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Chapter One: The Dressing Room

Chapter One: The Dressing Room

On Saturday, I got home from working the two o'clock matinee to find my husband Danny curled up on the sofa in nothing but his underwear, surrounded by cans of beer and a half-empty bottle of gin. His cute little curls were a mess, like he hadn't washed them in days, and there was a nasty burn mark on his chest where he'd spilled boiling water on himself while drunkenly trying to make coffee the morning before.

I wasn't surprised. I wasn't even really upset. This was just the way things were, now. Danny had been an alcoholic when I'd married him the year before, but at that time he'd been in AA, had been recovering, had been working on getting sober. He'd promised me that no matter what, he'd stick to sobriety and keep himself clean and healthy for the sake of our marriage and the family we wanted to start.

Unfortunately, that hadn't lasted more than a few months. The guys in my support group insisted that it wasn't his fault, that alcoholism was a disease and that he was probably doing the best he could, and I believed them.

Unfortunately, the best he could do wasn't good enough for me. I was working seven days a week to try to bring in enough money to keep up with his habits. I didn't sleep well at night, worried all the time that he might make himself so sick he'd get seriously hurt on the road, or worse.

"This isn't gonna work," I muttered, picking up his phone from where it was lying on the floor by his feet. "Something's gotta give, Danny, really. What the hell am I supposed to do?"

I know I shouldn't have, but I looked at his phone. I don't know why I did it, I'm not the prying, jealous kind of woman who monitors her husband's contacts, or anything like that. I guess part of me had just gotten used to the idea that he couldn't do anything for himself, I mean, I did all his laundry, his dishes, cooked all of his food, called him multiple times a day to make sure that he'd done basic things like drink water and turn off the stove. Checking his messages was probably just a part of that kind of bizarre, perversely parental thing that I'd gotten into the habit of.

There was a half-finished text message open on the phone. Apparently, Danny had been writing to someone named "Kayla."

The message read "She'll be at work tonight. You can come over after seven o'clock, okay?"

"Oh," I muttered. "Shit." I took a deep breath, then determinedly examined the rest of the conversation.

Kayla and Danny had apparently been talking for weeks. She'd sent a few photos, some of them with clothes and some of them without. Seems like she worked at the local hardware store, which Danny thought was "sexy." He'd told her that he was a middle school English teacher, which had been true a year ago, when I'd married him, but sure as hell wasn't the case anymore.

One particular message from him that caught my eye went like this:

"My wife's driving me insane. She's on my back all the time, acting like a complete bitch. She won't just let me live my life, and I think I'm starting to hate her. I guess she hates me, too. I don't know, obviously it isn't working out. I need someone to be real with, to be me with. I think you understand me in a way that she never will."

A lot of things went through my head when I read that. I was amazed that he was able to type so grammatically while being shitfaced drunk pretty much all the time. I was pissed off that he called me a bitch and obviously didn't appreciate all the extra work I'd been putting in for him, day after day.

The thing that hit me the hardest, though, was when he said that he thought I hated him. I'd never hated him, not ever, not at all...not until now.

Now, in this quiet moment, I realized that I might hate him just a little bit. I was angry, so angry, but it was a dull, achy sort of anger that burned in my chest and then faded into a miserable disappointment. I didn't want to scream, throw things, or even wake him up.