“And I’ll continue to take anything she has to throw at me to prove that I’ll still be here for her when she’s ready,” I snapped.
Sinner shook his head. “You’re a better man than me. I couldn’t have walked in on what you just did and still stand here in one piece. I mean, I love Cara with all my heart, but if she said that shit about me, I would be out the door.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one that has to walk out the fucking door.”
I shoved past him and walked out the door. Everyone had a fucking opinion, but Florrie’s was the only one I cared about at the moment. She was the only one that mattered, but the only one that I just couldn’t reach. I needed something, anything to pull her back from the edge. But no amount of apologies were doing anything for me. Acts of love and kindness just pissed her off. Holding her at night only made her angry. Talking to her was like talking to a brick wall. Even sparring with her was useless. I let her beat the shit out of me, but that only seemed to make her even more angry. Nothing I did seemed to help.
I drove to the bar, my new escape when Florrie was especially hateful to me. Over the past few weeks, I had come to this bar at least three times a week. Sometimes one of the guys would join me, but they had come to realize that I didn’t want the company. So, they backed off and let me have my space. Today was no different. I knew that Craig wanted to follow me when I stormed out of Reed Security, but at the shake of my head, he stopped walking my way and left me alone.
Now, here I sat, alone at the bar and drinking again. I never drank to get drunk, although I’d thought about it many times. No, I just drank now to feel a little like my old self. I used to love to come in and have a beer and just relax. There was no way of relaxing at my house anymore. Tension filled every room, and even when Florrie and I weren’t yelling at each other, the silence was enough to kill me. I couldn’t figure out how to break the cycle.
“Hey, stranger.”
I glanced to my right and saw Amanda take a seat beside me. I hadn’t seen her since the hardware store a little over a month ago.
“Hey. How did the painting project go?”
“Eh. I’m not a very good painter. I wish I had known that before I started.”
“Yeah? What happened?”
“Well, I saw this really cool color scheme online and thought it would be perfect for my bedroom.”
“Why does this not sound like it turned out well?”
She smirked. “Because it didn’t. The colors were a pale blue for the wall and a blood red for the ceiling. It looked absolutely amazing in the picture.”
“But….”
“Well, I don’t have crown molding, which really changed the look. Also, I have a popcorn ceiling, so now it looks like there’s blood dripping from the ceiling.”
I choked on my beer, letting the laughter flow from my body. It felt so good to have the release, just a little tension reliever to go with my beer. “You know, I could have done that for you for free.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure. Find me a bad guy and I’ll take him out in your apartment. No need to buy all the paint.”
“But then it would smell,” she pointed out.
“Well, there is that, but at least you would have a good story to go with it,” I chuckled. My laughter died down as I picked at the label on my bottle. I blew out a breath, not realizing until right now how long it had been since I had something to laugh about, or actually wanted to laugh. My life had become this sad joke that I had no chance of escaping, and I was tired of living like this. I wanted things to go back to the way they were, back when Florrie and I loved each other and wanted a life together. What we had now was nothing close to life.
“Hey,” Amanda said, bumping her shoulder into mine. “What’s going on? You look really sad.”
I smirked slightly and let out a breath. “Life just sucks.”
“Yeah, I could agree with that. You know, I thought I would be so happy to get away from my husband, but…I don’t know. I miss him sometimes. I just thought things would get easier.”
“I thought so too.” I ran my hand along my jaw, trying to decide how much to say. I didn’t want to spread my shit to a stranger, but if anyone got it, I’m sure she would. “My fiancé and I took in this kid almost a year ago now. He was a good kid. He’d had a hard life, but he was doing good with us. Then the state told us that he had family out there that wanted him. Florrie, my fiancé, she wanted to fight for him, to keep him with us. But I didn’t want to take him away from his family. I thought…if he has someone out there that wants him…” I shrugged, hoping that I didn’t have to go into all the details of it.
“So, he got sent to live with his family,” she surmised.
“Yeah, a few months ago. Florrie blames me. She can’t forgive me for not fighting harder for custody. She uh…she can’t have kids so…”
“Wow. That must have been a real kick in the pants for her.”
I nodded.
“So, what happens to the two of you now?”
I sighed heavily. “I’m not sure anymore. There’s a lot of anger and hatred, and I don’t know how to get back
