There is Always a Choice Pt. 01

This story has been bubbling away in my head for quite a while and I've put it down more than once as I've re-thought the plot and decided where to take it.

It is a romance but, as in many of my stories, not in the traditional sense. In the end though it is just that, a story.

As always comments, constructive and critical, are welcome.

Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is always a choice

Part 1

Monday morning was bleak, grey and miserable, the sky full of dark forbidding clouds that promised rain at some time later in the day. Starting out just like any other week-day, Samantha Warrington and her husband Ben got up at 6.15 a.m. as usual, then after eating breakfast they prepared for their day.

As far as she was concerned it was no different from any of the previous mornings, at least not those of the last twelve months. The frosty silence that hung over them broken only by a few succinct sentences related to any essential matters that they needed to discuss before they both left for work.

Trying to ignore the palpable tension that existed between them, as they teetered on the brink of the collapse of their 3-year marriage, she focused on getting ready for another day.

Once she was dressed and done, Samantha simply said a terse goodbye and, without even a kiss on the cheek for her husband, set out for work. Walking to the bus stop to catch the 7.33 to the school where she worked as a TA (teaching assistant) she felt an overwhelming sense of relief to be out of the house.

Despite the gloomy overcast sky and the fine drizzle that was starting to fall, she was grateful that another difficult weekend was over and she could relax, at least for the next few hours.

Taking a seat, she gazed despondently out at the busy streets passing in front of her and let her mind wander back to happier days when she had first met her husband.

~~~~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~~~~~

It had happened at a party.

One she hadn't really wanted to go to.

She had been twenty back then and had just started her final year at college, while he was eight years older and had seemed so sophisticated and charismatic to a rather naïve, inexperienced girl like her.

Not having a boyfriend to go with Samantha's room-mate from college, Briony, had dragged her along to her brother's engagement celebration with the promise that lots of single men would be there. Not that she was really interested in looking for a boyfriend, preferring to finish her studies before getting into a relationship.

That was the first time she ever set eyes on Ben Warrington.

She was captivated from the moment she saw him. To her he was absolutely gorgeous. At six feet tall he stood a good half a foot over her slender 5' 6" and with dark brown hair and deep brown eyes he had immediately set her pulse racing.

Seeing her standing alone he had come straight across to talk to her.

"Hi, I'm Ben. Are you here with anyone?"

"Oh err... hi... I'm Samantha. I'm a friend of Briony's." She had blushed and stammered a reply, her heart rate immediately soaring, "And err... no... no, I'm alone."

They had just seemed to click and spent the remainder of the evening together. Then, when he asked her out at the end of the night, she had thought her heart was going to burst out of her chest it was hammering that hard against her ribs.

Of course, Sam had said yes and he had taken her to dinner a couple of days later.

Although she wasn't a virgin, she had very little experience of men having had only a few boyfriends, none of whom had been particularly serious. She had only slept with two of them, both rather immature and more interested in their own satisfaction than hers. With that sort of background, it wasn't surprising that she quickly fell, head over heels, for Ben's charm and experience.

Ending up in his bed after their third date they became a couple and had been seeing each other for six months when, taking her completely by surprise, he had proposed. She had just turned twenty-one then and, despite her young age and against the guidance of friends and family, she accepted.

She was in love with him and nothing else had mattered.

Both her parents and her close friends told her that she was too young and it was too soon, but she hadn't wanted to listen to what she now realised was very sound advice. Ignoring them all, it was just a mere few weeks later that they were married in a small civil ceremony and she moved out of her student rooms and into the rather run-down flat that Ben was renting.

To her, used to sharing a small room, being alone with her husband was paradise. They were all by themselves in their own little world with no one to disturb them and sex was a daily occurrence during the week and they would often make love two or three times a day at the week-ends.

She didn't worry that the tiny two-bedroom apartment wasn't exactly a palace, her new husband promised her that they would save up and get a deposit together so they could buy their dream house.

It was the first of many promises he made to her that he never kept.

Samantha was still at college for a large part of the first year of their marriage and, fully occupied with her studies and exams, she didn't recognise any of the signs that would have indicated that her husband had a serious addiction.

In fact, it wasn't until she had finished her final year and had begun looking for employment that she started to realise something was very wrong.

They had both been saving as much as they could towards a down payment on their own place. Samantha from her part time waitressing job in a pizza restaurant while Ben was, supposedly, putting in substantially more from his position as a cameraman working for a television production company.

Once she had finished her studies, she began looking for permanent employment and, wanting to make plans for their future, she had decided it was time to review their savings and see exactly what their situation was.

That was when she found the account that they had been putting their spare money into contained barely a few hundred pounds rather than the several thousand it should have had deposited in it. At first, she had thought it was a mistake but when she checked she could see what she had put in had been withdrawn over a period of time.

What was even worse though was the fact that Ben had made just the one deposit, when they opened the account, and in the interim period since then had put in nothing more.

Confronting her husband, he initially denied taking it, then eventually admitted he had used more than three thousand pounds of the money she had saved to pay off his gambling debts.

"There was only three thousand?" Her surprise at how little they had saved was reflected in her voice, "But there should have been a lot more, Ben."

"Err... yeah... well... I... I hadn't been paying in to it." He confessed rather reluctantly.

"What... why the fuck not?"

Sam had been completely dumbstruck by his admission.

Ben looked shamefacedly at the floor, "I... err.... I couldn't afford it."

"But you earn a decent wage and the rent isn't that much. What were you spending it....?"

She stopped mid-sentence when she suddenly realised that her husband's gambling problem wasn't restricted to him making a variety of one-off payments from their savings.

"It was the gambling wasn't it... that's why you weren't putting money into the account?"

He nodded, totally embarrassed, and refused to look at her, simply staring disconsolately at the floor.

"For fuck's sake Ben. That was supposed to be our future." Samantha had been livid with him and she made sure he knew exactly how she felt, "I worked all the fucking hours I could to save that and you were spending it down at the bloody betting shop."

There was nothing he could say. His obsession was out in the open and from that point on she had gradually begun to realise just how bad things had become.

Of course, he had promised to quit, to repay what he had taken, but all it amounted to was more empty pledges.

Sam soon gained a position as a teaching assistant at a local school and, while she wasn't earning much, her husband Ben, was bringing in a decent wage. They shouldn't have been poor, not by any means, but on the other hand they weren't exactly rich either.

Between the two of them there should have been more than enough to get by. However, that never seemed to be the case and every month they struggled to pay the bills after he continually squandered his money gambling.

With their marriage facing the stress and tensions created by her husband's addiction they battled through another two years trying to make the best of it. On reflection it was probably sometime during that period that her feelings for her husband changed; perhaps it hadn't been love to begin with but by the end she was barely tolerating him.

It was soon after that first fateful discovery when things started to go downhill even faster. His gambling problem got worse rather than better and they began to argue almost constantly about money. At the same time sex became something that happened occasionally rather than the regular occurrence it had been when they were first married.

Stuck in a never-ending cycle of debt and disagreements they had struggled on together, trying to make the best of it but almost as soon as she felt things were looking up for them his obsession would rear up again and they would find themselves back where they had started.

~~~~~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~~~~~

Getting off at her stop Samantha put her problems out of her mind for the moment. The children she taught at school would be just the distraction she needed to get her out of the unhappy mood she was in.

She knew that once this week was over, it would be the half-term break and maybe she could get Ben to take a few days off so that they could spend some time together and talk.

'Did she still love him?'

'Did she want to try to save their marriage?'

'Would he keep his last promise to stop gambling?'

'What would she do if they separated?'

So many thoughts flooded her mind that she was walking through the front entrance of the school before she realised it.

"Sam, can Mr Holland see you for a minute, please?" Claire, the school secretary, stuck her head out of the admin office and called to her as she pushed in through the main doors.

"Er... yes sure." She changed direction and set off for the headmaster's office, slightly puzzled as to why he wanted to talk to a lowly teaching assistant first thing on a Monday morning.

"Come in." She heard her boss call out after rapping on the door.

"Ah, Samantha. Good morning. This is Mr Groves, one of the school governors." The headmaster indicated to a middle-aged man sitting alongside his desk, "Do please sit down."

"Good morning, Mrs Warrington." The man called Groves nodded to her.

"Morning." Her response was a little hesitant.

There was something about his manner which perturbed her slightly but she did as the headmaster requested and dropped into the vacant chair, looking between the two men, searching for some clue as to why she was there.

"Was there something you wanted?" The 24-year-old blonde asked continuing to feel a little uneasy.

"There's no easy way for me to put this Samantha so I'll come straight to the point. The local authorities have cut our budgets again and we need to make some drastic cut-backs." Derek Holland avoided looking directly at her as he spoke.

"The point is Mrs Warrington we are going to have to let you go. Along with a couple of other assistants." Groves, the tall thin school governor, interjected curtly, his face expressionless as he spoke.

"But.... but I need this job. I... what will.... I..." She glanced from the headmaster to Groves and back again trying desperately to collect her scattered thoughts.

"We will of course pay you your one-month notice period and you won't be required to come in after the half-term break is over." The head teacher added.

"That's it?" Samantha was to stunned to say anything more, "That's all I get.... a month's pay in lieu?"

"I'm afraid so." The school governor appeared decidedly uncomfortable as he ended the brief meeting, "We'll be happy to provide a reference for any employer of course."

In a daze Samantha got to her feet and slowly walked out of the office quietly closing the door behind her. Forgetting for the moment her marital problems she began to worry about the dire financial straits they would now be in.

'What would she do now?'

'Would they have enough money to pay all their monthly outgoings?'

'What if Ben broke his promise to stop gambling?'

Things had been tight with Ben's gambling problem, although he had faithfully promised her that he had stopped now. She had no way she could be sure that he actually had though and that left her deeply worried for their future.

She would have to start looking for another job as soon as possible before they began to get behind on their bills.

Struggling not to cry she said a few goodbyes to those staff that were already on site but soon left the premises and, still somewhat bewildered by events, made her way to the bus stop to start her journey back home.

Sitting on the bus she decided that things really couldn't get much worse for her as she reflected on her situation.

Losing her job was a real blow to their finances but, fortunately, her husband Ben seemed to have listened when she gave him his final warning.

His gambling had been getting completely out of hand and she had had enough. That had been nearly three months ago and, in an attempt to save their ailing marriage, she had told him that the next time would be the last and she would leave him if he continued.

Being honest with herself she was fairly sure that she no longer loved him after all he had put her through and she wondered if they would manage to survive as a couple.

Yes, she thought he was cute and could be absolutely adorable when he wanted to but his addiction had now gone way beyond anything that was reasonable or acceptable.

She just prayed that he had meant it when he had said he had stopped,

The month's money paid in-lieu would tide her over for a while but she knew she would need to find something soon or they would be struggling to make ends meet.

~~~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~~~

Thinking she would make an effort to try to improve things between them Samantha decided to put off starting her job search until the following day and to make her husband a nice romantic meal. With that in mind she was in the kitchen peeling potatoes when Ben surprised her and came in quite a bit earlier than normal that afternoon.

"Oh, you're home early." His expression was one of surprise when he walked into the flat and saw her, "What's up?"

She looked across at him slightly puzzled, "I could say the same about you."

"Oh, I err... I umm... I had to go to see... err... to see... someone at the bank." His cheeks coloured and she was immediately suspicious.

"Oh, what about?" Sam tried to keep her tone non-confrontational as she replied.

"Um... I... err... I... needed to get a loan. But they said no."

His answer instantly set alarm bells ringing in her mind but she tried to remain calm until she had all the facts.

"What for? We don't have anything major to pay for, do we?"

Ben didn't respond and, instead, stared miserably at the floor.

"WHAT FOR BEN?" She repeated loudly, now beginning to worry, "What have you done?"

He still didn't look her in the eye, "I borrowed some money from Robert and I need to pay him back."

"You did what?" Looking up from preparing the evening meal she stared at her husband in complete and utter disbelief, "You borrowed how much exactly?"

"It's nothing for you to worry about."

"HOW..... MUCH?" She demanded in a loud, angry voice.

"Umm... it was... err... a... about... five thousand pounds." He replied glumly, still refusing to look at her and keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the kitchen floor.

"What the fuck for? What did you need five fucking thousand pounds for exactly?" Samantha slammed the knife she had been using to peel the potatoes onto the counter

Once again there was no answer.

"If it was to pay off another betting debt, we're through Ben." She continued angrily, her voice rising, "I warned you what would happen the last time."

Sam wasn't sure if she would actually carry out her threat but she had had enough of Ben's gambling and the effect it had on their lives. Too often in the past they had been on the verge of getting themselves straight and she would find he had lost whatever money they had put by on yet another certainty that wasn't.

He still wouldn't look at her so she knew she wasn't going to like what he said next.

"Well, I... err... you see the... umm... I had this hot tip... err... and well... I did buy you that new laptop...and a dress...."

"A hot tip! You have to be fucking kidding me? And you told me your annual fucking bonus paid for the laptop." Samantha ranted and stopped him mid-sentence, glaring at him, hardly able to comprehend what he was saying to her.

She put her hands on her hips and continued, "I've just lost my fucking job and you.... you take out a five-thousand-pound fucking loan that we can't pay back."

"Oh well I... err... what you... you lost your job?" Ben said looking up and staring at her with a shocked expression.

"Yeah, you heard me correctly. I was made redundant this morning because of budget cuts."

"But what are we going....?" Stammering he was obviously stunned by her news.

"It doesn't matter though, does it. I can smile and be happy because you bought me a half a dress so I can look like a complete slut when we go out."

Aggravated she pushed her long blonde hair back away from her face.

"It's blue and you'll look great in it, Sam." Her husband offered miserably, trying to get round her.

His flattery failed as she stood, glowering at him, "And please tell me, just how the fuck are we supposed to pay five thousand fucking pounds back to HIM?"

The 'HIM' in question being Robert Howell.

Standing there she wondered why her husband couldn't have gone to the bank in the first place if he had to borrow money? At least they would have turned him down and they might not be in this mess.

Why did he have to go to his so-called friend Rob Howell? The guy was little more than a gangster and a loan shark although he called himself a businessman.

"Err... I... err... well I... umm..." Shrugging apologetically Ben avoided her eyes.

"You have no fucking idea, have you?" Sam turned away in disgust before she picked up something sharp and threw it at him.

"I'm sorry babe, really I am, but it was a dead cert to win." He continued still trying to apologise.

"And like always it didn't I suppose." Standing by the sink she scowled irately at him.

ignoring the sarcastic retort he replied, "I'll sort it out I promise."

"Don't fucking bother. I've heard it all before. I mean it Ben, we're finished. I can't do this anymore." Samantha stormed out of the room still seething and sat herself on the sofa to collect her thoughts.

Staring at the wall she felt that this really was the last straw. She had warned him the previous time that she had reached the end of her tether and he had promised her faithfully that he would quit.

Stupidly she had believed him and now she realised how foolish she had become. Too angry to cry she sat and reflected on her marriage and what an idiot she had been.

"Babe I...."

"I don't want to hear it, Ben. I've had enough... I... I want us to separate."