Crossing Lines

TWO | Crossing Paths

"I just put RJ and Pete to bed they should be out for the night," Raymond told his wife while jogging down the steps looking like he was in a hurry.

Lauren hated that she couldn't do the simple things like tucking her sons into bed at night all because she confined to a wheelchair. This wheelchair was ruining her life. The things she once took for granted were now a hassle for her to do. "Thank you." Even though Lauren felt like less of a woman and a mother now that she was considered a cripple she still thanked Ray for doing all the things that she couldn't.

"I guess I'll head off to bed myself. You know with me having Physical Therapy and all I need to rest up if I expect to make a breakthrough"

"Rosalie changed your bed sheets before she left for the night right?" Ray asked not sounding the least bit interested in learning about whatever progress Lauren may or may not have been making.

How quick he went from using the words we and our's to using the word's like mine and yours still surprised Lauren. Yes, they slept in separate rooms now because Lauren couldn't get up and down the stairs on her own so it made sense for her to take the spare room down stairs. But that room upstairs was still just as much hers as it was his.

The full-size Kingston mahogany gold wobbly metal framed bed and old rinky dink dresser had nothing on their plush Monte Carlo II silver pearl bedroom set they had in the master bedroom upstairs. However it wasn't the downgrade that bothered Lauren, it was the space it that it put between herself and her family. Ray doesn't even offer to sleep downstairs with her anymore instead he goes up and sleeps in the bed that they once shared with their boys right across the hall and Lauren is left out feeling like a live-in wheelchair ridden nanny.

"Are you going out again?" What kind of question was that? Of course Raymond was going out again. He had his own little routine going. He comes home straight from work makes sure they eat dinner every night as a family and not even thirty minutes after the kids are asleep he is showered and dressed leaving the house smelling of his best cologne. This was his routine every night but Sunday night. Sundays reminded family day and Lauren was glad that at least something in their lives hadn't changed.

"Yeah I'll be back a little late."

"You always come back late." She spoke low but Ray could hear the attitude in her voice loud and clear.

"Not tonight Lauren. I am not up for your shit!"

Not up for her shit? Lauren couldn't believe he would say that to her. If anybody was putting up with anybody's shit it was Lauren putting up with his. She has done nothing but be a good wife to him. And hasn't pulled the 'I am in this chair because of you' card not once. Yes! Ray was driving the car after a night of having a little too much to drink and crashed walking away from the accident unharmed but leaving his wife with a back injury that caused her to lose the ability to walk. Ray hadn't suffered any repercussions for his actions that night. Why? Because there was nothing his daddy's money couldn't buy.

"The least you could do is tell me where you're going." Where he was going didn't matter. The real question was with whom he'd be going with. Lauren has seen the lip stick on the collar of his button down shirts his clothes almost always had the lingering scent of another woman's perfume on them. Her latest blues clue was when she found his second phone separate from their joint plan. She has seen text from various women. One in particular had Lauren breathing fire. She was under his contacts as my butterfly he called her his butterfly because on top of her pleasure place was a tattoo of a little blue butterfly. Lauren knew that because she has seen the pictures but she didn't have a face to go with the name. In each and every picture the whore had enough sense to cropped out her face, At least now Lauren could imagine that the woman's face didn't match her banging body.