Challen and Addy

Chapter 12 (Challen): Wake Up

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

On our foyer table, right next to the shallow bowl Addy had for us to put our keys in, there was a five by seven framed picture of the two of us from our wedding. It wasn't a posed one; it was a shot of a moment we didn't realize the photographer was around for because we'd snuck off to a far corner of the room for a moment. For a bit of a breather.

"You holding up OK, sweetheart?" I asked my bride, bringing her close to my chest, her tulle skirt floating around my legs. Just the previous week, she'd been down with a bad cold that had hit her hard, and we'd been having some long days leading up to the wedding, so I knew she was losing steam.

"I'm fine," she answered with a heavy sigh. "But no lie, I'll be glad when we can leave tonight and get to the hotel. I wish I'd never let Mom talk me into a big wedding."

"We can leave any time you need to," I told her. "And we agreed because she wanted her only child to have a fairy tale wedding and she's hard to say no to."

"I would have married you at the courthouse," she said, smiling up at me. "In jeans and tennis shoes."

"And we could have had our reception at the taco truck on the corner."

Addy tipped her head back and laughed.

"I would have married you anywhere," I told her. Leaning down, the tips of our noses almost touching, I looked deep into her eyes and she looked into mine. "I love you, Addy."

That was the moment the photographer had captured, and it turned out to be our favorite picture from the thousands of formal and more informal shots that had been taken that day. It was private, intimate, and you could feel and see the love between us. It was Addy and me, newly married and hopeful that our future would always be full of that pure love, that young love that hadn't been tested.

It was coming, but you couldn't tell from that picture. You couldn't tell that the man looking at his bride with all that love so clear on his face was going to forget this woman was the most important person in the world to him and replace her in importance with himself.

Picking up the photo, I put it in my messenger bag next to my laptop. Opening the door to head to the hospital, I saw Jennifer on our porch, about to knock.

"What the hell? What are you doing here? How do you even know where I live?"

"Like it's hard to find an address nowadays, Challen. Anyway, I was thinking that since it's Saturday, you could use a bike ride with all the stress you're under."

With all the stress I was under?

"Not sure why you're here after I told you we wouldn't be biking or doing anything else other than working together, but I want you to leave. Now."

"You're never at work, and when you are, you completely ignore me unless there's something we need to discuss about one of the projects that we're on together."

"Exactly."

"I'm just trying to save our friendship, Challen. I figured you wouldn't want to talk about it at work, and your house would be the better option. We weren't doing anything wrong. We were friends, Challen. You didn't even kiss me or hold my hand so I'm not sure why you have all this guilt over a simple friendship."

"I'm not discussing anything with you. Already made that clear."

"I didn't think you meant it. I thought you were just upset about your wife, and you'd rethink things if I gave you some space."

"You were wrong. I haven't rethought anything."

"We can keep it work related at the office, but that doesn't mean we can't still enjoying biking and running together."