Page 96 of Spiralling Skywards: Fading
I called her mobile again.
“Hey, this is Sarah, sorry you can’t get through. Why don’t you leave your name and your number, then I’ll get back to.”
She sang out her greeting to the tune of De La Soul’s “Ring, Ring, Ring”.
This usually made me smile, but in that moment, it made me want to vomit.
“Sarah, call me back right the fuck now.”
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. There was a reasonable explanation for this.
There had to be.
I shook to the point where I had no control over it. I needed to do something. I couldn’t just sit there and wait for her to come home. If this was what I thought it was, I had to know, even if it changed everything. I had to know the truth. Drawing in another deep breath, I stood and headed back to where Taylor was watching the telly.
“Tay, I need to go out. I’ve no clue how long I’ll be. You all right to stay over if it gets late? I’ll pay ya double."
My head and heart pounded as I stood still for a few seconds waiting on her answer.
“Yeah, of course. Is everything okay? Sarah was—”
“What? Sarah was what, Tay?”
She took in a deep breath and looked around the room as she considered her answer. I swallowed continuously, fighting the urge to throw up as I waited for her response.
“I dunno. Agitated? Stressed out? She was just acting a little strange when I got here, and she couldn't get out the door quick enough.”
Tiredness suddenly overwhelmed me. I felt drained, exhausted. I wanted to go to my bed and curl up to my wife’s warm soft body. I wanted to breathe in her citrusy scent and fall asleep listening to her heartbeat.
Instead, I was about to drive out to a hotel and might possibly catch her in the act of fucking another man.
I nodded my head, but I didn’t know why. I just didn’t have any verbal response to offer.
“Everything’s fine. I’ve gotta go. I have my mobile if you need me.” My legs barely held me up as I walked out of my house and sat in my car. I was cold, but I was sweating. I felt hollow, but my head felt like it would burst with the myriad of thoughts rushing through it.
I didn’t want to start my car. I didn’t want to drive across town. I didn’t want to walk into a hotel room and find my wife with another man.
But what if I did?
What if that was exactly what I found?
What if Sarah had found someone else, had moved on, fallen in love?
I started to cry.
She was the reason my heart beat. What the fuck would I do if she left me? If she was planning on taking my boys away?
My boys.Fuck!
This was my fault. I left her alone too much. I worked too much. I thought back to what my mum had told us on our wedding day . . .“Don’t always take for granted the person you’re heading home to, or that they’ll always be there waiting.”
What if Sarah had finally got sick of waiting just like my mum did? I was always promising her I’d slow down, cut back, just like my dad apparently used to promise my mum.
What if I’d left it too long, and she’d met someone else? Someone that didn’t work long hours? Whowouldn’tleave her to eat dinner alone with the kids every night?
She was friends with Will Bennet on Facebook. What if they’d reconnected? I’d always known he was in love with her. I knew that he’d moved away because of it. What if I’d driven her right back into his waiting arms? What if it was him that was fucking my wife in a hotel room right now?
A loud sob escaped my throat, and I had to wipe my eyes on the back of my hand so that I could see the road clearly.
