Happy October, my friends! It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month as well as Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness month, but this month’s theme is What Scares You the Most, so I thought I’d share something that I’m working on. I’m writing my first book, and the story is very timely, and scary, in a way. Make sure you read the entire excerpt to the very end…NO SKIPPING…
Phoenix Rising
She stands on a narrow ledge, teetering between destruction and triumph. For the past year, Charlotte has dealt with the unimaginable. It’s not that similar things haven’t happened to millions of other people, but this- THIS- took the wind right out of her. It left her gasping for air and grasping for anything to hold on to, for she was plunged into an abyss that she didn’t see coming. Something that she thought only happened to other people…
A Saturday morning in mid-September, one year earlier: Charlotte was catering a bridal shower, and ran out of chocolate pudding the night before, so she and her husband, Matteo, ran to the local grocery store that opened early. As she was walking quickly to the refrigerator section, she suddenly realized that she was alone. “Um, where the hell is he?” Charlotte wondered to herself, but pressed for time, she trudged along and filled her arms with chocolate pudding cups, and headed to the checkout area. When she got to the front of the store, there was Matteo, arms stretched out, holding a bouquet of her favorite colored roses. He had a huge smile on his face, and as Charlotte got closer, he went right up to her, handed her the roses and said, “See! I love you!” Then he kissed her in front of all the employees, in some grand gesture of love and devotion. But why? For years, Matteo gave Charlotte only red roses, and only at prescribed occasions, like Valentine’s Day, Anniversaries, Mother’s Day, etc. She tried so many times to hint at different colored roses, or different flowers altogether, and would always mention out loud when a friend would post on social media that her husband surprised her with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. It never seemed to make a difference-until now.
It had been a little over a year since Charlotte found the login information. She signed in to her saved passwords to find the login info. for a bill she was going to pay online when she stumbled upon usernames and passwords to multiple “hookup” websites. Shocked, she did the only thing she could do at the moment- She took her laptop and quickly knocked on her friends’ front door, to make sure she wasn’t seeing things- to make sure that what she was seeing was real. It was real, alright, and she needed to confront Matteo, but he was on a business call and wouldn’t be back for hours. She tried her best to wait until he was home to say something, but she was in such shock that when he called and said he was only 30 minutes away, she blurted out to him what she had found. He calmly said that they’d talk about it when he got home…
It was worse than she imagined. Not only had he been on the websites, but he had given one of his credit card numbers to a woman in another country, who he was having an online “affair” with. Charlotte immediately asked for the credit card, but Matteo said that he destroyed it on the way home- for reasons unknown to Charlotte- perhaps so she couldn’t take it and look up all of the transactions. She was blindsided, completely taken aback by it all, and didn’t know what to do. They were approaching their twentieth anniversary. Someone close to both of them advised them to try to work it out, because it seemed silly to throw away twenty years of marriage, so that’s what they did. It wasn’t easy, and Charlotte had lost trust, but nonetheless, she thought that things were settling into a “new normal”, until the next summer…
Charlotte and Matteo had settled into a new understanding, and Charlotte truly thought that things were getting better with their relationship. They had even taken a vacation in late Spring that they both enjoyed. A road trip in July included many great conversations. Charlotte thought that the worst was over, and that they were on the road to living her dream: growing old together as empty-nesters, and enjoying their time together. But it was not meant to be. The dream was only hers.
After the July road trip, Matteo started acting strange. He would make arguments out of nothing, and was always wanting to leave the house to visit a certain relative, who he never really visited regularly until then. A lot of the time, he had the smell of alcohol on his breath, but he wasn’t drinking at home. And then there was the iPhone- he was constantly looking at his work phone, like a teenager obsessed with seeking “likes” on a social media post. Matteo’s behavior had changed drastically, and whenever Charlotte would remark about it, he would either laugh it off, or get nasty and say that nothing was different. It was more than frustrating for Charlotte, and she was growing exhausted by the emotional ups and downs- which leads back to that Saturday morning in mid-September…
“Why did he just do that?” Charlotte thought to herself in the car, as they drove back from the grocery store. It was a nice gesture, and he gave her her favorite colored roses, finally- but she wasn’t convinced that the gesture was done without an alternative agenda in place. She felt bad to think that way, but she was tired from prepping for the bridal shower all week, and emotionally, she was fried. The rest of the day went by in a daze of weirdness and celebration, as it was a milestone anniversary for Charlotte’s parents, and there were many activities planned. They got through that day, but on Sunday morning, it happened.
Charlotte woke up on that Sunday morning, and saw that it was a beautiful Fall day. It was sunny and warm, and that made her happy. She got through catering the bridal shower, they had all celebrated her parents’ anniversary, and things could get back to normal. She was to meet a friend at noon, and since it was nice out, she mentioned that she’d walk to meet her friend. Matteo immediately got nasty, saying that he always drives her, and why doesn’t she want him to drive her. Not wanting to engage in yet another argument, she agreed to let him drive her, but first he had to get gas in his car. So, she took a bath and got ready while Matteo was gone, knowing that he’d announce his return, as he always did.
When Charlotte came downstairs, Matteo was nowhere to be found. She looked in the bathroom, but it was empty. She called for him- maybe he was in the basement, but nothing. Then she knocked on her parents’ front door, because it wasn’t unusual for Matteo to pop in at their house and say “hello”. He wasn’t there, either. She finally went out on the front porch, and saw his car parked in its usual spot. Knowing how unusual it was for Matteo to not come back in the house after getting gas, she walked down the front stairs and towards the car to make sure that everything was okay. As she got closer to the car, she saw Matteo through the back window, hunched over in the driver’s seat. When she got to the driver’s side door, she saw that the car window was open and Matteo was looking at his phone. Charlotte cleared her throat, and the noise startled Matteo. He immediately jumped in his seat and threw his phone into his shorts pocket. What was he hiding?
Charlotte asked Matteo what he was doing, and he said, “Waiting to drive you to your friend’s house.” She told him that he never waits in the car, but he insisted that he was waiting for her, and to go get her stuff if she was ready to go. She knew something was going on, so she asked Matteo who he was texting. He told her he wasn’t texting anyone. “Then show me your phone.” she said. He said that he doesn’t show anyone his work phone. “I’m your wife, you can surely show ME” she insisted, but he wouldn’t show her, and swore that he wasn’t texting anyone. Charlotte said that she wasn’t quite ready to leave, so why don’t they both go back inside for a few minutes. Matteo turned the car off and walked back to the house with her. As they were climbing the stairs, a text notification sound came from Matteo’s phone. Charlotte’s heart sunk. She knew something was happening- something wrong. “You ARE texting someone! Show me your phone NOW!” But Matteo refused. He insisted that he doesn’t show his work phone to ANYONE. They kept arguing as they walked into the house and Charlotte kept asking to see the phone, but Matteo wouldn’t budge. Then, in a moment of desperation, Matteo raised his hands up in the air, and at that moment, Charlotte did what she would have never done before- she stuck her hand in Matteo’s shorts pocket and grabbed the phone. In his haste, Matteo didn’t lock the phone, and it was opened to his last text chat. What Charlotte saw was heartbreaking and infuriating at the same time: and explicit text exchange between Matteo and another woman. She felt sick. She felt like she wasn’t even inside her own body. Did the last year mean nothing? Was she just faked into believing that he was sorry and wanted to work things out? Matteo tried to grab the phone out of her hands, but Charlotte gripped that phone like her life depended on it. In that moment, her life DID depend on it. She needed the truth, she needed answers. She ran out of her house, phone still in hand, to her parents’ house. As soon as her parents answered the door, she showed them the phone. It was enough for her father to run to her house with the phone and confront Matteo. “Just be honest, Matteo. Tell everyone the truth!” Charlotte’s father yelled at him, “Just tell us the truth!”
Matteo just kept trying to get the phone, unsuccessfully, and then shouted out, “That’s it! We need a break!” Then Matteo went into the front closet, picked out a few articles of clothing that he kept in there, grabbed his laptop and tried to exit the house. Charlotte’s father kept demanding that Matteo tell them all the truth, then Matteo, flying into a rage, threatened Charlotte’s father. With that, the police were called. Matteo was separated from Charlotte and her family, and each were interviewed and gave statements. Neither of them pressed charges. The police eventually gave Matteo his phone, then he got in his car and left.
He never came back…
Well, What did you think? It’s a rough draft, but I wanted to share it with all of you. And now I’ll tell you what scares me the most: PEOPLE. The state of the world we live in now is just plain scary at times- Selfishness, entitlement, utter disregard for our fellow human beings- it’s not good. I’m not saying that there AREN’T good people in the world, because there certainly ARE, in fact, in the past year, I’ve learned how many truly wonderful people there are, and how many of those wonderful people are in my life, personally, but I’ve also seen so much of the bad and the ugly. You see, although the characters are fictional, and many of the facts are blurred in the book I’m working on, this is loosely based upon a true story: MY story. This is what I’ve lived for the past year, and I’m choosing to share some of it now, because just like with my breast cancer journey- this journey may help others, too, and even if it helps one person, then I consider it a success.
Be good to each other- the world needs it. Love to each of you.