I STILL LOVE YOU, BUT...

CHAPTER 4

COLIN

I decided to pack while waiting for Amanda to answer my calls and texts. I needed something to do, to take my mind off the thought pounding, a swarm of bees buzzing louder and louder in my head: Colin Clayton, you are making a terrible mistake.

I stood for a second in the hushed dimness of our bedroom, and struggled to breathe. But there were too many memories crowding in, touches and reminders of Amanda everywhere. Her nightie on the bed, her perfume on the dressing table, her hairbrush with strands of her dark hair weaving through it. I gathered my nerve, took two medium-sized trolley bags from the cabinet, and began to fill them, throwing them in haphazardly: socks, boxers, belts, ties, dress shirts, suits, trousers. Casual wear: T-shirts, jumpers, jeans, sleeping pants, a towel. That would have to do for the time being; the bags were full. I zipped them up.

I would come back soon. I just needed a few days to clear my mind. Be with Iris. Really think about what to do next. But ---- leaving Amanda, walking out on her --- didn't it indicate that I had already decided, made my choice? And --- why was I so torn up about it? Why wasn't I happier? Why did I feel so conflicted, so unhappy, so confused?

It was awful to know how much I had hurt Amanda. It was hard even to look at her when I had confessed, to see the pain I had wrought fill her eyes, sweep across her face, see her cry, watch her pride come to the fore, watch her face harden, go rigid under that steely self-control of hers, a restraint I never knew she possessed. It stunned me.

Her blue eyes flashed with a tumult of emotions: hurt, pain, anger and --- disgust. There wasn't even the barest glimmer of love in there, as she stared at me. It hurt more than it should, and if I were honest, it baffled me. Why wasn't she begging me to stay? Why wasn't she throwing herself at me, crying, telling me she loved me?

If she had done what I had expected, prepared myself for, I would have held her, kissed her, told her that I would always love her, that I would always love her, even though I was a bastard, and was leaving her for someone else.

She did nothing of the sort.

She walked out.

She disappeared for eighteen hours.

She re-appeared; stone-cold, hard.

She wanted a divorce, she told me, her voice flat, her features eerily still, her eyes dead, at odds with the vulnerability of her bare feet, her delicate toes curling childishly against the polished tiles.

How wrong I had been; I had imagined Amanda clinging to me, sobbing uncontrollably on the floor, holding onto my legs like a frantic child, desperate to stop me, pleading, Don't go. Don't leave me. Please. I love you.

Instead she had clung to her dignity. Looked at me as if I were a worm. Curled her lips in disgust at the mention of Iris. Hurled the word Divorce at me. Told me to get the fuck out. And slammed the door on my face.

Nothing had turned out the way it was supposed to.

Amanda was supposed to break down. She hadn't.

I was supposed to walk out the door the moment I confessed my infidelity. Instead, she left, while I stayed, frantic with worry for the next eighteen hours, wondering where she was.

I was supposed to be happy. I wasn't.

She was supposed to be miserable. She wasn't.

I was supposed to take a few days off to think. Instead, she wants a divorce.

My future is being re-written, but not in the way I had anticipated. And frankly, it's terrifying the shit out of me.

I was supposed to be the one calling the shots. After all, I was the bastard who had started the ball rolling.