Challen and Addy

Prologue (Addy): No Identification

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

In marriage, you have to learn when to pick your battles.

There are some things you learn to ignore.

There are some things you ignore for a while, and then you finally address them.

And then there are some hills you're willing to die on.

Apparently, I was on one of those hills right now and losing.

"You have no right to say who I can or can't be friends with," my husband was telling me. "If she was a man, we wouldn't even be having this discussion."

"We would," I protested, "Because you're spending free time with her that you used to spend with me, Challen. It would be the same thing if you were spending all your free time with a man."

"I doubt you'd have a problem with me hanging out with a man. Not sure what you think is going on, Addy, but she and I are friends. That's it. We became friends during our last project and we each got one another through the long hours. We found out we have a lot of hobbies in common -- ones that you and I don't share, so now that the deadline pressures are off, we're just having some fun."

I used to be the one who got him through things. I used to be the one he wanted to spend all his time with.

"Why don't you want to do things with me anymore? We used to do so many things together."

"We still do things. Have dinner. Movies. But I want to get out, see things, do things. I don't want to just sit around all the time."

"Then let me go, too. If this is so innocent, invite me to go along and we can all do these hobbies of yours together."

He sighed. "You aren't exactly at our level as far as skills and abilities. You'd slow us down and hold us back. We hike, ride mountain bikes, run -- and you don't do any of that. The last time you and I went mountain bike riding, I had to stop every mile for you and you bitched and moaned the whole time."

I looked at him, this man I'd been married to for five years and felt like I was looking at a stranger. Maybe I was a little overweight. Maybe I led a more sedentary life than he did now, maybe I didn't work out very often. Well, at all. I knew I could do better. But shouldn't he still want to spend time with me instead of leaving me behind?

"Do you even love me anymore?" I asked Challen. "Are you falling in love with her?"

He shook his head in disgust. "You're my wife, for God's sake. Jennifer's a friend. I'm not even going to dignify that question with an answer."

"You're avoiding an answer," I pointed out to him.

He pressed a kiss to my forehead. "Because you already know the answer. I'm going to go meet her. She and I are going mountain bike riding. You and I can talk more this afternoon when I get back."

"And after mountain bike riding? Are you going to have lunch with her?"

Challen shrugged, irritated. "Probably. And again, you wouldn't be asking all these questions if it was a man."

"But it's not a man. It's a woman, and this is how cracks start to form in a marriage. You start spending your time and energy on someone who isn't your wife, and things go downhill from there."

"Addy, I need to go. I don't want to keep Jennifer waiting."

"Don't go," I said, grabbing his hand. "Please. I feel like you're starting a relationship with her and you're leaving our marriage and you just won't admit it to me yet. You won't leave her waiting, but you have no problem leaving me behind, waiting for you to get home."

"Babe, stop. Please. I just hit a major deadline two weeks ago, I was under a huge amount of pressure and now I'm just trying to de-stress, relax."

"Relax with me. At home." Not only was I begging, I could feel tears forming from sheer frustration. I was losing my husband, and I knew it.

"We'll have dinner out tonight, OK?"

Then, after throwing that bone at me, Challen walked out, and I felt like my whole life had just walked out the door and left me, and our marriage, behind.

To keep from crying after he drove away, I stormed out to the garage, pulled on my bike helmet, dragged my (extremely dusty) mountain bike from the side of the garage and took off. Unfortunately, thanks to a driver who didn't see me and clipped me from behind, my husband and I never made it to dinner.

I had no identification on me. I was out of it for two days, and on the third, when I woke up, I was still too out of it to give them my husband's name. 

But it didn't matter because my husband hadn't been looking for me anyway.