Page 30 of Chasing the Other Woman

It’s not that I need Brooks to tell me who I am. I’ve always known; that’s what hurts.

It’s just that, no matter what was said, no matter what was done, I still want him here beside me.

And I still love him just as much as I ever did.

Eight

BROOKS

Sam’s folder stays open on the desk, taunting me without my ever touching it again.

Maybe if he understands… he’ll want me beside him again.

She thought I didn’t want her beside me.

She thought I didn’t want her.

I pick up the phone and call her again.

Ring after ring. No answer. The voicemail picks up and I grip the edge of the desk as her voice greets me.

“You’ve got Sam. You know what to do.”

If only that were true.

“Sam.” My voice sounds like I’ve been screaming for days. Internally, maybe I have. “Please pick up or call me. I need to talk to you.”

After I hang up, the words I need stick in my mind. Yeah, jackass. Tell her what you need.

Still, I can’t stop myself. I text next.

I found something. I need to talk to you about it. I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.

After I send it, I realize that can mean anything. I could have found an old invoice. Something she left behind that she may need.

I keep calling, knowing damn well I should stop because she’s not picking up. My messages are going unread. I thumb out of the messaging app and wind up in the photos app. I’d say it was an accident, but nothing’s accidental these days.

There’s a photo memory at the top, my iPhone torturing me as if even it knows I’m a major fuckup.

The photos are all from six years ago. It had been a temperate April day and I’d had one of my better ideas. A picnic. Me and her. She’d been both amused and charmed, which is exactly what I’d been going for. In the photos, she’s smiling in a way I haven’t seen her smile in a long time. Caught off guard, happy, reclining on a picnic blanket and looking at me like not a damned thing was ever going to change.

Two years later, we’d be hurting unimaginably.

Two years after that, I’d push her so far out of my life that she was reduced to writing a list of ways she thought might bring her back to me.

Every morning since she left, I wake up feeling as if I haven’t slept at all. My dreams are filled with reminders of all the ways I’ve messed up everything good in my life.

I find the team later gathered in the warehouse. The skies are promising nothing remotely interesting enough to give us good footage. There’s a system building north and west, but nobody feels particularly good about it, which has never stopped feeling weird. Hoping for chaos seems like a good way to bring on heartache.

What feels wrong about the whole thing is that the machine doesn’t stop. Sam isn’t here, but no one seems to feel her absence as much as I do. Then again, I know they’d have to be hurting immeasurably to even hold a candle to what I’m feeling.

“I’ll take the green beast today since lead’s still out of commission,” Hershel says, coming up beside me with a clipboard. “You can take mine today.”

I turn and blink at him. “What?” Today he’s wearing an AC/DC shirt and looking a little worse for wear than usual.

He sighs. “I’m taking the green beast. Giving you my truck. You know, since your truck is out of commission.”

“Right. Sounds good.”