Cruel Summer

Trying to save a failing relationship was like watering a dying plant. You know it's a futile attempt but you still do it anyway, hoping for an overnight miracle to restore it back to health. You change the soil in the flower pot, add fresh manure, cut off the dying parts, water and tend for it continuously, day-in-day-out. When it sprouts a fresh leaf, you're happy - thinking your efforts are bearing fruits. But with each new leaf it brings, other vital parts like the root withers and if the root is dead so are the new fresh leaves sprouted.

Slowly, inevitably, the plant dies at last and you're left with its shriveled remains.

Looking back I'd be kidding myself if I said I didn't know for months that Alex was drifting away from me. It all started a few weeks after the engagement ceremony. He was always out working late, and when he eventually came home he feigned tired to even eat my food, bringing more work with him and shut himself away in the dining room which he often used as his study. We didn't indulge anymore in those couple banters like we often used to, and for weeks we wouldn't even touch each other, let alone make love.

At first, I was sympathetic, knowing that his job was difficult and demanding. He handled high-powered financial shit that didn't make much sense to me no matter how many times he tried explaining it to me. But I grew accustomed to it and gave him space whenever I noticed he was in a Back-off mode. He'd insisted I moved into his swanky penthouse a few months after we met to further strengthen our relationship, and I'd been living there for three years. My friends had teased me endlessly about having a sugar daddy given the ten-year age difference between us, but that was only because they were jealous. Alex was a hottie, one of England's most eligible bachelors, known famously for nanosecond affairs before he met me. I changed him to become the good man he was today - or so I believed.

The night it all came down to ruin I'd taken my best friend Lyon's advice to make the first move at rekindling our dying relationship. It was a Friday, and Alex had texted me that he'd be home early for once so I'd stopped at the mall on my way home from work to purchase the condiments I'd use in making one of his favorite meals, and a bottle of his favorite red label. I even got flowers and scented candles for the table - to give the evening a romantic atmosphere. I planned to make light conversation and flirt - like in the old days - and then I was going to lead him up to the bed and have him make mad, passionate love to me and remind him how good it could be between us when we actually spend some time together.

But the minute he opened the door, saw the skimpy short dress I was wearing, and looked over my shoulder at the laid-out table his face gave him away.

"Oh, Sasha." His concerned expression was gut-wrenching, ripping my heart into shreds. It wasn't the reaction I'd anticipated. And what was worse was that his next words set the signals off that something was terribly wrong.

"Can we talk?"

Trying to play down the tension while ignoring the car crash unfolding in slow motion, I pulled him closer to kiss him softly on the lips like I always did. "Hey, dear. How was your day? It feels good to have you home on time for once. I've made Chicken Divan, just the way you like it. Why don't you go up and shower and we can have it together..." I droned on, babbling and fighting back tears at the reality of what was about to happen. I didn't want to listen to whatever it was he wanted to say because I knew what he wanted to say. I could tell by the blank, grim expression on his face that he knew I wasn't going to like it. "The oven timer will go off in about five min - "

"Sasha." His voice cut through my bullshit. My shoulders sagged in resignation. "Come sit down please."

Shit. If I needed to be sitting down it really wasn't going to be good. Could he be ill? Contracted HIV or some deadly sexually-transmitted disease that he'd unknowingly passed on to me and wanted to tell me about it? My stomach roiled, the sweet scent of dinner suddenly making me sick. Oh God, please let him not have AIDS.

I let him take my hand and lead me to the dining table, and kept hold of his hand as we sat across from each other. "What's the matter, dear?"

He pulled his hand away from mine, folded his arms, and leaned closer towards the table. I sat still, bracing myself for the blow as he swallowed, jaw set, and then said the last words I was expecting to hear.

"I've met someone else."

The silence that followed was enough to make the whole world tilt as I struggled to process what I'd just heard. "You...what? How? For how long have you been meaning to tell me?"

"Her name's Tessa. She's the new intern I've been working with for months now. We got together for a drink five weeks ago and now she wants more. And I want more too. With her, of course." He didn't even have the decency to look guilty as he laid bare the facts of his infidelity.

Head spinning, I stared at him, at a man who once seemed so familiar to me but was now a stranger, someone I didn't know at all. "So...what you're saying is... we're over? You're gonna throw away these three past years for some girl?"

"She's not some girl." I caught a flicker of affront in his eyes as he leaned back in his seat, broad shoulders lifting in his perfectly polished suit. "And yes we're over. This thing with Tessa, it started off as just casual sex - a no-strings-attached relationship. But I want to be with her now, not you."

'Not you'. The words boinged from one part of my brain to the other as rage coursed through me, drowning out the hurt. "I can't believe this." I stood up, scooting the chair back on the tiled floor. "You cheated on me? And you're not even sorry for it. Well then fuck you. Fuck you for sticking your dick down some whore while I was feeling sorry for you being tired and stressed about your job. I bet she's the reason you looked worn out when you come home every evening because you fuck her after office hours. Did you ever think about how I'd feel? What did I ever do to you? Was I a bitch to your business associates and they told you to cut me off? Am I getting too old for you now? Did Daddy need a new whore?"

He adjusted himself in discomfort which told me I'd hit a spot. I should have known. It was always my youth that'd attracted him, he preferred me to eat less to avoid growing overweight, and when I'd stopped using my waist trainer he'd complained my waist was filling out. But I didn't want to look like a sexy vixen forever. I was nearly thirty for Christ's sake; no amount of make-up and brush-ups was going to hide the fact that I was aging.

I tugged at the gold band he'd given me. Funnily enough, we still hadn't picked a date for the wedding. I guess he'd had other priorities.

Jerk.

I flung the ring at him in annoyance, watching it bounce off his chest and skittered on the kitchen floor, spinning and catching the sunlight before it slowly settled.

"I'll go pack my things."

"Where will you go? You've got nobody."

"That's not any of your business anymore is it?" I retorted icily, feeling the pain in my chest seep the last drop of life in my heart, replacing it with ash and stone. I needed to cling to my anger until I was somewhere safe. Someplace I wouldn't have Alex's betrayal haunt me.

I hurried out of the kitchen, slamming the door so loudly that it rattled the glass windows.

In our bedroom, I frantically threw the things I needed for a few days into a small bag. I'd come back for the rest once I decided the next step to take for my life. But for now, I just needed to get away from there, away from Alex, away from the place I'd called home for the past three years.

As soon as my bag was ready, I called an Uber.

Alex was still sitting at the kitchen table when I left. He was whispering over the phone. I wondered if he was inviting his new girlfriend to come over with her belongings now that the coast was clear.

"I'll call you when I'm ready to come to take the rest of my stuff."

He hung up on the phone and gave me a curt nod. "Okay. Stay safe."

And that was it. That was the only thing the guilty fucker could say.

I left without saying goodbye and as I made my way downstairs, I wished for some sort of miracle to make him realize what he was about to lose and come after me but no such thing happened.

It was only when I was waiting out in the rain for my Uber to arrive that I realized he never even apologized. It was mid-autumn and a bit chilly tonight and dressed in a rapidly dampening threadbare dress I'd worn to turn him on, I shivered as I waited, trying to keep myself going on the surge of adrenaline for just a while longer. I didn't even have the patience to change. I was fleeing after all.

When the Uber pulled up, I tossed my bag in the back and climbed in after it. Hunched in the back seat, I willed myself to hold my tears in a little longer.

"Where to, ma'am?" asked the driver who looked advanced.

I told him the address of the one place I wouldn't be thrown out of, where I'd always be welcomed, where I knew I'd get all the comfort I needed and be safe to fall apart.

Lyon's place.