Please forgive any errors; I'm typing this with a shaking hand and quivering thumb.
Despite my tender years, I've been through more hardship than most guys my age.
I've witnessed atrocities, endured many hardships and much pain. But yet I've only just experienced the greatest torture of all: watching the woman I love, my beautiful young wife, passionately embracing another guy.
I'm standing on a street corner being lashed by cold city rain. My only reason to shelter is to protect my cell while I type.
His handsome, swarthy features keep flashing before my eyes, tormenting me. His face, it was actually nuzzling into the nape of Tan's neck.
A sudden shock of anger winds me. The nape of her neck, that's my place, NOT HIS!
My anger is shoved aside by a jolt of jealousy. His face flashes before me again: golden, angular, and topped by a thick main of shiny black hair. I guess I can't compete with his brand of exotic masculinity. She fell for his charms on her first day. I guess my regular guy ordinary paled in his comparison.
My jealousy suddenly lifts, and in its place drops hurt. At first it's a dull ache, which grows into a physical thumping pain in the pit of my stomach. The hurt is made worse by the fact that she's not answering her cell!
While I walk the streets in the rain, my pain ebbs away and anger returns. I shelter in a shop front and think: why would she turn off her cell? Was she that seduced on her first day that she was compelled to jeopardies everything? I don't have the answers; just a crushing realization that she's not just let me down, but let all of us down. The family we have nurtured through so much adversity.
Anger, hurt, jealousy, these three unwanted feelings are suddenly swamped by a tsunami of sadness that sweeps over me.
I can feel myself falling into my darkness. Only Tan knew how to catch me before I hit the bottom. But she's not here to catch me now.
The image of her embracing him haunts me.
At least nobody knows I'm crying, because I'm walking the streets in the rain.
When the rain increases, I shelter.
I can't even blame The Sinister. Tan only reported one small incident, a conversation about the imps. Tony swiftly declared it innocent. Maybe this is a symptom of her Post Traumatic Disorder; it's making her act out of character. Excuse me while I call her cell, again.
Nothing.
Not even voicemail.
My mind's jumping all over the place. But a moment of clarity lifts me a little: Tan wouldn't do this to me. I'm being stupid. I gotta go back to that office and work this out.
I step back into the rain. But I've barely travelled a few steps when my darkness descends again: I saw what I saw. And to hammer the fact home, the image of their embrace returns to taunt me.
Taking shelter again, I curse the fact that we agreed not to read each other's chapters. We each have secret passwords; perhaps Tan had secrets she never shared with me: longings and lusts she hid from me. Perhaps you readers know her more intimately than I do? Maybe she's confided in you, bared her soul, and told you the truth. And like most fools, I'm the last to know.
My anger returns; why should I go back to that office? The responsibility is on Tan to contact me.
Man up Kade, I tell myself. I've re-read this back and I'm sounding like a whiney loser, wallowing in self-pity. That's not what I am; I'm stronger than that.
