Man in the Mirror Ch. 03

She looked exasperated. "I haven't got a lawyer yet, Arty. Okay? When I get one, I'll give them to him. Now please calm down. You'll wake the kids. Come on. Sit down. Take a load off. You look stressed." She said, patting the bed next to her.

I was fighting to keep myself from choking her. I looked up at the ceiling and mentally counted to five. "What the fuck do you mean you don't have a lawyer yet?"

She looked at me with surprise. No doubt my demeanor was alarming. "I haven't found one yet." She said, eyeing me with a wary look. "I wasn't expecting you to simply drop the papers on me. I thought we would at least talk about it before we did anything."

"I'm pretty sure we did all the talking that was needed when you called me a fat, boring loser who was bad in bed."

"Arty..." she said in a whiny voice. I could feel the "why do you keep bringing this up" conversation coming. I was honestly a little tired of talking about it also. It only led to a continuous loop of name calling and finger pointing. I wanted to stay on track, so I steered us back on course.

"So, when do you plan on getting one? Have you even been looking?"

Instead of answering the questions, she went to her go to move of turning everything around on me. "Why are you suddenly in such a hurry? It didn't seem to matter to you before." she said with her suspicious eyes narrowed at me.

"Why am I in such a hurry? Are you kidding me? For fuck's sake, WHY AREN'T YOU? You're the one who wanted this divorce. You're the one who was so disgusted by your fat, boring husband that you went out looking for other men. I'm giving you what you want, and now you're purposely making this difficult for me. Why?"

To her credit, she lost the haughty attitude. Her face softened. "I'm not trying to make this difficult for you." Her eyes looked genuine. She could have been telling the truth. Even after all we'd been through in this separation, she never intentionally tried to make things difficult for me. In fact, she went out of her way to ease her conscience by trying to make things as easy as possible (considering the circumstances).

But she'd lied to me before, and had plenty of success doing it. My faith in her honesty wasn't worth much.

"Then sign the papers. They're about as fair as I could have made them without ending up on welfare."

She hesitated before saying, "I just think that we should talk about things before I sign..."

"No, Paige. There's nothing to talk about!" I barked as I lost the last bit of my patience. Her mouth snapped shut. I realized that yelling at her wouldn't get me what I wanted, so I took another breath to settle down. "Look..." I said in a calmer voice. "I'm not trying to screw you over. Okay? All I'm doing now is trying to become a better person and move on. But I can't do that with the weight of our marriage tied around my neck. It's too...heavy."

I didn't mean to be that honest with her. The words just came out, like they wanted to. I'd been holding everything for so long that all those poisonous feelings became normal for me. But they were deteriorating me from the inside out.

When I looked into her eyes, I saw them watering. "I'm sorry, Arty. I...I've been really terrible to you." she acknowledged. I didn't jump in to defend her, or try to soften her words any. I just stood there and listened. When she realized that I wasn't saying anything, she asked, "Can you ever forgive me?"

That was a good question. Could I? Would I ever be able to move past that day? Everything in my life seemed to caught in that day's orbit. The gravitational pull was pretty strong.

However, I found that I didn't need to forgive her. I didn't need to because I already had. Over time, the pain that I felt that day slowly dissipated. Now, they were nothing more than a few paragraphs in the pages of my history.

"I do forgive you Paige."

She smiled brightly. "Do you really?"

"Yes. I do. Now, I just wanna move forward."

A look of relief came across her face. "That's all I've ever wanted from you. I feel better knowing you forgive me."

I felt like we were heading in a good direction, so I said, "Good. Now you can sign the papers with a light heart."

Her face fell with disappointment. Then, anger flashed as her eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute. Are you trying to play me? You're standing there, saying what you think I wanna hear to get me to do what you want."

I was confused and flabbergasted. "What?"

She got up from the bed and approached me until she was so close I could smell the eucalyptus scent from her lotion. "Who is she?" she asked accusingly as she glared at me.

"Who is what?" I asked, still confused. I took a step back to create distance, but she closed the space again.

"The bitch that you've been hanging around with. Colleen. Who is she?"

A few things ran through my mind simultaneously. First, the question. How does she know about Colleen? Next, the realization. She's jealous. Finally, the indignation. How dare she feel the right to question me.

All I could do was laugh, which only made her angrier.

"Is this funny to you?" She asked angrily.

"Um, yeah. It is. The fact that you don't feel like a hypocrite asking me about another woman is pretty damn hilarious."

She didn't share the humor. "Who is she?" she repeated, completely ignoring what I pointed out to her.

I didn't have to answer her, but I did anyway. "She's a woman that I met at the gym."

The next words out of her mouth were so fucking ironic that I almost lost my shit completely. With a judgmental sneer, she said, "You met her at the gym? Of course you did."

Those were the words that I said when we talked about her and Derrick.

"How do you even know about her?" I asked, redirecting the attention onto her. Her eyes shifted from side to side, like she'd been caught. "I...uh... saw you at Golden Corral a few weeks back. You were with a woman, laughing and talking. I wanted to know who she was, so..." She paused as if she didn't want to say what came next. With a guilty look on her face, she quickly finished, saying, "...I went through your phone when you weren't looking."

"You went through my phone?!" I gasped incredulously. I felt completely violated. What gave her the right to go through my stuff? She wasn't my wife anymore.

"Yeah. I saw that you had been texting a woman named Colleen, and I put two and two together."

I was about to get self-righteous and lambast her for her invasion of my privacy, but then I remembered that I did my own fair share of snooping. Even though she didn't know about it, the hypocrisy of calling her out on her jealousy was too much for me. Besides that, it was a moot point. I did nothing wrong with Colleen, and I wasn't trying to hide anything.

"What does it matter?" I asked instead. "Aren't we separated? One of the provisions was that you get to fuck Derrick on a daily basis, free and clear. You didn't expect me to stay celibate while you enjoyed the fruits of the single life, did you?"

Again, anger flashed across her face, but it passed quickly. She must have caught a glimpse of her own hypocrisy.

"I guess I didn't really think about you with anyone else." She admitted honestly. There was a hint of sadness in her voice.

Hearing her acknowledge that should have vindicated me. Instead, it offended me. I huffed sardonically and said, "Yeah. You figured that because you didn't want me, no one else could possibly be interested in my fat ass."

"You're putting words in my mouth." She said defensively.

"Words that are backed up by your actions."

Her natural reaction to argue made her almost say something. Whatever was about to come out was caught at her lips. She took a brief moment to rethink her approach, and in a softer voice confessed, "You're right, Arty. I guess I didn't think any other woman would be interested in you. But now, you've lost all that weight, and..."

She didn't finish her sentence, but her message got through loud and clear. When I was fat, she didn't have to worry about me finding someone else. She even felt sorry for me. I remembered all the sympathetic looks on her face when I would have to swallow the bile of watching her moving on.

Poor Arty. His fat ass is stuck lonely and miserable while I'm having all this fun.

But now that she was attracted to me, me moving on was a problem for her. Well, too fucking bad.

"It doesn't matter, Paige. You're with Derrick. You don't have the right to be jealous."

A gloomy shadow cast across her face. It was dark with a bad memory. "Derrick and I stopped seeing each other a while ago." She said cryptically. She tried to sound blasé, but didn't really pull it off. The look on her face betrayed her. There was something else there. Something that she was trying to pretend didn't mean anything to her.

I didn't know what to say next. All of the possibilities made me seem like an asshole. I didn't want to gloat, yet I didn't want to give her false condolences that would come off as sarcastic. I simply settled on asking the million dollar question. "Why?"

She looked like she wanted to vent, but she held back. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders and said, "What can I say? People meet, they have fun, and then it's over. They go their separate ways and move on with their lives. Not everyone is destined run off into the sunset together." She sighed and sat down on the bed, looking at the floor in front of her.

"We were supposed to." I said softly. I didn't even realize that I said it aloud until I saw her looking up at me with glistening eyes.

"Yeah. We were." She said with a sad smile. "But, somewhere along the line, we stopped connecting. There was no more laughter, no conversation; just a series of chores, bills, and jobs." Her voice became froggy as a lone tear slipped down her cheek. "Then, I...did what I did. Now, everything is messed up. The twins are having a tough time dealing with things, and I'm stuck looking at a photo album wishing that I could go back in time."

In the grand scheme of things, Derrick was never our problem. Me and Paige were me and Paige's problem. He was just a cough in the face of the cancer that was killing our marriage.

I sat on the bed next to her. "We both let things slip away from us. But there's nothing we can do about it now. We just have to move forward as best we can."

She turned and looked at me. There was something in her eyes that I couldn't decipher. It reminded me of how she used to look at me; once upon a time. It was like she was looking at me for the first time.

She took a deep breath, grabbed the hand closest to her, and said, "I made a mistake giving up on us. On you."

"Paige..." I started to say as I tried to take my hand away. But she held on tight. Her eyes continued to gaze at me, as if trying to look into my soul. I didn't know what was going through her mind; it appeared to be a mixture of thoughts. A series of emotions played out on her face. Then, a determined look settled, like she'd made a decision.

Out of nowhere, she grabbed me by the face and kissed me.

Her lips were just as soft as I remembered them to be. Her hands - the ones that I used to hold so lovingly - pushed me back on the bed. She broke the kiss long enough to climb on top of me and straddled my hips.

"Paige, what the hell?" I asked confused. She didn't answer me. Instead, she lifted her negligee up and over her head. I was blessed with the sight of her bare breasts staring at me with erect nipples.

"Arty, don't speak. Don't say anything. Just...do this. With me."

Her breasts mesmerized me. Memories of me fondling them came to me. I felt myself getting hard, despite my protests to my manhood. He was hungry. He wanted this. It was getting difficult to think with him making his desires clear.

I felt her grind on it a little before letting out a soft moan. Her pedicured hands snaked up my shirt and rubbed my chest. A coy smile spread on her face before she slowly bent over and cradled her head between my shoulder and neck. With light nibbles, she began kissing along my skin.

I almost did it. I almost gave in. Just when I was about to wrap my arms around her, I saw him.

Derrick. The omnipresent ghost of our failure. His likeness was a symbol of why she and I were doomed as a couple.

"Paige, stop!" I said abruptly as I gently pushed her off me. She fell back on the bed.

"Arty..."

"No!" I interrupted her as I jumped up like the bed was on fire. "You can't keep doing this to me! I'm not your lapdog that comes trotting back because you whistle for after breaking up with your boyfriend. You don't get a do over because you 'made a mistake'. You threw me away; period. Just because you have buyer's remorse doesn't mean that you have the right to return the gift that you asked for!"

She didn't say anything at first. She just sat there, as if thinking. Then, she softly asked, "Do you still love me?"

I hesitated to answer. One would have thought that my response would be immediate after she shitted on me like she did. But it turned out to be a little more complicated than I gave it credit for. Taking my hesitation as encouragement, she got up from the bed and walked over to me. Then she grabbed both of my hands and said, "Be honest with yourself. Don't let your pride answer for you."

I thought about our entire life together. I saw us going on dates as I courted her, bashfully trying to impress each other. I had a vision of her standing in front of me in her wedding dress, looking like she was missing a set of heavenly wings. In the next flash, we were at the hospital after she gave birth to our twins. She was so beautiful as she lay there, holding one in each arm.

I had to admit that I did love that Paige. But in the same thought, I realized that wasn't the Paige that stood before me.

This Paige was the one on her knees in the shower with another man. This Paige lashed out in anger and cut me so deep that it took an entire year to recover. As much as I loved the former Paige, this one was equally unlovable.

But they were the same woman.

Funny thing was, I'd dreamed of this moment for months. I desperately wanted her to see my worth, and acknowledge that she wanted me. At one time, this would have made me feel complete.

However, things had changed for me. I no longer wanted, or needed, her validation. The old me would have jumped at this. I would have worked hard to be the man that she wanted me to be. I would have always been looking over my shoulder, wondering if she were going to cheat again. My every waking moment would have been trying to ensure that never happened. But the new me realized that I didn't deserve a life like that.

Just like her, both of those Arthurs were the same person. Yet, they were as different as two snowflakes.

"No, I don't, Paige." I answered honestly. "Not that way. Not anymore."

Without realizing it, we'd come full circle. I didn't realize the heaviness that phrase would have until it fell from my mouth. We had officially swapped places from where this story began. The phrase that slammed the door shut in my face had now subjected her to the same fate of rejection.

Not that way

It seemed like all the air was taken out of the room. There was just enough for her to gasp, right before tears streamed down her face. She let go of my hands and slowly backed away from me, as if I were an evil monster. When she reached the bed, she sat on the edge and cried.

I felt bad for her. I really did. I knew what emotions were running through her. Being rejected sucks big time. I knew that because I was there.

"You're lying." She said, as if she couldn't believe what I said. "I know you do."

"I'm sorry, but I don't." I said softly, trying to make the rejection easier. "A lot has happened."

Tortured sobs filled the air. I was stuck not knowing what to do. I didn't know if I should hug her to console her, stand there patiently as she went through her emotions, or simply leave the room. In the end, I just stood there.

After a few minutes passed, she sniffed and wiped her nose. Then she looked up at me with eyes that were so saddened they were burning with misplaced anger. "You're enjoying this, aren't you? "

"What? No!"

She shook her head and sneered indignantly. "Really? You aren't secretly reveling in putting the bitch who cheated on you in her place? Huh? You're telling me that you don't love this?"

How could she even believe that about me? I thought to myself as I watched her spit those words out with the venom of a person who'd been cut deep. I thought a couple of seconds to see if there was any truth to what she was accusing me of, and found that she was partly right. I wasn't enjoying this situation, but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't feeling a sense of justice. For the longest, it seemed like fate was doing a science experiment by calculating how much shit it could dump on me before I reached my breaking point. Meanwhile, Paige was off in la-la land having afternoon sex in the shower. The scales had finally balanced in some cosmic way.

"Fine." I said after a few reflective moments of silence fell between us. "You don't have to believe me. So - for the sake of argument - let's say that I was enjoying this. Could you blame me?"

She looked like she was about to say something angry, but I raised my hand to cut her off. "Hear me out. You gave up on me, Paige. Instead of giving me a fair shot at improving, you cheated on me and asked for a divorce. Not only that, but you ridiculed and belittled me. But I still stuck by you. I didn't expose you to our kids. I didn't treat you like a pariah, or try to rip you off in the divorce. I gave you the separation that you wanted. I stood back while you explored your sexuality with Derrick, and I didn't complain. Not even once. Even after all of that, you couldn't find ANYTHING about me worth fighting for. But I lose a few pounds, and suddenly..."

"It's not like that." she abruptly interrupted. "It's not about the weight. Yes, I'm more attracted to you now, but it's more than that. You're different. More confident. You actually go out and do things. You don't just come into the house and watch TV anymore. This is the you that I've been wanting you to be all along."

That last sentence hit me hard. The me she's been wanting me to be. Because the me I was wasn't good enough to fight for.

She just didn't get it. Honestly, I didn't think she ever would.

I could have set off a series of arguments to show her how flawed her selfish logic was. For her to expect me to become who she wanted me to be was so self-centered that it was mind boggling. I understood that I could have changed some things about me to make her happier. Everyone adapts to living with a spouse. But she didn't give us that chance. Since I wasn't who she wanted me to be, she felt justified in leaving.

A part of me wanted to pound some sense into her thick skull (metaphorically, of course). But what was the point? I didn't need her to understand my point of view. This was the first moment in my life that I honestly couldn't have cared less what she thought.

I was finally free.

"Do us both a favor Paige." I said with finality. "Sign the papers. Stalling isn't helping either of us."

With that I walked out of the room without turning back. As I descended the stairs, I could hear her crying in my wake.

*************

SIX MONTHS LATER

It was done. The papers that I held in my hands were the only proof that I shared a life with Paige. Well, that paper and the two kids that were currently arguing over the remote in my Livingroom.