Following

Bethan

Would it be a bad thing to admit that I'm excited? I feel...I don't know, like something is happening finally, after years of inertia and stagnation. I feel...invigorated, like I have a purpose again. I don't know if it's the contact with Katie or what, but I feel...closer to Laney somehow, like she's within reach.

I still haven't mentioned the photos to Katie. I can sense that she's on edge and I'm not going to be responsible for adding to that burden. She's just a kid really. But I am curious.

Luckily, with my focus on Dave, I've applied my attention elsewhere. I've been thinking through what I know and the more I piece it together, the more I wonder about us and what we were. I mean, I thought we were happy but...were we? He was away a lot and I thought that it was just with his job but seeing Katie, I'm starting to question exactly who this man is that I married. And it makes me angry to think that he had something...else and that he could escape so easily to a life that ran parallel to ours. He always made me feel guilty for the intensity of my grief, like I was overstating it, indulging it. I could see it in the pained expression in his eyes, not pitying or sympathetic or concerned, just weary with the monotony of it and the inconvenience. He withdrew and now, I think on it, he was there less and less, claiming that we both couldn't afford to fall to pieces and how he needed to work, to keep us going, to provide himself with a distraction.

People deal with grief in different ways, I thought at the time and was grateful when I could sit with my sorrow without judgement or restriction, while he worked.

But what if he wasn't working? What if he just assumed a fuller presence in his other life?

I'm red at my core. The idea of his deception fuels me. He doesn't know I have eyes on him but I'm waiting, following, and while I monitor him to find the opportune moment, my fury is building ready to explode.

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366 words

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