(The Virtuous Husband) In the name of Love

Chapter 4

Noel

With my battered car I drove to the streets I had grown on. The streets where the home of my dreams stood, a home where there was me, Cheryl and the future of our unborn children. There was so much I had hoped for us and for a time all my dreams were beginning to come true with Cheryl and I getting married but then it all shattered. Everything did in a moment. I didn't even had the time to steady myself to tell her anything and my marriage tore apart part by part, strand by strand and vow by vow. 

Parking my car in front of the mansion standing in it's all glory under the moonlight. It was where the demise of our marriage began, where we started to lose it all. I hadn't lived here or stepped a foot in this place ever since we got divorced. Now I was going to drown myself in the same pain that I once did. My heart bled with every word of hatred she said for me. The flicker of hope vanishing away and even the warmth of it losing itself. I was growing cold, cold from the inside. There was this bone-chilling cold that was soaking me in. It was drowning me, killing me, hurting me. Every step I took towards the house the old wounds ripped off. Unlocking the front I stepped in and locked myself in the house that haunted me and broke me. Memories of that day bombarded my mind, each more painful than the other. I was burning in the fire agony. I walked towards the bar and took for any alcohol that I could I find. Finding one I unscrewed it and drank from the bottle. The liquor soothed the pain with another burning one.  Everything was over, there wasn't a ray of hope for her and me. She loathed me, detested me and it killed me painfully slowly. I walked up the stairs to the room that we shared. It was just like I had left it, bed not made and wrinkled clothes over the bed. This bed, that was where she saw me. I fell down on the chair and gulped down the alcohol, my only friend.

Closing my eyes I relived that day and night again. I lived the day which broke me and killed me.

We were at a party. Richard's birthday party, the one I didn't want to go to. Cheryl was his best friend so there was no way she would miss it. Wherever she went I followed her, stood beside her even when I hated it because she was mine and I was his. We were two bodies, one soul. We went there even when I despised him. I was civil to him but I hated him everything. He was in love with my wife and who wouldn't be. He hated me too. Why shouldn't he? I stole away his childhood friend and first love from him when we were in teens. I gave her heart when I saw her for the first time when I shifted in her neighbourhood. I turned into her friend and then stole away her heart as she did mine.

Cheryl was so happy in that party that I hated to take her away from it. She danced with him how man times saying that she couldn't say to the birthday boy. With every song she danced with him I burned my throat with alcohol. I saw love and longing in Richard's eyes as the swayed on the dance floor. My blood boiled and it became unbearable for me to see her with him. I knew Cheryl didn't love him. She was mine, there wasn't longing in her eyes for him. I knew our love. She didn't look at him as she looked at me. Her eyes didn't lit up like they did when she saw me.

I  couldn't sit there anymore and bear him being so close with my wife. I stepped on the dance floor and made my way to my wife. She laughed at something Richard said and it ticked me off. I was a possessive bastard. 

"May I cut in?" I was not asking but ordering. Cheryl smiled at me while Richard scowled.

"Why not?"  Cheryl smiled at me and her hands left Richards. She placed them in mine, leaving away Richard stranded. Her eyes sparkled with happiness as we swayed to the music losing ourself in each other. With her, I was in my own personal heaven.

"You have been drinking?" She asked playing with my hairs.

"Which man wouldn't if he has to see his beautiful wife dancing with some other man?"