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“Yes.”
“Good. Put it in your console but when you get home, take it out. I want you to keep it with you whenever you’re there.”
I’d never seen Zac look so serious except on the day we were together in this same parking lot and he’d thought I was ending our relationship because I wasn’t willing to wait for our forever. I’d sensed his pain and urgency then just as strongly as I was sensing it now. He was pained by these precautions having to be taken and he was urgent about my doing all I could to stay safe.
“I will. Thank you for watching out for me,” I said.
“It’s like I’ve told you before, Stevie… Nothing can ever happen to you. I can’t lose you under any circumstances. It would shatter me.”
33
#hearttrouble
Zac
IT WAS THURSDAYevening, I was on the phone with Stevie and she’d just told me that her dad had a blockage in one of his heart arteries. She said his doctor was going to treat it with medicine since the blockage was less than 70%. Stevie and her dad felt positive about everything and I was relieved for both of them.
My lover still planned to stay with her dad until Sunday and it couldn’t get here fast enough. I was having withdrawals from her again and the pain that I was feeling in my heart from not seeing her was real. It radiated out from the center of my chest, making me ache all over. They say people can die from a broken heart and now, I understood how that could really happen.
“Zac, there’s something else that I need to tell you, but it has nothing to do with my dad,” Stevie went on to say.
“What is it?”
“After we left the doctor’s office, I stopped by the grocery store that’s close to my dad’s parsonage to grab a few items for him. I ran into Graham.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Everything went fine. He was cordial and so was I. He asked me what I was doing back in Austin and I told him about my dad’s heart issue.”
“Stevie, I’m glad everything went well with him. You’re lucky that it can be that way.”
“There’s no reason for there to be any animosity between Graham and me. Yes, we have a very long history with each other, but we’ve both moved on and we’re not the same two people we used to be.”
“I think you’re exactly who you’ve always been and I love the person you are.”
“Yes, I’m me, but yet I’m different with you than how I was with Graham.”
“What do you mean?”
“Because I’m with you, I feel free to beallof who I am. Meeting you, becoming intimate with you and also falling in love with you has made me throw off every one of the self-imposed life restraints that caused me to be… Well, just not me all the way.”
“What you did was throw off all your religious restraints.”
“Yes. That’s what I did,” Stevie breathed out.
“And so did I.”
“And it set us both free to be a hundred percent of who we are and to feel what we feel without guilt.”
“I’ve never felt guilty for one thing that has to do with us. I know you did for a little while, and I understand because I know your background.”
“But you grew up going to church too, so how have you not felt any kind of guilt about our affair?”
“Because in my heart, I’m not a married man. I’m as single as you are. Yes, I had to wrap my brain around the fact that technically, we are having an affair because I am married, even though it’s only on paper.”
“I’ve never asked you this, but I have wondered if you’ve ever been approached by a woman showing romantic interest in you since you’ve been married.”
“I have been approached,” I admitted.
