Losing

Her head shook back and forth saying "no, no, no," by its pendulum swings. Rob wanted to hold her. Addie motioned for him not to.

"Jim, it's Rob and me together, there for each other in the future as you say, but we both owe you. We aren't possible without your allowing it. As you said you could kill Rob ... or me, easily." She was walking a tight rope, understanding the facts on my side without wanting to shame her Rob. "It seems Rob and I are the "all" in the all or nothing scenario, and you get the nothing. What can we do for you? I pledge, and you have the same from Rob too, we will make no trouble. I'll support you in anything you need: organ donations, anything."

There wasn't anything I could say to make her feel better about what she'd done. I didn't want to and by her decree it wasn't my job any longer, "Anything short of returning my love, right? Like you've supported me these past months as I helped you recuperate while you schemed to leave me?" I said it flatly without malice, the truth in the words was quite ugly enough on its own.

She hung her head. "You need to know that's not quite accurate. Today: this hell I created, was a recent decision and nowhere near as well thought out as I believed. I can't believe how poorly I've handled it, nor how I apparently rushed it. It just seemed that once I was certain this had to be the outcome, that letting you live in a world that I knew I was going to destroy was yet another betrayal of you. I never intended, or thought, it would go this poorly. And God help me I understand every objection you have. I'm guilty of almost every one of them as charged. I don't know why they weren't obvious to me. And yes, I know how much that statement hurts you as well. At least I can give you honesty ... now that I've destroyed the life and dreams of the finest man I've ever met."

I saw Rob look at Addie. She answered him quietly in a manner I thought was appropriate.

"Rob, you know," she glanced at me cringing, "how I feel about you. But neither you nor I can be considered as good a person as Jim. He's completely innocent. We are cheaters. We did this to him. He did you a very good deed when he probably should have killed you. Both you and I are selfishly taking what we want and are going on to a happy life together. But our happy life is built on the radioactive wreckage of what we've done to Jim's formerly happy life. We destroyed him to get what we wanted. We didn't set out to hurt him, but we knew what the price was going to be for our being together; and we condemned Jim to pay it for us. It does, however, perversely prove that you and I are cut from the same cloth and that we deserve each other, if not happiness."

Addie's eyes pled with Rob to understand. How about that? He seemed to get it. I had a perverse need to clap back this love fest a little.

"So, you want to do something for me to assuage your guilt? What would I need now? I planned to win, to champion love, but you guys did too, and you won. Amazingly Addie, you were competing against me."

She choked out another sob, I swear dismayed at herself.

"So, love has its victor and champions, as well as its vanquished. I was all in. I was given a great love. I defended it with all I had, well at least with what I was allowed. I just couldn't defend my marriage and love against my own mate, against the woman I loved. I could do it now, but I won't. I still honor that love I was given, as much as I detest the outcome."

Addie's fists shook in an excellent display of despondent bitterness. I could be bitter with myself that my wife found me inadequate and unworthy of her love, but I didn't have to loathe myself or know that I'd destroyed the person I loved. That was going to be a heavy burden for Addie going forward. As nice a guy as Rob supposedly was, I couldn't imagine he was up to the task of healing her from that.

"To be honest Addie, I have no back up, no contingency plan. I have nowhere to go, nothing to do, there's no tomorrow. I was all in, how could I have been anything less than all in and honor you or love? I'd never cheat love, or you. So as far as your offer, what would I need when I have no known future? I was never supposed to lose. It was unthinkable. All or nothing."

I started to turn away to go pack again, suddenly wondering why I was bothering. Maybe I should head out clean. I could easily pick up any toiletries I needed. Whatever supplies I was going to retrieve hadn't helped me save my life or retain the love of my life. How good could they be, what worth did they have? Maybe I should set out completely fresh. I picked up my phone, wallet, and keys off the table. I could return for anything I wanted later.

Addie croaked a question, "How will you live then?"

I turned towards her stuffing my meager possessions in my pockets, "By reminding myself that I actually asked for this."

Addies confusion was epic. "What? How did you ask for this? I told you: you did nothing wrong!" Addie was perplexed and angry that I felt this debacle was somehow my fault. She wanted to defend me. 'A little too late for that,' I thought.

I tried to give a smile as I explained. "No. No, I love you. I didn't want to lose you. But that doesn't change the matter's been decided against me. It's sobering knowing it was decided before I even had a chance to fight. I spent two years giving one last-ditch supreme effort, only to find it was preempted, hell, probably the very same two years ago."

I looked upwards shaking my head. I had to hold it together just a little longer. I thought, 'Well, You have taken everything from me. Can You let me leave with a little dignity? Can You scrape the barrel for that? If not, I understand; it's outside the scope of our arrangement. But it hardly seems an unreasonable request considering the circumstance.' After my prayer I cleared my thoughts in order to talk to Addie again.

"Addie this is what, how, and why. You see Addie even for the months I knew about Rob before the accident I wanted more. I wanted you to love me, and for you to choose me, and for us to have what we once had. And I was willing to swallow my pride to have it: I was willing to look past your affair. But then the accident, and you were still in a coma, you were in a condition of not living and not having died. You had nothing in that state, and I couldn't have what I craved so ferociously either: you. I was so desperate that having already tried everything I knew on your behalf; I started trying things I didn't know. It came to me as a bolt out of the blue. In my desperation I asked God if I could make a deal with Him. I wanted more, I wanted you, but even if the cost was my losing you, and your loving Rob, I would pay that price if ... if He would just let you live again!"

I kept the tears from coming as they welled in my eyes. "So, ah ... good deal for you guys, huh?" I had to pause to keep my composure, "How can I complain, the Almighty gave me what I asked for. Right?"

I coughed a little. "So, Rob, ah, make the most of it. Because just as I always thought, Addie really is a gift from God."

Rob just stood there, mouth agape. Addie started to sob and motioned to pull herself into his chest, then thought of me and pushed herself away from him. Addie knew me, I wasn't one for hyperbole, I fervently believed what I'd told them. She swallowed most of her tears and shakily forced herself to stand. As she stood, Addie stepped away from Rob understanding that my last memory of her should not be of her glued to another man. She bowed her head in a reverent salute to me. I nodded slightly and turned to leave. I didn't glance back. My time was over. I'd lost.

* * * * * *

So, call me a fag cuck boy or whatever you want. I didn't burn the bitch and I didn't kill the interloper. Maybe they'll punish themselves, I have no desire to. Simply because I'd been released from my charge of protecting my wife didn't mean I no longer wanted to protect her. Hell, I still loved her. This is only a happy ending for them, and not even completely happy for them. Knowing their misery, Addies guilt, and our friends and family likely reaction, I can imagine what they'll contend with going forward.

Did I want them, want Addie, to suffer? Remember I wanted her alive. I know the heart doesn't need to be reasonable but the inconsistency of being willing to lose her if she could only live, won't ever fit with wanting her to live with constant guilt or remorse. No, that's not love. I want Addie to be happy. I want it enough to pay for her happy life with my own. I do regret that my love for her will surely wane to some degree. It must for me to survive without her. Still, I've passed some important test. Like a parent losing their child to adulthood, you have to let those you love pursue their own happiness. You have to love them enough to let them break your heart.

Still, if you want to laugh at me for losing, and for again not seeking revenge, so be it. Though I need to tell you of the few consolations I have. One turned out to be the useless yet total offering of love and support I made to my wife and the resulting situation. Doesn't sound like much of a consolation, does it? It is.

Once you've lost what's most important, the most maddening idea is that there was or might have been something else you could have tried. All those "could haves" become "should haves" in the face of lost love. That I gave everything makes me look foolish and weak, even ridiculous to some. But I did give everything: it just wasn't enough. Or perhaps it was enough, except Addie just didn't want it from me.

In the end there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. There was no mitigating my failure. I was over and out, just the same as if I'd been an abusive and harmful husband Addie needed to be rescued from, there was never going to be a next chapter, a reconciliation, or a way back. But that's the point: I lost totally. Nothing I tried worked. The fight was over before I knew I was in it. Everyone, including Addie, thinks that's the most unjust thing they've ever born witness to. My fight was a total failure, total futility.

Think about that. If I'm condemned to be alone the rest of my days then thank God, I have no "what ifs" to keep me up at night. I truly did everything I could. As Addie said: it wasn't fair, and it wasn't right. But that's how it was. I was vanquished. I won't get over it, so I just have to deal. I just have to get used to it.

But I don't have to ever look back or be haunted by what else I could have tried ... or how things might have been.

So that night I turned and put my hands in my pockets and walked away. I'd gotten my wife back into the land of the living, and to do it I lost everything I loved. Now I had to pay, I honor my agreements. It was time to find some positive way to live out the rest of my days: to discover some motivation to get up each morning, while still praying for release from my life sentence every night.

So, if I had to do it all over again? Wanting Addie to choose me, I set upon a doomed course. The only change I could have made would be killing Rob while never letting Addie know I knew anything of him or her affair. I don't believe that would have made her love him less. Though I don't think her love for me would have suffered so greatly. However, I think it would have made her long for him the rest of her days. I guess maybe she longs for me now. Who cares? She's still with him and I'm alone. Would I take her back if she suddenly came to her senses? That's a good one. I meant what I said when I left: she didn't show me any consideration approaching love in her final hour with me, she only felt guilty about me. It's all too clear to me that I still loved her. No, I wouldn't take her back. I respect love too much to make that mistake. Love makes demands of us at times, but it should never make us a patsy, that's not real love. No, Addie had her chance; she made her choice.

But what about going back in time, meeting her and falling in love? Would I do that again? Here's where you'll laugh in my face. For some number of wonderful years Addie did love me, and as you've seen I loved her completely. Would I want to go back and try to love her in measured tones, treat love as a rental? No. So would I love her completely? Yeah, I'd have to. And I'd try all over again to make her feel what I felt.

You see, that's the message of this tale, that's why I told it. Even with my outcome, love is a value proposition, not a cost benefit analysis. The value far exceeds any possible cost. You have to pick a worthy partner. Despite what the end of my romance says to you, for years Addie was the best possible partner. I wrongly thought unto death and beyond. Then again, I've admitted I don't understand love like I thought I did. But there's little I wouldn't do, including snuffing out poor Rob's life even if it cost my own, for a shot at true love. Death is a bargain if it's spent in the cause of love. After all I burned my own life down trying to defend what I could see no longer existed. An ironic twist on "blinded by love" if there ever was one.

You see, the saddest possibility for love isn't losing it. It's never finding it.

So, dear reader, I hope you can now understand my earnest wish for you. Even knowing this possible outcome, I still hope for you the very best I believe life can offer, even if your fate is the same. I truly wish and hope ... that you find love.