Same Time Next Week by Emily Smith

Author:Emily Smith [Smith, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626393899
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2015-03-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

I had no idea what time it was when I woke up. My neck was stiff and my head pounded, and it took several seconds to make sense of the soft body curled up against me. Michelle’s face was buried in my chest, and my arms were holding her like I was afraid something would pull us apart at any moment. She was sound asleep.

Through the space in the blinds I could see nothing but black, and the only light on came from over the stove in the nearby kitchen. I slid out from under her as gently as I could and stood to check myself over. My clothes were all still on. My shirt was unbuttoned in several more places than it had been at dinner, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Everything seemed intact, marriage included. But I couldn’t remember a thing.

“Relax. Nothing happened.” Michelle’s soft voice behind me startled me to a jump.

“What? Oh, yeah, of course not. I remember.”

She laughed a little.

“I was going to wake you up but…”

“No, don’t worry about it. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I’m sorry.”

“Really. Don’t worry about it.”

I looked at my watch, squinting in the dark room. Two am. “I better go.”

“Yeah, it’s late.” But I swore I saw her face fall a little. I grabbed my jacket and we walked toward the front door.

“I had fun. Thanks for dinner. For everything, I mean.” Nothing I could say seemed to mirror my intense spiral of emotions as I stood in front of her. I wasn’t that girl anymore, the girl who threw out hearts like the week’s garbage because she was on to the next best thing. Michelle was better than the next best thing. She deserved to be someone’s last big thing. But I couldn’t deny the piece of me that was raw with regret—regret for not kissing her, regret for not telling her I thought about her every single second of every single day, regret for not telling her I’d begun dreaming of walking out of my life as I knew it and maybe into a life with her.

Still, that kind of regret was tolerable. And I wasn’t sure if uprooting my entire world was.

I was disgusted with myself for even considering walking away. Maybe I hadn’t physically crossed any lines with Michelle, but I’d certainly crossed every other line available. I didn’t know if Michelle felt something too. It didn’t matter. This was the ultimate betrayal. I’d married Beth. I’d picked Beth. And regardless of whatever else had changed since, that had meant something to me. That had meant everything to me. I had stood in front of everyone I knew and promised to love, in some semblance of the word, my wife, for the rest of my life. Leaving would mean failure.

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