2022 WATTYS SHORTLISTED || After being forced into a marriage by her devoutly religious parents, Aspen's husband is diagnosed with a life-limiting illness, and she must find her purpose as well as fight feelings for her husband's nurse. || Aspen Wat...
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It's been three days since Joel died. I haven't contacted her much, and I keep staring at her name in the contact list. There's a fine line between giving her the time she clearly needs and just being an arsehole, and I know I'm coasting that line right now. We've been exchanging a small number of texts, so I know she's safe. It's difficult; I'm the home wrecker, the other man, the bit on the side. But she also needs me. I know she does.
I'm also working, and I know she needs to deal with this. They may not have been in love and all of that, but they still loved each other in some capacity, and they were still married. They conceived Gabriel, whether or not they were in love, and Aspen needs to deal with this.
I still feel guilty as hell. She's been relying on me for support. But I also know she gets it. It's been this weird situation ever since we met, and there's no hard and fast rule for it. It's not like I can Google dating rules for this.
Not that I've followed any of those, anyway. Not that Aspen would even care; she deserves more than some crappy roses and chocolates. She deserves the world; more than the hand she's been given, more than the controlling parents she has, more than a loveless marriage, and she definitely deserves more than her husband dying. It's a sorry situation for everyone involved.
Though the moral issue of both Aspen and Joel cheating – him physically, and her emotionally – is a bad thing, it's so sad that they just agreed to a divorce to set each other free and he just... died. It's sad for him, it's sad for Summer and it's sad for Aspen.
It's also sad because he should've had ten years on average.
I stare at the paperwork in front of me. Stuff to send the social workers and the government or something. I need to fill out some paperwork for the funeral home. They want the doctor and me as his nurse to sign it.
The fact he died while they were still married hasn't gone unnoticed by her already: she gets most of the assets – if there are any – and his mum and Summer get nothing unless Aspen decides to give them anything. Knowing her, she won't even be angry with him and just give them stuff. Despite being lied to and made to feel like the one at fault, she hasn't got a revenge-fuelled bone in her body.
I also need to stay out of it: the situation is nothing to do with me, and I have a vested interest. Anything I do or say right now is bordering on pushy. I suppose I have always been a little pushy, though. Once I saw her, I fell in love and never stopped. I guess me pushing those lines on her, trying to get her to see her for who she is, telling her she deserves better... was I too pushy then? Should I have said less? Done less?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, though, I guess. I knew that when Georgie died. There were so many things I wanted to do and say to my sister; so many things Mum and Dad never experienced with her. I didn't get to say a bunch of things I had planned for the night she died, but I only wanted to say those things if I knew when she was going to die. In hindsight, is it better to have that time and knowledge or was what we had better because it was more natural?
