Chapter 1: Heartbreak

Callie's POV

Every Monday afternoon, Stefan would leave his office for a late lunch meeting me at the Motel 6 on Gretna Street. It wasn't an ideal location, but this had slowly become 'our' place. Each time growing more passionate than the last, and I knew he was slowly forgetting about her.

I had always asked him if she was pretty, and I always wondered if it was she he was thinking about when we were intimate. "Callie, forget about her. Of course she is beautiful, she's my wife. She doesn't please me like you do," he caressed my neck into his strong hands. The warmth of his blood heated me, and I could feel his heart pounding profusely through his skin. "I'm falling in love with you," I tried to catch my breath, "I know we always promised each other this would go no further than just casual sex, but..."

Before I could finish my profound speech confessing my love for him, he had leaned down and sunk his lips into mine. Fireworks were all around me, and I felt weightless. He lifted me up in his arms, wrapping my legs around his broad waist, and making his way back to the bed. Sinking me down gently as he began to kiss from my lips, to my neck, and below....

∞∞∞

I awoke from my lucid dream drenched with cool sweat droplets on my body, mascara was smeared on the pillow from the tears of yesterday. My head pounded from the hangover I didn't have, and my eyes were bloodshot red. I felt the quench of thirst from a long night of dehydrating myself from crying for hours straight.

I checked my phone hoping to see something from Stefan, but there was nothing.

He wouldn't return my calls, or any of my messages. I would call, listen to 4 rings, followed by the pick up from the receiver repeating the same haunting message:

We're sorry, but the person you are trying to reach is not available. At the tone please record your message. When you are finished recording, simply hang up or press one for more options.

After the third attempt, I had stopped listening to the recording. Each time becoming more and more heartbreaking. My mind was going over everything that was said, everything that was unsaid.

What did I do wrong?

I texted my best friend Melanie , the only person who knew about the affair, begging for her to come over.

I need you, it's urgent. -- Cal

Within 20 minutes she was tapping on my door without breaks in between her knocks. I hesitatingly opened the door to find her standing there with DVD's, and unforseen amounts of chocolate and peanut butter. "Saddle up girlfriend, I've got everything needed to cure a heartbreak. Romantic comedies and sweets," she welcomed herself in settling the contents in her arms on the countertop.

I tried to concentrate on The Notebook but it was almost nauseating. Just last week, that was the love I had felt for Stefan. That was the love I was clinging to. "This is your favorite," Melanie pushed the pause button, freezing with the couple in the infamous boat scene. She rotated herself to face me, I felt her eyes like daggers staring right through me. "Callie, I'm not going to let you sit here and sulk over a man who wasn't rightfully yours," the cold hearted truth stung, "He's married. What if he told his wife?" I shook my head, "We talked about that, again and again. He was never going to tell her, he said he didn't want to hurt her. She didn't please him."

Melanie clapped her hands gawking, "Way to go, he's a tool! He used you, Callie. He got what he wanted from you, you're lucky it lasted this long. Her not pleasing him wasn't an excuse for him to start an affair, that's why there's marriage counseling. Put yourself in her shoes."

I gaped my mouth at her, I was shocked she was taking her side. "You are supposed to be my friend," I could feel the tears building in the ducts of my eyes, "Melanie, you don't understand. Last week, I told him I loved him. We always agreed that it would never turn into anything except casual sex, but I couldn't stop myself."

Melanie wrapped me in an embrace running her fingers through my obscenely knotted and unbrushed hair, "It's okay, this will all be okay." Like a waterfall, the tears began falling almost as quickly as they had stopped. My chest tightened, and it slowly became harder and harder to breathe as I wept uncontrollably.

The remnants of the sweets were scattered across the table as the clock drew later and later, "Are you sure you don't want me to stay? I could call in sick for work tomorrow, I know you need me."

I shook my head, "No, I'll be fine. This is just another heartbreak, I'll be fine soon."

Melanie smiled as she collected her bag and the DVD's, and made her way to the door. She closed it softly behind her, but not before flashing me a reassuring smile.

I stared at my ceiling and pondered on all of the memories that was Stefan and I. I was reminiscing on everything that once was, and everything that we were. Trying to find where I had gone wrong, but I came up empty.

The sex was passionate.

The kisses were passionate.

The conversations were passionate.

The only common denominator was her.

I had caught glimpses of her a few times before, through a polaroid Stefan kept in the slip of his wallet. She had porcelain skin, dark hair, a clear complexion, and golden brown eyes that were enough to lure any man in. I knew what he had seen in her, and for that I didn't blame him.

I envied her. There were so many nights I wanted to be her, laying beside a man as perfect as Stefan. A perfect 6"3, broad shouldered, tattoo sleeves covered both arms, and his back covered in one solid piece. His hair was jet black, always slicked to one side, and the back kept near bald. His beard was never longer than a slight stubble. He was muscular enough to wonder how someone so busy could manage to find the time for a decent workout. Even so, there wasn't a moment he didn't keep himself perfectly toned.

In the end, however, I could see why a man as perfect as he would've wound up with a woman as equally perfect as her. She didn't see it that way, not with the way he had always described her.

"Katherine isn't you. She doesn't see the good in anyone in front of her, only the good that's in herself."

The memory of Stefan's speech about her went off in my head like a broken record steadily on repeat.

"When I married Katherine, things were different. We were passionate over each other, had plans for the future. We wanted the American dream; a house on some land surrounded by white picket fences, a couple kids, I was going to retire by the time I was 40, and travel with her when the kids moved out. After the wedding, everything changed. I was never home much, but when I was Katherine failed to notice my cravings for her. I would try everything to gather her attention: breakfast in bed, spontaneous showers, sneaking up behind her while she was cooking. All of my attempts, every last one, shot down as if I were just her husband as a label. Not her husband in the bedroom. Then I met you..."

I fell into a deep slumber almost as deep as I was in thought. I knew, now, the only way I would see Stefan again was in my dreams. I craved those lucid dreams.

Tonight, however, the dreams were more dark. There wasn't sex with Stefan, instead it was blackness. Thick blackness that seemed to have no end, it was as if as fast as he had disappeared my mind was forgetting him also.