Many The Miles

Part 2

I kept replaying the scene over and over again. All I could see when I closed my eyes were flashes of it. His hips moving against hers, her hands on his desk, the way his head tilted back. It made me sick to my stomach. The sound of his flesh pounding into hers. The way she cooed out his name and giggled. She knew I was watching. She knew I would run down to his office the second I found those papers. I was set up.

My husband of ten years was cheating on me. He not only cheated on me, but he used a sperm donor to get me pregnant, twice. And not just any sperm donor, but Benji Russell, recording artist Benji Russell. When I started getting serious with my husband and he told me it would be hard for us to have kids it was okay. Mainly, because I wasn't sure if I wanted them myself. Two years into our marriage we started to look for ways to conceive and in vitro was our best option. It work well the first time so three years later we tried again and end with identical twins. I was satisfied with my family size by then.

I threw the covers off of me and went down to the kitchen. I couldn't stare at the darkness much longer. Therefore, I decided to cook. It'd been far too long since I've gotten a good night's sleep, and I was kidding myself to think this would be the night it happened. I took two large pots and filled them with water. I decided to make the salads for the party tomorrow. One less thing that can go wrong. I placed the pots on the stove so they could boil and grabbed the potatoes I've been soaking. I decided against peeling them and just throw them in the pot. Now, I have to wait. I looked around the kitchen for something else to occupy my time with, and I grabbed the cutting board and veggies.

Ten years, ten years of my life I've wasted on him, I thought to myself as I chopped the onions. Ten years I waited for him to care about my wants and needs. Ten years I cooked and cleaned. Ten years I stayed in this God forsaken house being his Stepford Wife. Ten years he lied. I stopped cutting and wiped my eyes.

I walked over to the built in wine cellar. This was the best idea that man ever had. I pulled out the 1842 cabernet he never wanted to open. I grabbed a glass and sat. It was good wine. It was dark, complex, fruity, and strong. Before I knew it I had three bottles opened trying to pick my favorite. The merlot was by far the smoothest, but the Pinot Nair was cheap tasting, and the cabernet was divine.

It didn't take long for my worries to seem like a spick of sand on the beach. I turned on the radio, filled up another glass, and enjoyed my night. The moon was nowhere in sight, but the stars more than made up for his disappearance. I loved the view from the backyard. How the town looked so tiny from up here, on the mountainside, and the sky so close. When we first got married John would wake me up after his rotation in the hospital and take me to the yard and we sit on the swings.

I frown at the thought of my husband. Soon to be ex-husband. He was a liar and a cheat. He deserved a million life times of misery, and I just wanted to be free. I wanted to be rid of him forever. But I had nothing. I had no one. No one to turn to, nowhere to go. I was just stuck. He owned me, he owned my family, and he knew it.

Ten years and I never knew I was a prisoner. He made me feel safe, wanted, in control. He made me believe that I wanted to live in this house, be a servant to his every whim. I lost myself in the shadow of his wants. Everything he needed became my needs, everything he wanted became my wants, and I just wasn't a person anymore. I was his wife. I'm just his wife...

"You need to sleep," Rafaela said as she entered the kitchen. "Your mom's coming to help cook."

Rafaela and her sleepy, blue eyes studied me. I could see the pity starting to surface. I sighed. "Ella I'm fine," I told her.

Rafaela was the only one that knew about John's affair. She is also the only one that knew about him using another man's sperm to get me pregnant. Bastard. "I'm just going to finish these."