Between Two Lovers (Part Two of the Sequel to: Something We Have to Talk About)
By Nicole Braun (aka: secrets and nici) nicolebraun77@aol.com

I am the writer of this story and this story is my property. No one may post this story on the Internet, publish, copy, or use in part, without my written consent to do specifically so. 

Since almost all of my stories are about emotions, conflict and people coping with life, this story is not a stroke story, it is a romance story if anything. There are very little sex scenes in any of my writings. So if you're looking for a stroke story, I'm not your kind of writer, my stories you will not like. 

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Jonathan spent the rest of the day, and into the evening working in the basement. He only went upstairs when needed. 

It was after the children went to bed, that Susan slowly, pensively walked down the steps, seeking him as he meandered through rooms cluttered with building material, still planning his work for the next days.

For moments that seemed like hours, they stood staring at each other. She wanted to speak, to be the first of them to open up and again try to explain, but in her thoughts, her hopes, she still wanted him to ask her that one simple question, "Why?" She still hoped that he would want to try and understand.

Breaking from contemplating his wife, Jonathan looked around the party room, at the expanse of wallboard, lumber, tools and fixtures haphazardly strewn around on the floor. His thoughts wandered out to the new pickup parked out front of the garage, "You were right Susan. I let myself go. But, I... my biggest mistake was trusting you with my future, my happiness." 

With a deep sigh, he dropped his head, "No, maybe it wasn't trust, maybe it was just laziness. I don't know right now." Raising his head up, his eyes cold and glaring into hers, "But, one thing I do know. That has end." 

Waving his right hand around to then point an index finger at his chest, "If all this has taught me anything, it's that from now on, I'm looking out for number one first."

Holding up two fingers close to her face he glared slowly anger building within him, "Right now I've only got two interests, and neither one of them is you. The first is me. The other is the children." 

Susan's grimaced slightly and pulled back at his words and the fingers he waved so closely in front of her. 

Letting his hand fall and turning from her, the image of her entwined with her lover masochistically dragging his thoughts down into deep dark places in his mind, he dropped his shoulders in pain. "Right now, nothing else matters," he sighed more to himself than to her. 

Attempting to shake the thoughts of her with her lover, her screaming out in a passion that he had never seen her have, he raised his head, "What you did to me the other night, and what you have been doing to me, is unforgivable. Maybe I am responsible in part for what happened, but that doesn't change the wrong that you've done."

Turning back to her, his eyes now hard and bitter, "No matter what, you had no right to do me so wrong." 

Susan stood there, not saying a word, her head bent down, her eyes to the floor. Neither he, nor if anyone else had been there, could read her emotions. She was waiting, letting him have his say. Letting him roll through the emotions controlling him. Nothing she could, or could want to say, would at that moment, be heard or understood by him. She knew instinctively, now was the time to remain silent. This was his moment, his time to vent. Maybe afterwards, after his anger had flared and burnt out, maybe then they could talk peacefully, constructively. She promised herself, not again to make the mistakes she had made that fateful evening.

Turning and pacing back and forth in front of her, he began ticking off those thoughts that had been in his mind the last few days, and the actions he had started, and planned. 

"You know you told me a lot of bull shit about divorce. If your para-legal lover was as smart as you think he is, he should have known better." She shrank back shocked for a moment at his angry glare and his knowledge of her lover, not knowing what, how or how much he knew. 

"You would suffer just as much, or more, and not only that, I could get your boy toy into a lot of hot water if those were my intentions."  The smirk on Jonathan's face was quite evident.

Letting her stew about how much he knew, he continued, "Those aren't my intentions though. At least, I care about the children." 

He stopped his pacing again, and again for a moment glaring at her, before continuing on. "I'm not going to let you and him control my life or my life with my children."

Pointing his index finger to the ground, "I'm staying right here, like it or not."  

"Next point," without stopping his stride, and not looking towards Susan for a reaction, "You decided, without asking me or discussing with me, to change the rules of our marriage. You decided, all on your own, that you no longer needed our joint approval or consent to act outside of this, our marriage." 

Stopping his pacing for a moment to glare at her then continued pacing, "Okay, I know you'll say that I don't own your body, and what you do with it is your concern. Well, guess what, I say the same. Not only that, I don't feel I have any need to discuss with you what my plans for my future are. You lost that right. Right now, our joint future is the children, nothing more. I could give a rat's ass what you do with your lover, because you aren't mine anymore."

Susan was shocked at the force of his venom and his last words. So shocked that she involuntarily gasped and croaked, "Jonathan! Please don't tell me you love me so little that this has changed you, us, so much! I love you. Please this doesn't have to be this way." She had not wanted to speak. She knew she shouldn't have.

"Love?" stopping mid-stride and pondering, "Love?" Turning to her with his face contorted in pain, "Do you know how close love and hate are to each other?"

Breaking down inside, his hands shaking, his legs no longer able to support him, he sat down on the stack of wallboard where a few short hours before he had sat happily laughing with his children. Fighting back tears from his eyes, he dropped his head, hiding his face from her; "I love you now more than ever, maybe even more than before. But, at the same time, I hate your guts. I hate you more than I have hated anything in my whole life." 

He turned his head up towards her, his eyes moist, his face still contorted with pain and anger, "I hate you. I hate you for what you've done to me." 

Susan stood there for moments. Her hands covering her ears, her face an expression in shock, "Noooo!"

 As she turned running up the stairs sobbing, he lay down on the wallboard, curling up into a fetal position. His mind wracked with images of her and her lover. Images more graphic than any porn movie could ever be. He whimpered, "Susan, why? Why did you do this to me? I love you. Why?" 

Susan ran up to her bedroom, throwing herself sobbing onto the bed. Filled with pain and anguish she too curled into a fetal position. Her pain at hearing his words was like fire on her skin, and acid in her stomach. Her hands still held her ears closed, but his words, "I hate you," echoed over and over again in her mind. The vision of his anger, as he said those words, echoed in her consciousness. 

Now she knew in her heart, from what he said, and how he acted, he never loved her enough to want to know why. He never loved her enough to want to understand. He had never asked her why, because why did not matter. Only that mattered. 

Had he ever loved her or had he only loved having her?  Was it now that she was tainted goods, that an other man had taken his property, was that all that had meaning to him?

For him, there was no gray, no color, and no complications that made right wrong and wrong maybe something that happened, that one lived with and made the best of. His world was only black or white, right or wrong, here or there, yours or mine, never anything in between. 

She slowly cried herself to sleep, knowing, feeling that he had never loved her, never would or could love her. She felt, she realized, she had been open to involving herself with Rich, her lover, because intuitively she had known that Jonathan had not truly loved her. Their marriage of love had been a marriage of convenience for him. He had never given her his true love.

Days then weeks went by. Jonathan finished the basement rooms and moved down there.  

With the children, now that he wasn't working so many long hours, he spent more time. He took them to amusement parks, he bought a 5th-wheel camper and took them camping with him. 

In all of these ventures he insured that Susan would not be welcomed or present. If she asked to go along, he would either ignore her or ask her if she didn't have something better to do, "Aren't you neglecting someone?" 

The oddness of his behavior with her was even beginning to be noticed by the children. They started to feel and act insecure and shy, almost fearful when the both of them were present.

When she again tried to bring up the subject, he walked away. He refused to talk about it, or about them. The only time he spoke about the matter, were those few barbed comments. 

One day after they had put the children to bed, she asked him to wait. She had been moody all day. They sat again at the kitchen table. "Jonathan, we've broken up. He didn't want to be the reason for hurting our marriage anymore. He's moving away. It's over." 

Jonathan snorted, "And that is suppose to make a difference?" 

She flinched at his words, and the bitterness in them. After all the weeks, nothing had changed. Only his anger had slowly ebbed into bitterness.

He stood up and asked her, "Was that all the news?" 

Susan sat staring at her hands for a long time, before looking up questioningly into his eyes, "Is that all we have to say to each other? Are we that far gone?" 

He only turned and walked away, and down the stairs to his rooms. 

Down in his room, sitting on his bed, anger, and a desire to punish her, cooked within him. He repeated, "And that is suppose to make a difference." 

Life slowly went it's course, and nothing changed but that Susan became quieter, more thoughtful and contemplative. Days turned into weeks. Then slowly Christmas and New Years came and went. That Christmas had a chill, a chill not explainable with the snow on the ground and the winds that howled outside. 

Little Nancy was the first of the children to break under the cold atmosphere. She began to become at times irrationally aggressive and at other times reclusive. She avoided both her father and her mother, and hung almost entirely on her brother. 

Maybe because of this, he too began to slowly change. Slowly he seemed to become older than he actually was. 

Last it was Cindy, the oldest that started to stay more and more away from home, becoming involved in school activities, and friends. 

So one day as Jonathan came home from work, he found Susan sitting again at the kitchen table, in the furthest corner. The children were again absent. 

"Jonathan, there's something we have to talk about," she said again, but this time with a deep sadness, without hope.

In her hands she held a large manila envelope, which she slid over the table towards him. "I've filed for divorce." 

Continued in story: It's All Good (allgood.txt)
