How's It Gonna Be? Pt. 02

Callie, seeing his smile, smiled back at him.

"I have a good life now Callie, I am a fit and attractive, reasonably successful man with a full head of hair and all of my own teeth living in East Texas. I get laid when I want to!" He chuckled. "I have good, loyal friends, a great relationship with my daughter and no regrets whatsoever. I don't miss Dallas, I used to miss the marriage I thought we had, the wife I thought I had but then I realized they were a lie. I realized I wasn't the husband you thought you had either. So, no, I have no desire to waste time crying over what might have been."

"That was no lie, Chris. We loved each other. We had a strong marriage which makes what you did all the more tragic."

The smile on Chris's face disappeared instantly. "What I did, Callie?"

"You just left, Chris. We should have talked more. We could have worked something out if you had stayed and just listened to reason."

"After all this time you still think I am the one to blame for this?" Chris stood to leave "I think we've said everything that needs saying, Callie."

"CHRIS, NO! Please just listen to me! I love you and I want to...

Chris waved his hand dismissively. "Callie, you don't love me. At least not the way you think you do. You don't know me now, I am a different man. You saw to that. No, maybe your life isn't going as well as you hoped but I am not the answer; we are not the answer. Besides I don't love you anymore either. I love the girl I married, I'll always love that memory, but we drifted apart and grew to be different people with different goals and dreams. Sometimes marriages thrive on that and sometimes they merely survive it. Ours didn't."

"What did I do that was so bad, Chris...please?!"

"Callie if you haven't figured it out by now then we really are done. You abused me, my trust and rendered me powerless to the direction of my own marriage without my knowledge or consent. You took my half of that power and gave it to Dan along with the promise of your pussy. I was far from a perfect husband and I'm certain I could have handled your betrayal better than I did but I did what I thought was best for me. I didn't punish you; I took what I could quickly get and left you to your dreams."

Callie was quietly crying now.

"Move on...permanently, Callie. If you don't file than I will. Maybe I should have done that 8 years ago. I dunno...I didn't, you didn't and maybe it doesn't matter. I'm sorry but I am better off without you and I always will be."

Chris leaned over and gently kissed her cheek. "I'm sorry we let things get as bad as they did Callie. I loved you once and I feel bad I let you down; that we let each other down but you never gave me or us the chance to fix that and THAT I won't and can't forget."

He looked at her kindly one last time and then left.

He left feeling lighter than when he entered.

He wasn't happy about Callie's pain just relieved at the absence of his own.