Without You

Four

     I sat on the couch of the grand living room with a tissue in my hand. "How could he do this to me, Sarah?" I wiped my eyes, "He said he loved me, that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. I trusted him! I have been mourning a man I thought to be dead all day these years. Every time I looked at Ian these past four years, four years!, I thought of him. I thought of his hugs, his kisses, his I love you's and they were probably all fake! I-I-" I broke down. All my emotions seemed to crash into me.
       I leaned on the couch as I heard Sarah coming towards me. I opened my eyes to see a mug. I took a sip and sighed, her tea always seemed to calm me. "It's okay, just let it all out, you've been holding it in ever since you got the news. This was bound to happen." I slumped in the couch and furrowed my eyebrows. What was bound to happen? Me finding out my husband was an asshole who couldn't face me, who didn't have the guts to meet his son? She began to rub my arm. "I know, I know." I was too weakened to even thinking about yelling at her. How could she possibly know what I was going through?
     She had no trouble paying her way through medical school, where she met her husband of six years who was a professor on campus. They both had the "perfect family". They had a gorgeous home with  tow kids and a dog.
       I shook my head. "You don't."
       She let out a sigh, "You're right, I absolutely do not. But, I could do my best to empathize and help you get through this." I nodded and hugged her. She was the best, even when I was a complete jerk to her.
       The garage door opened and closed and I wiped my eyes quickly as I heard the padding of feet. "Mommy!" Ian's grinning face came into view with a gift bag in his hand. "I got this for you." He handed me the bag and looked at me excitingly.
        I opened the bag and saw my favorite ice cream and a piece of cake. I kissed I. His forehead, "Thank you, baby, I love it. I'm going to put it in the freezer before it melts okay?" He nodded. I mouthed a thank you to Holland, Sarah's husband, who was watching me with careful eyes.

                                                                                  ***

        As I laid in the guest room's bed that night, I had decided that I would revisit my in-laws to ask about Evan. I had to know, I had gone four years thinking that he was dead. Now that I knew the truth, I wouldn't and simply couldn't sit on my ass and just wonder what had happened all those years ago to make him want to fake his death. I ran a hand through my hair and sighed, that would mean calling my mother and admitting that she was right. I soon fell asleep, trying to repeat the last decade, to spot any sign of Evan's fake love and interest. 

     The next morning, I was hauling a sleepy Ian into our apartment. He had stayed up late watching "scary" movies with Andy and Amanda. The three of them had thought that their consistent giggling and laughing had gone noticed by us when in fact the next morning we sat in the kitchen laughing about the little munchkins.   

       After putting Ian into his own bed, I called my mother. She was  at my sister's a couple of hours away watching my nieces until her and her husband came back from their anniversary cruise. "Hey dear, I just put Teagan and Rachel down for a nap. What do you want to talk about?" I began to tell her of what happened during the last few weeks after she left. "I told you dear, even back then I knew something was fishy." She hummed to herself. "And of course I would watch Ian, he is such a doll. I'll call you tomorrow when I leave your sisters. Love you dear." She hung up and I sighed and stood from my bed and reached for a large box from under my bed.
      The box was black with a sticky note with 'E+M' on the top lid. I took a deep breath before removing the lid, there sat down probably dozens of photos of Evan and I along with some love letter that he had written me while he was trying to 'woo' me. The first paper was a short note that he had one of his friends to drop on my desk:

Hey Mya,

Disclaimer:I've never written one of these, so if it sucks, I am sorry.

Mya you are one of the- sorry the most beautiful women I've ever met. I mean I haven't talked to you much but I would I can change that if you give me the chance. I ask for you to give me a chance, I'm sure we'd be perfect together.

With hope,
       A love sick man by the name of Evan

        I laughed, he told me after we had officially gotten together that he'd looked up what to write in a love letter. The next paper I touched was a photo of both of us. We were both at the beach. I had my brown hair in a bun of sorts and wore a white bikini since Evan often told me that he loved me in white (it was his favorite color). He wore a pair of red swim trunks which was my favorite color. I was quite deep out and with my eyes closed as I relaxed. Evan had somehow sneaked up on me and picked me, making me scream and laugh at the same time. It was one of my favorite photos of us. I had a large grin on my face as I looked down at my newly wedded husband and Evan looked up at my with a sly smirk.
      I looked through the whole box, the last one was Evan's favorite and my least. We were having an argument about our wedding. He wanted us to have it in Miami with his family. As cold as it sounded, I didn't want 99% of his family at our wedding. Almost all of them were assholes to put it simply. They all felt as if our relationship should be 'terminated immediately' and I didn't want people who honestly didn't want to be there to be there. He disagreed, he thought the people that wanted our relationship terminated were just testing if I was in it for the long run. I laughed, those people had pulled me to the side to tell that I wasn't right for their nephew, cousin, etc.

      I had closed my eyes and tried to not slap my fiancée of four months. I opened my eyes the same moment that he decided to take a photo of me. I ended up making a weird face that displayed shock, anger, upset and confusion. Now, years later, I laughed softly before setting all the pictures back in the box. I grabbed the lid and slid it back under my bed. "What have you done to me?"