Tear Stained Beaches (6 page)

Most folders were just legal documents, client invoices and case recaps. I actually began to feel relieved. It was just what I needed to find, nothing. If I couldn’t find anything, it meant there wasn’t anything there and I could finally put my accusations to rest and trust that my husband was telling the truth. My moment of joy, however, was short lived when I clicked on a folder labeled
business expenses
. I opened a document labeled Charleston 5/10.  It was a receipt for a condo rental. The date looked familiar, but I didn’t know why. I got up, tiptoed into the kitchen and looked at the planner on the fridge. On that weekend I wrote:
Chase, Chicago until Sunday.
I swallowed hard; my heart dropped. “That son of a bitch!” He never even went to Chicago. Tiptoeing back into Chase’s office, I sat down again. The next file I opened was for a receipt for an airline ticket to Kettlewood Island for Labor Day. Cute, real cute! I wondered what his story would be for that weekend. I saved it to my email to print on a day while he was at work. If I was going to confront him, I was going to need this.

I searched a few other folders, but didn’t find much, so I moved onto his email. My body still shaking, and mind full of guilt. I had really become the crazy person Chase had accused me of being, but I couldn’t help it. It was almost like I was looking at myself from the outside. Like I was looking over some girl I didn’t know and couldn’t control her actions.

There was nothing in his inbox. I thought maybe I’d find a receipt for an online flower purchase or an email from a woman to meet for dinner, but there was none. His sent folder, on the other hand, well that was a different story. At first I thought it was just spam. A bunch of no subject emails with an attachment being sent from him. I clicked on a random one dated three days ago. Nothing was written in the email, but there was a video attachment. I made sure the volume was turned down before I opened it. To my surprise, the still of the video when it opened was Chase. Having no idea what to expect at that point, I hit the play button. At first Chase was just shuffling around, setting the camera in the right spot and moving the desk lamp around so he could be seen perfectly. I slowly turned the volume up just enough for me to be able to make out what he was saying.

“Hey baby, I’m about to go to bed and I just wanted to say goodnight. I miss you and I really hate sleeping without you and to know how long I have to go without seeing your pretty face is killing me. Labor Day is not going to come fast enough. Let me know when you’re free this week for a phone chat. I don’t want to go much longer without hearing that voice of yours. I will see you soon sweetheart.”

The last thing I saw was him puckering his lips for the camera, sending a kiss across the airwaves. I clicked the X in the top right corner, signed out of his email and turned off the computer as fast as I could. My face became flushed; I could feel it burning.  I was so mad I didn’t know if I could keep from confronting him right then. My breathing became heavy, my fists clenched with anger. I wanted to scream, punch something, throw something, break something, and kick him where it hurt the most, literally. I wanted to run upstairs, shake him awake and ask him how he could ever do that me. I started to make my way up the stairs imagining what I would say to him, but stopped just before I reached the room.

I could see it in my head. Flinging on the light, starting to scream at him, he’d call me crazy for going through his stuff and make up some lame excuse for the video I saw. He’d tell me I didn’t know the whole story that I took it out of context, or some other ridiculously stupid excuse he probably rehearsed in his head a thousand times. I certainly had everything I needed for my sake: I finally knew the truth. The question now was, what was I going to do with it? I had to gather my thoughts, put everything in perspective. I needed some time to gain courage. I wasn’t ready to face him. So I turned around, went back downstairs and sat on the white porch swing. The stars obliviously twinkled in the clear North Carolina sky. I had just heard my husband confess his feelings to another woman. I was pretty sure my husband was sleeping with another woman. And worst of all; he looked me in the eye every day for months, lied to me, and never gave it a second thought.

I started to feel like a failure. Why wasn’t I good enough? What did I do wrong? What could I have done differently? Then I felt nauseous. I was sickened by the thought that he would spend an entire weekend with someone else and then come home to me, make love and hold me as I fell asleep. I forcefully rubbed at my arms; I felt so filthy. Dizziness seized me and I could feel the bottom falling out of my life. I stood up, leaned over the front porch, and vomited.

I sat back down on the bench, curled my legs in close to me, buried my head in my hands and cried. I cried for the end of my marriage, for the life I lived that was suddenly taken away. I cried for the now unknown future. I thought about how I couldn’t have seen it coming. How I was dumb enough to marry someone capable of this. How could I not have known? The signs, they had to have been there. I fought an exhausting battle with myself that night. Thinking of all the other times he’d gone away, all the other times his phone rang that he’d excuse himself from the room, and I wondered if it had all been her. Or maybe someone came before her. It was exhausting running all of that through my mind. It didn’t accomplish anything, only made the tears fall harder.

It was almost three in the morning before I had stopped crying. I was so tired that I just couldn’t cry anymore. My eyes were burning and I had a migraine. I knew I needed to go to sleep, but there was no way I could sleep in that bed tonight. I walked quietly inside and made a bed for myself on the couch. I’d simply tell him I fell asleep watching a movie. He probably wouldn’t really pay much attention anyway; he never did anymore and now I knew why.

Chapter 12

“Hey, sleepyhead, wake up.” I could feel his hands shaking me from a deep sleep. I opened my eyes and looked up at him. He leaned over the couch, saying my name in that same innocent way he always did. He went on to apologize about our fight last night. Said he didn’t mean to yell at me, but sometimes I just made him so angry that he didn’t know what else to do.

Even being up all night, I still had no idea what I was going to do. So until I figured it out, I had to pretend I was just an overreacting, jealous wife who was completely out of line.

“I’m sorry too, I don’t know what got into me, it was just a long day and I took it out on you.”

“Haylie, you know I love you right? And you know I would never cheat on you? I don’t know how you could ever think that.”

Well, the video I found last night might have given me a clue
. No, I didn’t really say that out loud, but I wanted to. I just brought my hand up to my chest, wrapped my fingers around that heart shaped necklace that I hadn’t taken off since the day it was given to me, and smiled. “You certainly have given me more than I could have ever asked for Chase.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. I’m heading to the gym, I’ll be back in a few hours and then maybe we could grab some lunch?”

I had no desire to be around him at all, but what choice did I have. “I don’t think I’m really feeling too well for lunch.”

“Are you okay? You don’t look well?”

“Yea, I’m fine, I think I’m just overtired. I’m going to lay here for a bit and rest.”

“Okay, I’ll be back to check on you later,” he said as he kissed my forehead.

I used to feel so special when he did that. Now I just wanted to puke. As he walked out the door, my fingers released from the very first birthday present Chase had ever given me all those years ago. I felt the coldness of the silver as it rested back down upon my neck.  I grabbed the pillow from behind my head, put it to my face, and screamed.

I just couldn’t believe how someone could be so nonchalant about all of this. I mean, how heartless do you have to be to lie to the person you vowed to spend the rest of your life with? How can you wake up every morning and be fine with the person staring back at you in the mirror?

Ugh, I was so mad, I couldn’t stand it. I had to figure out some way to get out of there, and fast. But I had nowhere to go. I didn’t want my family to know what was going on. Not yet anyway; they would be devastated. I needed some time away to clear my head and figure out what I was going to do. He was my husband. I had invested seven years in this relationship, and I needed some time to think. I needed to do something other than sulk on the couch, cry, scream and throw things. I’m sure everyone’s first reactions are the same in a situation like this, but all I kept thinking was what was it going to solve?

I’m glad I had an excuse to get out of having lunch with him. There’s no way I was going to be able to handle that. He’d grab my hand from across the table, order for me like he always liked to do, and sweet talk me into forgetting any of this ever happened. I’d look at him the way a wife was supposed to look at her husband and I’d remember just how much I loved him. I’d leave there wanting to give him another chance, except he knew nothing so he would continue to do what he was doing, thinking he was getting away with it. He wasn’t the Chase I married: he was a manipulative, egotistical liar who had done the worst possible thing anyone could do in a marriage.

I was working myself up so much just thinking about it, my stomach churned in knots. I felt sick again. I tried to ignore it, but it was impossible. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. I sat on the bathroom floor in a daze, Chase’s voice echoing over and over again in my head:
I don’t want to go much longer without hearing your voice. I will see you soon sweetheart.

The tiles on the bathroom wall were cold against my back as I sat leaning against them, trying to be strong.
You’ll be ok Haylie; you’ll be ok. People get through this all the time
. I pressed my head against the wall and cried. This time, I didn’t try to hold it in. I know hind-
sight is always twenty-twenty, and maybe five years from now I’ll look back at this whole thing and know that it happened for some inexplicable reason and something good would come out of it, but at that moment, I felt like I was at a standstill. I couldn’t move forward on my own, but the plans I had wanted to create with Chase had been destroyed. Life without him seemed unbearable, but I wasn’t sure I could live it with him anymore either. The hurt, the anger, the sadness, the overwhelming sense of guilt, no one ever deserves to feel like this. What made it even worse was that the pain was caused by the one person who promised never to hurt me.

All of this stress was taking its toll on me. I threw up two more times in the next hour. I didn’t know how much more of it I was going to be able to handle. I couldn’t go to lunch today; I couldn’t go to lunch any day, not with him. I didn’t want to see his face, I didn’t want to hear his voice and I certainly did not want him to touch me. I had to get out of there. Who knew where I would end up, but leaving was the only thing left to do.

The note I left on the kitchen counter didn’t contain much detail. The only thing it said was
I may be gone for a while. Let me be.
I wasn’t sure what his reaction would be, nor did I much care. I thought about not leaving any note at all, but the last thing I needed was people scouring the neighborhood looking for me, expecting to find me lying lifeless in a ditch. I convinced myself I did it for them, for my friends, I didn’t want them to worry. After calling work, (I told them I had a family emergency and would be taking a leave of absence) I threw my suitcase into the trunk of the Audi.

             
It was a relief there was no one around as I didn’t want to answer any questions. I just wanted to get out of there. I slid into the front seat, scrolling up and down through my contacts hoping to come across someone I could call and talk to about all of this. Going through a situation like this, I knew my family would understand. I knew all my close friends I still talked to from high school and college would completely understand my emotions and my choice to get away for a bit, but I still felt completely alone. I knew they wouldn’t know how to comfort me, what to say, nor did I want them to see me for the mess that I was.  I couldn’t bring myself to press the button. Throwing my phone on the passenger’s seat and grabbing the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white; I knew where I had to go.

Chapter 13

Four hours later, and I was there. I drove along the main street area in the heart of Kettlewood Island. I wasn’t sure where I was going to stay, but I knew this was where I needed to be. As much as I didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to have to deal with it, I knew I had to face it. That’s why I was here. I needed to re-evaluate my life, my marriage, who I was. I needed some time to just be alone and process it all, knowing that in just under two weeks, I would come face to face with it. She was going to be here then with
my
husband; in this quaint Carolina town. She, the woman who took my place, was going to be walking the beaches hand in hand with the man who pledged until death do us part: and I was going to confront them.

I pulled into a driveway with a weekly rental sign out front and walked inside. I was immersed in the beach as soon as I opened the door. The pale blue walls were decorated with seashell and starfish pictures and beach scented candles burned on the welcome table.

“How can I help you today?” An older woman, with wavy black hair emerged from behind her desk.

“I’m looking to rent a beach house. I’d like to pay by the week, as I’m not sure how long I’ll be here.”