8 Weeks

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter 13 - Cal

This day sucked.

After screwing up my first date with Shelly,I'd gone home and had a few beers with Scott, driving him crazy by whining about how I needed to win Shelly back. Then, this morning,I'm faced with the fact that my friends and I are all getting together to pack up my house, so that Shelly and I can separate our belongings and sell the house we'd loved so much.

I swear, she and I must have looked at twenty-five houses before we'd agreed on the little fixer-upper five miles from where we'd grown up. The fact that we were really going through with selling it broke my heart.

I was worried that without tangible proof of our marriage together, it would be easier for Shelly to walk away.

I hoped I was wrong.

It was hard to hold on to that hope, though,when the same four people who had helped us move into this house were helping us move out.

"TJ, I swear to God, if you don't give me back that packing tape this instant, I'm going to kick you right in your flat ass!" I heard Sasha yell from the other room.

"Red, you know my ass is perfect," TJ yelled back. "That's why you haven't been able to take your eyes off of it for the past six years."

"You wish, you egomaniac. The only way I'd stare at your ass, is if you had a picture of Henry Cavill stapled to it."

I chuckled at the familiar banter of two of my closest friends. I'd missed this over the past few weeks. And even though we were all together under the worst possible circumstance, I was happy that we were all together again.

I tried to pack quickly, without paying too much attention to what I was doing. I was afraid if I didn't, I'd break down and embarrass myself, and I'd already done enough of that.

I walked into the kitchen and paused when I saw Scott and Gaby standing by the sink, his hand on her arm, and their heads bent together in deep discussion.

I assumed they were just having a conversation, but when I said, "What's up?" and they jumped apart guiltily and looked up at me with surprise, I wondered what was going on.

"Nothing," they said simultaneously.

I tilted my head and looked at them,searching their faces for a clue as to what they could possibly have to look guilty about. Figuring they were talking about Shelly and me, I shrugged and said, "Okay." Then I walked to the fridge to grab a water and get back to work.

When I walked past the living room, I sawShelly sitting on the floor going through our CDs. She was holding a Brad Paisley CD in one hand, and wiping a tear off of her face with the other. It was the CD that featured out wedding song.

My chest tight, I walked into the room and crouched down onto the floor next to her.

"Remember the first time we heard that CD?" I asked softly.

Shelly looked up at me, her eyes big and sad.She nodded, but I answered anyway, caught up in the past.

"I snuck in to your house after the Sadie Hawkins dance, and you picked it out of your dad's collection. We danced to the entire thing, even the songs that were impossible to dance to." I chuckled as I remembered that night. "We laughed so loud, your dad came down and caught us. I thought he was going to kick me out, but he didn't, he just told me that if I got fresh,he'd grab his rifle."

I looked into Shelly's eyes, and we both smiled at the memory.

"When they asked what song I wanted to dance to at our wedding, there was no doubt in my mind what song to pick," Shelly added softly, her voice rough with tears.

I squatted there next to her for a moment longer, visions of that night dancing through my head.

We looked at each other, neither of us speaking, and I knew we were both reflecting on what we were about to lose.

As much as I wanted to deny even the remote possibility that my relationship with Shelly would end, I knew that we couldn't go on the way that we were now.

I yearned for the couple that we used to be.

When the pain became too much to bear, I stood and said, "Well, I'd better get back to it." Then I turned and went back to finish packing up the bathroom with a heavy heart.

As I listened to the sounds of our friends whispering in the other room, I packed and labeled boxes for Shelly and myself.

My stomach burned as I divided all of our stuff, most of which we had bought together. It wasn't hard to figure out who got what; I packed most of it for Shelly. All I needed were the bare essentials. Plus, I was holding out hope that in eight weeks, we'd be moving back in together and moving forward with the rest of our life.

My mind kept returning to the night before,and I knew I had to come up with a date that didn't have the potential to backfire like last night's date had. Convincing Shelly that I loved her implicitly, that she could trust me, and that we belonged together, was my only focus at this point.

There was no future for me without Shelly in it. I just needed to convince her of the same.