3.0 The Chronicles of Us - Choas & Clarity

Chapter twenty-one

•★ Tex ★•

I take the crate with Christmas decorations to the attic. Ellie was supposed to do this many months ago. She promised, but she never did because she's a fucking slob. Still, I would sell one of my kidneys to clean up her mess once more. Fuck, I would cut off the hand I use for wanking just to hear her call me something as disgusting as stud-muffin again. I swear, she kept a fucking list on her phone just to annoy me.

And I loved it.

The attic is a mess too. I shuffle some boxes to make place for the crate when something catches my eyes. My heart skips a beat. The gift paper has red hearts on it.

I grab the item. There's a card attached to it. Should I read it? It's probably better if I don't. Ellie obviously hid it here before I fucked up.

I'm a nosy fucker, though, so I open the card and read what she wrote me when she still loved me.

To my one and only,

I don't expect anything in return because every day with you has been a gift. I'm grateful for the memories made and even more grateful for the memories we will create.

Happy anniversary!

Yours forever,

Ellie

I swallow hard. She already had a present ready for our anniversary? It's coming up soon. We didn't make it. My heart has as much trouble beating as my lungs have functioning. I take a deep breath and carefully open the wrapping and ... big fucking crack across my chest.

I manage to keep myself from slamming the picture against the wooden support beam. It hurts so bad to see us like this. We were so fucking happy. I remember this day. Of course I do, I remember every day I spent with her. It was a couple of years ago, before we got married. Ellie wanted to take some dirty shots of us. I think she called it boudoir or something. I thought I saw them all, but she kept this one from me. Sure, we are naked, but this picture is anything but dirty. It's beautiful and real.

I sit on our bed with my back against the board while Ellie straddles my lap. Our limbs cover our intimate parts and we look deep into each other's eyes, only a second away from kissing. It was one of those moments where we were lost in one another. The world didn't seem to exist and hours disappeared. Just me and her.

I wipe the tear that rolled down my cheek. Can I keep this? I don't think so. She wouldn't want that. The longer I stare at the picture, the more convinced I am that there is just no fucking way that I risked it all to fuck some skanky, plastic-bagged, dollar store Barbie.

In hindsight, signing the divorce papers was a dumb thing to do. Fuck it, though. A piece of paper with my marital status on it says nothing about what I feel for her. Only my heart does.

A sudden rush of energy revives my depleted state of mind. I should do something. How about hiring a private investigator? Yeah, there must be something that I'm missing. There must be a way to clear my name or at least soften the circumstances. I tried to find out myself, but I came up with nothing. I went back to that apartment. Apparently, it wasn't a moving-in but a moving-out party. The new occupants didn't know shit. There was not a single suggestion of her name to be found on the internet. Why would someone video us, leak it to a shitty celebrity-gossip website, and not try to profit from it? What's the game?

I'll look into a P.I. but first things first, I need to make sure I'm ready to be whoever Ellie will allow me to be. Who better to help me with that than my good old Doc?