Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Things were so good. I didn’t want to, but I opened myself up and let my mom back in. We did mother-daughter things. We went for ice cream, went to the movies, and talked about clothes and books and work. But I kept Orion to myself. That was the one thing we never talked about, and I told myself it was because I didn’t want to get into what happened in Vegas and then in San Diego because it would inevitably lead to too many questions and details, and given what his family does, I couldn’t get into those details for their safety. But I knew it was more than that. Maybe I just wanted to keep him close the only way I could, as a very bad mistake that turned into a very good memory.
In my head, I wasn’t just the girl who got married by mistake while she was drunk in Vegas, then fell into bed with a stranger who was also her husband and was ready to give up everything because she was having a crazy moment. In my head, I took the first step, and that first little baby step was the right one, and it was special and good. In my head, it was perfectly alright to set my past experiences and fear aside and hope. To have emotions and feelings for a man because he was a good man, and he was there for me in a way that no one had been in a very long time. And also because he treated me right and offered me his family and a place in a life that was like a fantasy because I wasn’t wasted in it.
Orion is gone now, and I’m here all alone, sobbing and blubbering and snotting into my own hands on a hotel bed because what I knew would happen all along happened.
But Orion isn’t gone. I let him go. I let him go in real life, but in my head, he’s still there. He’s still there, waiting in San Diego, sitting under the treehouse, and keeping guard over me like I’m something precious and someone worth being guarded.
Fuck me. This is totally pathetic.
I force myself to get my butt off the bed, go into the bathroom, and wash my face. The cold water does almost nothing to soothe my stinging eyes or puffy skin, so I turn off the tap and sit down on top of the closed toilet lid.
I have two options, I guess.
I can either get on with my life like I always have or call Scarlet Von Rippenstein. The first would definitely be soul-crushing, but the latter might also be soul-crushing.
I got my divorce paperwork in the mail two weeks ago.
I’m not technically married to Orion anymore.
Can I still be a part of his family if he wants to keep it that way? I didn’t choose him. I didn’t throw him away, but I just couldn’t make him mine, either. He’s free now, living his life, not connected to me by that Vegas marriage certificate any longer.
I’ve wondered a thousand times what he was doing, if he was happy, and if I’d hurt him too badly to the point where he wouldn’t forgive me. Or worse, if he couldn’t forgive the way I’d disappointed him. Or, maybe worst of all, if he was out there living happily and not thinking about me at all. I don’t want him to be miserable, but that’s a hard one to contemplate.
I did the right thing. I made the right decision. I wanted it to be right, even though I knew I’d probably end up getting hurt. I took that chance for my mom, but now I’m sitting here, hurt and in physical and emotional pain, just like I knew I would be.
“You need to let go,” I told myself.
You know what else I need to do? Stop talking to myself while I’m in some random hotel bathroom with a puffy face, swollen eyes, and a broken heart.
Letting go. What a gift that would be. To let go of the past, the hurts, and the wounds and just move on and start fresh. To have the courage to give me that gift. I’ve always been going through life with a full bodysuit of armor and a sword, waiting for the next attack. What would it be like to move around unencumbered?
Love me as the mom I am…
Live your life to the fullest because you’re worth it…
Can I do that?
Fuck sticks. Now I’m going to cry. Or rather, cry even more.
Maybe what I need to do is breathe and shed that armor. I’ve been so worried about taking a chance with Orion and fretting over what might be right or wrong, what might hurt me and hurt other people, and what would be a mess and what wouldn’t. But maybe what I need to do is take a chance on myself and my ability to forgive, to heal, to want to be okay, to be valued, and to live so fully and passionately that I can look back on this moment and thank myself and laugh at the fact that I used to freaking sit on the phone all day and listen to people being angry at me for no reason when I could be doing so, so much more.