me.

“Don’t what?” I couldn’t stop the parade of tears that seemed to be marching at a fast speed from my tear ducts.

He touched my shoulder. “Don’t do this. I loved you, Amy.”

I stepped back, wiping my face and madly laughing. It was a Joker moment, where insanity overrode any sensibility I had. “Loved? Well, I can rest now knowing you loved me. When did it stop, Wesley? Please tell me before you started screwing Violet. And coming home to live with me during the work week.”

“Violet was an escape for me.”

“I’m sure you were nothing more than a gravy train to her.” The jab felt nice, and then mean.
Why was I being mean? Oh yeah, because he was churning my heart in a blender at the moment.
Having a come-to-Jesus talk about what he really thought about our relationship.

“If you were so in love with me, then how is it that you were going to move in with my doctor?”

My stare was blank. I was seeing him but not really. I knew where he was heading this bus. But it was my bus, dammit, and I was the one driving.
Not him.
I would not be on the hot seat.

“Kind of what you do when your husband runs off, isn’t it?”

“Amy, do you love me?”

Yes, I loved him. What a stupid question.
“Of course. I came back, didn’t I?”

“How long did it take you?”

“What?” I had that stupid look on my face. The one he usually wore when I asked an obvious question.

“I came home and we technically got back together, but it took you weeks to come back to the house and live with me. Hell, we haven’t even technically slept together yet. You’ve got those pajamas buttoned up to your chin.”

What?
I really thought he didn’t even notice, and what was with all this “technically” crap?
Technically, I just found you trying to screw my sister. Why are we splitting hairs about how long it took me to move back in?
Obviously I should’ve never come.

“What is your point?”

“My point is that, although I wanted a second chance with you at the cabin, I think you were just going along with it because you felt obligated.”

“What?! I didn’t feel obligated.”

“Maybe that’s what I was hoping when I asked you.”

“Okay, you’ve confused me. Did you want me for the sake of wanting me or did you just want me to come back to help in the transition of the law firm?”

“I’m not sure.”

I shoved the suitcase over and sat down. My head felt woozy. I put it between my knees.

“I think I wanted you back because I was scared without you. You’d been such a permanent fixture in my life. I didn’t know if I could do it without you.”

Now there’s what I’ve strived my whole life to be—
a fixture
.

“Have you ever loved me?” I asked, my voice muffled because I was speaking from between my knees.

“Of course.”

My head rose up. The rush of blood caught up to the sudden movement. “Were you ever
in
love with me?”

His gaze fell to the ground. “I suppose, on a level we were used to.”

“We?”

“Amy, were you in love with me?”

I didn’t know at this point. So much of my life was out of duty and obligation. When I told Mark about my relationship with Wesley, I kind of felt he wasn’t the one I’d fallen in love with.
Didn
’
t you only have one person you truly loved per lifetime?
Since experiencing some other things, I’d assessed that, although Wesley, at one time, made my knees weak, now he only served as a fixture.
My Lord, we were fixtures.
Then the whole “old shoe” scenario popped in my head.

“I was at one time.” I buried my shameful face into my hands. “I think I was in love with the idea of you. That someone I’d had an enormous crush on all my life had finally married me. I loved the idea of you.”

He seemed crushed by my confession. His body shrugged against the wall of the bedroom.

“I think this actually had to happen.”

“Excuse me?”

He switched from whatever far-off land he was in and looked at me. “I think we both knew our time was over. And we were settling again.”

I got up from the bed and closed my case. It was finally over. All the sting was gone. Facing the truth was exhausting. It was as if all the air I’d had in me fizzed out like a slow leak—an unstoppable leak. The kind that took away all your energy. I needed to carry my bags down to the car before I collapsed.

“I’ll be seeing you.”

I didn’t turn around to look at him. I knew I had a couple more pints of tears in me that would eventually make their way out, too. No sense in babbling with them here. My life, as I knew it with Wesley Whitfield, was over. And although I wasn’t surprised by it, I mourned it all the same.

I stepped on the porch of Tom’s house and straightened my shirt. I had been wearing my fake smile the entire way over there. Jim let me borrow his car to go. It’s not as if he didn’t have a couple of others parked in his garage. He was headed over to his mother’s house for Christmas dinner and told me to take my time. After I’d showered and stuffed Tom’s gifts into a bag, I headed out. I even stuffed the things I got for Wesley in the bag. No sense in letting a cool tie go to waste just because my marriage was finally tanked.
For the last and final time.

“Hey, why didn’t you use your key?” he asked as he opened the door.

“I don’t know. I thought this way seemed more Christmas-like. You know, the porch thing, again?”

The fact of the matter was I didn’t want to slide back into “Tom land” again. This was not a place where I’d come to every time my world came off its axis. He would know nothing of my circumstances. He had Kate, and she had him. I would be a friend to them both and that would be it.

“Well, come in.” He ushered me inside. I tried not to make eye contact. The man could read me like a billboard sign.

“Is Kate here?” I asked, trying to remind myself of the poor widow and all that she hoped to be accomplishing with the New Year approaching. New Year, new man, new life.
Yay for her!

“No, don’t you remember? I had breakfast with her.”

“Sure. I just thought I’d find you two snuggled up somewhere, watching black-and-white Christmas movies. Wearing those fuzzy socks and sipping hot chocolate.”

The thought almost made me cry.
Why couldn
’
t I be doing that?
It was Christmas, for goodness’ sakes. Wasn’t it sacrilegious to get dumped on Jesus’s birthday? The only tradition I’d seemed to acknowledge today was eggnog. And only because Jim poured me a glass while I was slipping Visine in my eyes before coming over here. Other than that, packing up my old life from a husband who I would never see again was the norm.
Fa-la-la-la-la.
Oh, and I pushed Ignore a few times when Ashley tried to call.

“No, I’m sorry to disappoint you. But we can, if you’d like. Just open your gift first.”

I hit him on the shoulder and walked in to the living room with him. Oh, the tree was so beautiful. I’m so glad I didn’t get one for my house. That certainly would’ve been an ugly memory: carrying out bags while the lights twinkled on our tree with all our beautiful ornaments.

“Here.” He handed me a small box from underneath the tree.

I set my things down and took it from him. “I wonder what this could be?”

I tore into it. “No freaking way!” I sat there a moment, frozen at what I saw. I grabbed at the tear that seemed not to know better and was falling down my face.

“Oh my goodness, Amy. I had no idea I’d get this reaction.” He walked away to get me a tissue.

“It’s just so perfect. You know me so well.”

He handed me the tissue and sat back down. “What’s wrong?”

I wiped my face and cursed the water-making part of my brain.
Get it together in there, will ya?

It was a pair of blue minky slipper socks and
It
’
s a Wonderful Life
on DVD, the deluxe version, with a bell and all!
How did this man get me?
Only after knowing him all of nine months, and my husband had no idea after more than half a decade. Two Christmases ago, he got me a coffee maker. I don’t even drink coffee. But he said that since it had a timer, I wouldn’t have to get up and start his pot. This would do it all by itself.
What a Romeo.
And I thought I was in love with him.

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m just nostalgic when it comes to Christmas.”

“No, something’s wrong. What is it?”

He moved closer to me. I wanted so badly to come clean. Tell him I was homeless, carless, and soulless. Isn’t that what you call someone who lives with someone else without really checking in and figuring out why? I must’ve not been feeling for the last couple of years of my life. No wonder I was so quick to move in with Mark. I was just coming around to feeling alive again with him. And yet I hadn’t even taken the time to check whether what we wanted was the same thing.

“Tom, I assure you, nothing is wrong. Now open your gifts from me. They’re nothing big.”

He kept one eye on me as he unwrapped his tie, socks, and gloves from the tissue paper.
What else do you get a guy?
It’s not as though he was into rock climbing and sailing. The man was very uncomplicated. So my speed.
Correction, so Kate
’
s speed.
Poor woman was probably watching the clock to see when it was appropriate to call him again. She confided in me that her life had become so much more colorful just knowing she was going to spend time with Tom. I knew the feeling.

“I love them all. And look—a paisley tie! I’ve never had one of these before.” He held it up, smiling.

“I’m glad you like it.” I looked around for a segue to leave. I couldn’t be here now. With him…pretending to be happy. “I really have to be going.” I stood up from the sofa. I placed all the things he bought me into a Christmas bag. In addition to the movie and slippers, he had got me a beautiful necklace, a bottle of cologne, and a gift card to the pretzel shop.

“Don’t go just yet.”

“Tom, I have Wesley waiting for me. We’re eating dinner in a few hours. Ashley is at home in the kitchen (
perish the thought
), probably making a mess.”
Or love to my ex-husband. Yeah, that
’
s right. Not soon-to-be; ex-husband.
It was finally over. The agony was gone. Like an elephant who’d just stepped off my chest. I was free from the facade of our happy, dysfunctional, sexless life.

“All right, then.”

He stood in front of me, swaying a little bit back and forth. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. I was trying my best to keep him in the category of “Kate’s man.” Finally, he bent down and kissed my cheek. My eyes closed and I absorbed the moment.

“Well then.” I looked up into his brown eyes. “I guess I’ll see you later.”

“Drive carefully.”

I got into Jim’s car and began crying again.
Why was my life so complicated?

The party my coworkers gave me the next week was bittersweet. Sonja cried, Paige gave me a journal to record the next chapter of my life, and Flo knitted me a cozy for my coffee cup. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t drink coffee. I suppose it worked all the same for water bottles.

I had only given my gracious employer a week’s notice. The moment my world had crashed around me and Jim told me he was returning from his ski trip after New Years’, I knew I had to formulate a plan. I didn’t want to be the girl who lived in someone’s spare room the rest of her life, while trying to figure out what next to do. I’d called my aunt who lived in South Carolina and asked whether I could stay with her until I figured out some things. Luckily she was headed south for the next few months and said I could house-sit while she was gone. I needed to leave Portland. Finally find the real Amy. The one who didn’t have to be identified with someone, the one who got lost while trying to be someone she wasn’t.