and I Believe. Jodie Richard-Bohman

in front of me, he brought me to him for a kiss. “Happy birthday.”

      “Thank-you,” I said, pulling him even closer inhaling the heavenly scent of his cologne.

      Our kiss went on forever and I cherished every second of it. I loved him so much and it was wonderful being with him. I slowly slid my hands down to his pants and started to unzip them. He stopped me.

      “Kate, are you sure you are ready for this?”

      I nodded my head “yes”.

      Taking my hand, we made our way to the blanket where he gently laid me on my back and began kissing my lips first, then my eyes, cheeks, ears and neck.

      “I love you so much,” he whispered before softly unbuttoning my shirt. I pulled his shirt up over his head and within seconds our naked bodies were one. He held my hand the entire time and showered me with gentle kisses and many “I love you’s”, and when we were done, we laid wrapped in each other’s arms savoring our first time of becoming one. It was the sweetest, most touching moment of my life.

      But now, all of these years later, as I lie here, I wonder how something so sweet and sacred could be the exact thing that he almost did with another woman. Again, tears burned my eyes over the thought of him sleeping with Angie. Just thinking about it made me feel very disgusted with myself. I couldn’t get into the shower quick enough. Turning the water on as hot as it would get, I scrubbed my entire body as if it had been invaded.

      With my hair soaking wet and the towel wrapped around me, I went to the medicine cabinet to take some sleeping pills. For just a split second, I had an urge to take the entire bottle, but I quickly snapped myself out of it and forgot about such an absurd idea.

      Chapter 4

      The next morning, I awoke to Aaron sitting on the edge of our bed staring at me. My night was restless and I knew by his red, swollen eyes that he hadn’t slept much either. Before he could utter a word, I darted into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. Leaning on it, I slid to the floor and buried my face into my hands. The thought of being moments away from hearing about what he “almost” did with Angie pushed me over the edge and I started to cry again. My heart was so heavy, my spirit crushed, and I wasn’t sure I could bear to listen to what he had to say.

      “Kate, please come out,” he pleaded with me from the other side of the door.

      He looked as nervous as I was when I finally opened the bathroom door and asked the question I didn’t want to know the answer to.

      “When did this start?” I choked out, trying to not cry again.

      He hesitated for a moment as tears filled his eyes. “Kate, you’re my best friend, a great mom and a fantastic wife. I love you more than anything in this world,” he rambled.

      “Just answer me!” I cut him off.

      Letting out a heavy sigh of defeat, he finally began. “I ran into her in October at the last home football game. She was ahead of me in line at the concession stand, and when she said ‘Hi’ to me, I noticed she looked really bad. I asked if she was sick or something and that’s when she told me how her husband had just left her for another woman. I felt bad and told her to email or call me if she needed someone to talk to. I gave her my business card, but didn’t think much about it after that. The next week was when she contacted me for the first time. Kate - I swear to God we talked only by email at first, and I thought nothing more of her than a friend.”

      I sat down on the edge of the bed and was quiet for a few minutes, trying to absorb everything he had just told me. As much as I didn’t want to ask my next question, I knew this was something I needed to know. “When did you “almost” sleep with her?” I point-blank asked him.

      His face instantly turned white as a ghost, and he started stuttering around.

      “Aaron,” I snapped again.

      “The night before Thanksgiving,” he whispered, looking down at the ground.

      My memory was racing to remember that day. Then all of a sudden everything clicked. “Are you kidding me? Wasn’t that when the girls spent the night at Kristie’s house while you were at the Creekside and I stayed home all by myself?”

      Creekside was a local bar in our town that we had hung out at from the time we were old enough to drink up until we had kids.

      For a second he wasn’t so apologetic and almost seemed irritated with me. “Whoa, wait a minute here. Don’t go blaming me for you being home all by yourself. That was your own fault. Remember how I planned a nice romantic evening at home for just the two of us. You were fine all through dinner until I started kissing your neck. That is when you got irritated and accused me of planning the whole thing just so you would have sex with me.”

      “So I turned you down for sex and that gives you the right to run uptown and try to get it from your ex-girlfriend?” I shot back at him.

      I could tell my words angered him, but he did not yell back. “No, that’s not what happened and you know it. Remember how after dinner we sat in silence watching TV. I asked if you wanted to go out for some drinks. You got mad about that too and told me to go by myself.”

      Remembering the fight and knowing that I was the one who started it, I calmed my tone.

      “I’m sorry I was grumpy that night, but that doesn’t give you the right to leave me to go meet up with her.”

      “I never had any intention of meeting up with her. I was sitting at the bar in Creekside with our friends when she came in with a group of girls. As soon as she saw me, she walked over to us. She was drunk, and I could tell she was coming onto me, so I left to go home to you. But when I crawled into bed next to you and kissed your neck, you sighed in disgust, shoved my hand off your thigh and scooted as far away from me as you could get. I was hurt by your constant rejection, so I grabbed my pillow and went downstairs to sleep on the couch. But the longer I lay there, the angrier I got, so I went back to Creekside.” He knelt beside me and grabbed both of my hands. “I swear I didn’t go there because of her. I just wanted to drink a few beers to help calm myself. But she was still there and wouldn’t leave me alone and by the end of the night, I was drunk too. That’s the only reason I went back to her house.”

      Jerking my hands away from him, I sat there feeling like I could vomit at any time. “Stop! Please stop!”

      “No, Kate, I can’t. I have been lying to you for far too long, and I can’t do it anymore. You deserve to know the truth.”

      I don’t know if I can handle the truth, I thought.

      “We went back to her house. It got pretty heated, but I swear I stopped it before it went that far. I left her house right after that. I was so disgusted with myself that I cut off all ties with her. At first, she wouldn’t take no for an answer and called nonstop until finally I screamed at her to leave me alone. After that, all I did was concentrate completely on you and me, but things never got any better there.”

      “What do you mean things never got better? I wasn’t aware that our relationship was so bad and that we were working on it.”

      “Are you serious? Kate, it has been nine months since we last had sex.”

      “What in the heck does our sex life have to do with this?”

      “Kate, it has everything to do with it. I take full responsibility for my lying and going to her house, but how can you sit there and act like there is nothing wrong with our sex life? We have only had sex maybe two times a year since Mia was born, and before that, we only did it when you wanted to get pregnant.”

      By the way he was pacing back and forth, it was obvious he was getting angry again. He then stopped in front of me with the most hurt look in his eyes. “You make me feel like I make your skin crawl every time I touch you. It’s almost like you are disgusted to even be with me intimately. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”

      “I’m