Forgiveness or Love?

‘’Hey’’, she said to her reflection and she was actually looking for an answer, but there is no sound you can have from emptiness, cause she was empty inside of her.

She was staring at her wet eyes through the mirror and she only saw the life she dreamed but never live- no memory of her happy past and the thing she actually did and made her happy. At her forties she realized that she sacrificed herself into the altar of what everyone else have dreamed she would became, and she became a mother of two beautiful daughters and a cheated spouse and nothing more, and that was what she thought.

She is now preparing a reunion dinner for the handstand that was cheated on her, just because she decided to give up on everything she was, once again for the sake of her family, despite she was strongly believe that the bonds of this family were long gone.

She used the white tablecloth used only for special callers; because she wanted him to be sure he was forgiven. She moved the chairs as close as they could be to give the impression that she wanted him in hers life. She wore the scent he preferred, even though she discussed it herself, just to give the impression that his opinion mattered. She bought a new red dress and wore it, because she wanted him to see the beauty under her wrinkles.

Low lighting, candles and romantic music, just because she wanted everything to be perfect.

Red lipstick because she wanted to leave him scares after the meal.

She was in the kitchen preparing the diner when she heard the phone rang. She picked it up and saw his name.

‘’Nick, hi.”

‘’Hey Irena. I might be a title bit late and wanted to inform you. Do you mind?”

‘’No. it’s ok. Is everything allright?’’

‘’Yes, I just have a little work to do before’’

‘’But its Sunday…”

‘’We can cancel it if you are not okay with it.”

‘’No it’s ok. I’ll wait once again.’’

‘’Irena, please…’’

‘’No, I said it’s ok.”

But, that was not even close to okay, at least at the beginning. She started once again thinking about the past. Nick has always work to do when he was with someone else. But it’s Sunday… What does he have to do on Sunday?

She went back to the mirror and stared at herself. She was beautiful and she knew it, but why doesn’t he see that? And she was perfect in all aspects of a person, but why doesn’t she respect herself?

When they met they fell madly in love. They have spent two years together when they decided to get married. After the first five years of marriage he started acting strange and she always excused his behavior because she loved him more than herself. Their marriage life wasn’t always easy. His parents didn’t approve her from the very beginning and after all these years she started to believe that this was the real reason he married her; just to contradict them.

He wasn’t happy with her, and she either.

Nick arrived after an hour and a half. This whole time she was surrendered to her thoughts and there was a laud voice inside her mind which was telling her to let him go, but she was insisted to save her family. She was too stressed about their meeting and she decided to open the bottle of wine she bought for him. She started to enjoy spending time with herself and suddenly her mind went blank. She couldn’t think about the past any more, she just wanted to see her handstand again, after all this time. She hadn’t heard about him the last four months and she couldn’t wait to talk to him again.

‘’Hey, Irena, I’m sorry for being late.”

She opened the door and saw him holding a bucket of white roses; hers favorite.

 “You came just on time”

“Yeah?”

“The dinner is ready, although you missed your favorite show on TV. Thank you for the flowers. Let me put them on a vase.’’

“I had something important to do, I am so sorry, Irena.”

“You know I always forgive you” she said and hung him like nothing has ever happen.

They walked to the table and started having dinner. He wasn’t in a mood for talking albeit it was him to ask for this conduct. He started making compliment about the meal and wine and he said that he missed the time they used to spending together. He looked at her and stayed quite.

‘’What is wrong, Nick?”

“Nothing sweaty, I just missed you.”

“How can you say that? You are not even looking me in my eyes…”

“Don’t you start again, please, you are being predictable!’’

“Hah, what do you mean?”

“I messed almost everything with you. I missed your present and your smile and your laugh, I missed your cooking but not your insecurity and your flummery, so, please, don’t do that.”

“So you admit it?”

“I can’t hide it anymore.”

‘’Why, Nick?”

“I have no answer…”

“But it must be one”

“You were suppressed, Irena.”

“No, I weren’t!”

“Yes, you were. You think you are a saint. No you are not. How many time have you looked at me and wonder what does it keep you back? How many times did you think that I am worthless? How many times did you want to end this marriage? Tell me…”

“None” she said while she was turning her head to another direction.

‘’Why Irena? Because I can give you enerything you always wanted? You knew we were unmatched together, no one wanted us together, and not even we wanted this relationship after some years. Our daughters have left home just to avoid our fights. Do you keep having those pills? Did you manage to fix your shity routine? Are you finally happy? For what was all these? For a great bank account?”

“Because I loved you, asshole.”

He stopped talking. The color of his skin turned red because of him shame. He sisn't expect to hear those words. <<I love you>>, no… He didn’t even remember when the last time he said those words to his wife was. But he felt it. All of his body was shaken every time he did something that was going to hurt her. They had spent a life time together with its ups and downs, but they were still strongly connected, although they hardly ever spoke about their feelings.

“I am sorry, Irena. I am very sorry.”

‘’I see you know nothing about me…”

‘’I know you are my wife. I know you were always by my side and I was always looking for excuses to avoid you when I was in trouble. I know you were always busy trying to make everyone happy besides yourself, and I was trying to change this way of yours because I knew you weren’t happy, but you always thought you weren’t good enough for me. Why? I might not had the right words to say it but I was worried about you. And I was fool to believe you will always be here. I knew it, when you ask me for divorce, everything was lost and I couldn’t handle it. This is why I left. I wanted you to change your mind but I did nothing to help the situation. I thought it would be better this way.”

‘’Nick, the last few days I am continuously thinking about everything. Before you called to say you are going to be late I was thinking on everything I lost with this marriage. I thought I lost my self on it but it turned out that I found myself in you. I don’t regret about this choice but I regret for not fighting for this, for you and for us.”

‘’I love you, Irena’’ he stopped her. “You may believe otherwise, but I do” he continued while he was trying to accost her.

‘’I don’t care about your money. I never did. I didn’t want fancy gifts from you, just you attention and it hurt me when you …”

“Stop, please” he interrupted her. “You know I mean the half of what I say. It’s just that I wanted to enjoy our dinner and you were starting to be irritable.”

‘’Hah, you are accusing me again?’ I’m sick of your behavior…’’

She went out of her herself again. She left the table and went to the kitchen to avoid him. She couldn’t accept his point, she never did. She wanted to believe she was perfect and that was what led her to medical treat; her insecurity and some depression aspects of her character. That was no one else’s fault; only hers. No matter how hard he tried to help her and make her happy her insecurity was always got in the way. That is what led him to someone else’s hang. But that happened once in their past, and he regret it quickly. Having compunctions he talked to her about his unfair and that was his bigger mistake. He destroyed her, and no matter how hard he was trying to fix it she was broken. He knew that if he wanted to save his marriage he should leave her alone; that was what his wife’s psychologist advised him to do. She needed to pick up her pieces by herself, and so he left.

He found her in tiers lying on the floor in the kitchen, when he went after heard that something was broke. She kept the picture of their wending in her hands, after destroying the frame it decorated. He took the picture from her and started to tear up while staring at it. He lied on the floor next to her wife and asked her to look at it again.

“Look at us, sweaty. We were so happy. I do not know what happened after all these years but I missed this smile of yours. Look at it. I want it all again. I want us.”

“Nick, I’m sorry. ‘’

“I love you Irena.”

“I love you, too.”

‘’I promise to you, she meant nothing to me. Only you matter.”

“Nick, I know I pushed you to her and, no matter how much I didn’t want to accept that fact, I cannot change it.”

“It’s not your fault and it’s not mine, either, my love. We had to lose us to love us more, and I am sure you love me, as I want you to be sure about my feeling.”

“I am…”