CHAPTER 10

Michael's Pov:

I had begun to regret staying over. Like I didn’t know what came over my head.

Probably it was the way her eyes pleaded for me to stay or the fact that I wanted to spend more time with my daughters.

 I knew it was either the former or the latter. She offered for me to stay in the guest room that she would stay with the twins in their home.

Knowing fully well if she stayed with the twins that room would be choked up.

I told her I’d rather sleep on the couch and that she shouldn’t bother. 

After much interjections and persuasions, she finally let me sleep on the couch. Heaven knows that I didn’t sleep a blink that night, my mind couldn’t get over the fact that she was just a room away from me.

I kept on thinking about her, I know I shouldn’t be thinking about her but I just couldn’t stop.

I kept convincing my mind to think about my wife Cara instead of Marie but it was just an impossible task to do.

Around 2 am in the morning, I went to the kitchen to drink water since I was parched after a few minutes, Marie came in her rumpled pajamas. It looked like she hadn’t slept a wink too. 

Could it be that she was thinking about me too? I wondered. She seemed surprised to see me awake but yet a smile tugged at the end of her lips. I asked why she was awake and she said for some reason she couldn’t sleep.

I couldn’t let her know that she was the reason I was awake so I lied that I woke up because I was thirsty. She then confessed that she couldn’t sleep because she kept thinking about me and how she regretted why she had told me to stay over.

While she babbled on, I found her lips so compelling before you knew it my lips crashed with hers and I could fireworks around us. It was like I had been waiting for this day all along.

 She hesitated at first but she later gave in. Our tongues explored each other and her mouth begged for me to gain more access to it.

She held onto me like she was scared that I was going to disappear and I held onto her like I felt she was going to slowly fade away.

Then she broke the kiss and whispered saying that we shouldn’t be doing this. 

Then the realization hit me, I had just kissed another woman who wasn’t Cara my wife. The guilt followed and I hated myself for cheating on Cara. Marie just told me that we should forget what happened and continue the way we were before. I wanted more of her kiss but I had to fight away the temptation.

Morning came and it was time for me to leave. Marie avoided eye contact with me throughout and I also was feeling uneasy around her. Jada had warmed up to him and was talking to me without being uncomfortable again. I was glad I had made peace with the girls before leaving.

 I offered to visit them once in a while and they were glad I wanted to do that. As I left, on my way home, I kept on replaying the kiss I had shared the previous night with Marie.

I knew I loved her and she was my first love but there was Cara too. How is it possible to love two women at the same time? It’s either I love one and think I love the other I said.

 My vacation was over since my wife wasn’t with me anymore. I was back to work and back to normal but normal wasn’t normal without Cara.

I hated the fact that after work, we weren’t going home together, we went separate ways. She went to her parent's house and me to my empty apartment.

I knew I had to choose fast who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, is it Cara or Rosemarie? A very difficult task for me to do.

As I packed up to leave work, I noticed Cara was still in her office and had her head on the table. I slowly went to meet her and saw that she had been crying.

 I hated the look on her face and asked what was wrong, she just kept on crying and I was just comforting her letting her know everything would be fine. She told me if she could crash at my place that she didn’t want to go back home to her parents.

I drove her to my apartment and while she showered, I made a meal for her. While eating I tried to ask her what happened but it seemed she was trying every possible way to avoid the discussion.

 Time to sleep and I headed to the guest room but was stopped by her. She told me that we could stay together in our room and that she didn’t mind.

I was happy because I didn’t want to stay in the guest room before I was just being a gentleman. I wanted her in my arms and I wanted her close to me. As we lay in each other’s arms, I felt safe and the unexpected happened, she began to kiss me and I kissed back without hesitating but then I began to feel guilty. 

She proceeded to pull off my shirt and hers, I tried to stop her but she told me she wanted this and needed us to do this.

We made love countless times that night like we had missed each other’s bodies. By morning when I woke up, she was gone. I called her line and she said that she had to leave early because of an emergency but promised to call me later that evening.

Days passed and life seemed to be shitty every day, I always woke up miserable and my mind split between two different women.

I had also planned on checking on my family but I have been too busy at work to have time to look for them. In the quiet moment of the night when I was fast asleep, I wrestled with my demons, my mind a battleground of conflicting emotions.

I kept on replaying the events of that fateful night with Rosemarie over and over again, each kiss a dagger to my conscience. 

And yet as I condemn myself for my actions, a part of me longed for more, for the intoxicating rush of desire and the forbidden thrill of passion.

The next day I had planned on hanging out with Sam but finished work late so it had to be postponed. I had planned on heating the lasagna left in the fridge and eating it for dinner.

 As I lay on my bed to sleep, a rapid knock was heard on my door. As I opened the door, who I met there was not who I had expected at all.

“Michael, so this is where you have been hiding,” he said. Today couldn’t get any worse.