I Always Will

Prologue

Rowan ( 5 months after the Prologue of Two Punks In Love)

Trace was married today in a pasture with one large oak tree.

It's kind of ironic that the first day of my brother's marriage is the last day of mine.

I didn't go to the North Georgia Mountains, where Trace bought a tree and the farm surrounding it, and staged a four month long intervention that happily ended in his marriage. Finally.

It wasn't right for me be there. My brother and I share a father, but we all know Trace's first family is his band family. He calls that family SCIC—Soundcrush Inner Circle. Besides the five Soundcrush members themselves, no one is more a part of that family than my nearly ex-husband, Riley Emsworth.

Once, I was a part of that family as well. Once, I often stood sidestage with Riley, Soundcrush's manager, and watched my brother kick ass and take names with his guitar. I can remember the last Soundcrush show I attended a year and half ago. I remember lounging in a green room, Riley's leg's tangled in mine on one of the couches as he worked on his laptop and I memorized scripts for my tv show, Girl Band.

Today, my brand new sister-in-law flipped the shit and sang to my brother the rock star at their wedding, and I wasn't there to see it.

It's okay, though. Riley and I can't be in the same place, and Riley deserved to be there. He deserved the day free of the reminder that I destroyed our marriage. He deserved to watch one of his oldest friends marry without the anger he always feels in my presence.

Everyone there deserved to be free of me, really. My husband, my parents, my siblings, and especially my brother Trace and his bride Katheryn. No one should have the shadow of betrayal and heartbreak cast over a family wedding. No one should should have to suffer a cheater standing just over their shoulder on their wedding day.

It's been thirteen months since I destroyed my marriage. I still can't exactly explain why I did it. I mean, I can recite the factors that were discussed in marriage counseling, after I confessed what I had done.

So many factors.

Riley and I had been married for more than three years and we'd spent more than half that time oceans apart. I was lonely. I was disconnected from my husband's life and he from mine. We lived in separate countries with separate circles of friends. Even long distance, Riley and I were arguing more and more.

I was suffering from a diet pill problem, a problem which Riley viewed with extreme disapproval and very little compassion. I tried to get off them but I was used to the bump they give, and I felt like shit without them. When we were together I felt as though Riley was comparing my pill problem with his first love's drug overdose.

Not to mention, Riley was in constant conflict with the producers of my tv show because he didn't think they had my best interest at heart, and I had to constantly run interference between his demands and theirs. He had become the thing my father had warned me about—a controlling, overbearing manager/husband I had to please and placate.

There were many factors that lead to our crisis.

I can recite the factors, but I can't still can't explain the cheating. None of the factors justified what I did anyway.

Especially since Riley had his beefs, too.

He told me so many times we were in trouble. He told me me before I signed my last contract renewal. He didn't foresee our long distance working for another three years. He begged me not cave to the producers insistence that I continue to  use diet pills to lose more weight for my character's drug spiral.