Adelaide Reid must choose between living in the past and moving on when she returns to her hometown and meets a charming restaurateur.
It's been seven months since Adelaide Reid's husband of five years, Alex Orwell, walked out and left her. She retu...
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Three days had lapsed since my return. Jada, Liam, and their families stayed over at Uncle Jim's since then, to help with wedding preparations. Uncle Jim's oldest daughter, Petty Reid, was getting married on Sunday, which was only four days away. I planned on attending the wedding, though honestly, I hadn't the slightest clue how I'd get by with that. It was an event I dreaded!
The past three days were challenging. Though my parents were my only company, I felt uncomfortable staring off into space, as I used to do in my old apartment, and would often correct my 'far off' expression when either came into proximity. It had been seven months since Alex walked out. Not one clue did I have that he was going to leave me. He just came out and said it one day.
As a university student, I was afforded the opportunity to see a counselor if one was needed, and the first eight sessions were free. After last semester when I'd failed my exams, I was referred to see someone at the university, Miss. Angela Thompson. She told me that I was suffering from Spousal Abandonment Syndrome, of which the healing time was two years. She gave me the usual pep talk, which never seemed to do anything. After that, I attended two more sessions, and was told to write my feelings down whenever thoughts occurred—but so far I'd only written one single page. Honestly, I didn't have any hope that seeing someone and talking about my troubles was going to help me. It wasn't going to return my husband or promise a future bereft of the same fate. All it would do was change my perception of him leaving me, and to me, that was nothing but manipulation of the brain. Maybe a psychologist is nothing but a huge manipulator, and this thought left me feeling hopeless.
Ma had witnessed my tears a few days ago, and perhaps she might have told Pa. Anyway, it was expected I'd be going through a hurtful time, and I reckoned they knew that too. Still, I disliked having them worry, so I pretended I was improving each day. I needed to appear like I was healing, or in other words, getting over my husband and learning to be happy—so as to ease their worried souls, which haunted me further. Still, sometimes I was certain they saw through my facade.
Anyway, I continued the pretense, feeling like a clown most times, with a silent longing to retire to the privacy of my room, where, once retired, I'd put myself through the usual torture—searching unsuccessfully for Alex online, or pining away for him while looking at photographs of us as I reminisced over the past, before finally curling up with both knees to my chest and crying myself to sleep.
