His Shadow

17

As I made my way towards a very special friend of mine, I had a lot to think about. Clearly, I was a horrible human being for never coming earlier, and I had to admit that. I knew that I was a very, very stupid woman who deserved literally nothing else but hell. Reading Alexander's journal only confirmed that. 

However, I had already asked God for forgiveness, and I knew that he would grant me the forgiveness I so longed for as long as I fully understood that what I did was so stupid and wrong (which I did, I now realized that) and as long as I never did anything like this ever again (or at least tried to as hard as I could). After all, if God should forgive me then the least I could do is be a decent child of His and not continue to sin against him. 

It gave me peace. Knowing that I had made a mistake, but have now received the forgiveness from God, and now searching any possible way to make it right with Alexander, I had peace in my heart.

The other parts of his journal... Allison was a huge part of it. I was afraid that in the end, he really would have feelings for her. I knew that Alexander was a very cold-hearted man, but even a man like him can grow feelings if he's slept with a woman so long. But I had to trust that he would eventually re-love me... and if he didn't, well, that's a price that I would have to pay for what I did when I was away. I deserved to not have him come back to me.

I knocked on the door of my friend. Yes, yes, I believe she would be the one that could tell me how to get my stubborn, stubborn husband to finally realize that I don't care (at least not too much) that he slept with Allison... and I do hope that he can forgive me so we can start our new family!

The door swung open. Man! Was I really going to go through with this..? 

Yes, yes I would. 

"Maria?"

I smiled. "Allison! How are you doing, my dear?"

"Oh, I'm doing good, come on in, it's still freezing out there. Don't tell me your husband kicked you out again! I thought we had taught him a lesson the other day."

I laughed. "Yes, we did, so this time, he didn't kick me out, but he kicked himself out."

Allison also laughed. "Well, at least you're warm and cozy this time. He can go sleep on a dumpster somewhere in the city himself."

After she had grabbed me a cup of warm lavender tea, even though I had resisted it, she asked, "So why did you come?"

I took a nice long sip. Mmmm heavenly. I smiled. 

"Thank you for insisting on making me this tea even though my stubborn self refused it."

"Well, I happen to know how to deal with stubborn people," she said with a wink.

I nodded. "Indeed and that is why I need your help..."

"Ah-ha..." She said, a smile climbing onto her face, as she made herself comfortable on the couch, "I feel like this will be very fun."

"Yes, yes it will... Basically, I need help from you to help me with my husband. As you can probably tell by now, we don't have the best of relationships, and I need to fix that before my little boy officially meets his father and me. We've both done wrong and I guess I can see clearly through it, but he can't and I need him to. I've tried to do anything to get us to talk and what-not, but it just hasn't worked. I need advice from you, who can deal with insanely stubborn people."

Allison sat in silence for a few moments before she said, "Okay, okay, I have a little bit of information now... but I need more.  I have an idea brewing in my head, but it's only going to work if my suspicions are correct. So tell me more."