I’d done it. Done what I thought I couldn’t.

I left her…the one good thing I had in my purgatory.

So, why did it hurt so bad that my eyes stung? I could barely breathe or think. Shouldn’t I have been proud I finally found the inner strength to do what was best for her?

I blinked and swallowed, but the lump of shame in my throat wouldn’t budge.

It was a necessary separation. I couldn’t keep hurting her, and that night I physically hurt her.

She deserved more, so much more than me: an angry, depressed, broken man. I couldn’t give her what she needed—love. So, I did what I had asked her to do.

I left.

Once more my eyes stung like a son of a bitch, but there was no room for tears. I didn’t deserve them.

Visions of her collapsed and passed out after I lost control and took her assaulted me. It’d been too much, too rough. I begged her to leave, told her I couldn’t control it. Not today.

Today was the day it all resurfaced. The pain, the agony…my wife.

The life, the love, and the family that was taken from me.

The last time I saw her surfaced, her eyes open…staring, blank, void, empty…dead.

The medically induced coma they placed me in kept me from even saying goodbye. I was unable to attend her funeral.

The elevator signaled that I reached my floor, and I was left with heavy steps as I walked out and down the hall. I entered my condo after having deposited Lila back into hers, leaving her.

I shut the door behind me, leaning on it as it clicked closed. All of my belongings I’d retrieved from her place dropped to the ground, landing on the tile floor below.

My hands moved to my hair, tugging and pulling on it as the air around me became suffocating. I felt something digging into my palm and released my grip to find out what it was.

I opened my hand, and in it rested a jagged piece of metal.

Her key…the key to my place. I took it from her key ring and returned the one she’d given me.

The weight was becoming too much, almost crippling. The animal inside me was stirring, the part of me that wanted her more than I wanted to admit.

Gone. She was gone. I left.

Mine! the beast howled. She. Is. Mine!

No. She deserves to be happy and loved. I can’t give her that.

I leaned my forehead on the door, pounding my fist on it—hoping the door would give way and I’d have an excuse to run back to her. Any excuse to end the agony in which I was beginning to drown.

“Stay here! You have to.”

Arguing with myself probably couldn’t be seen as sane, but my head and heart were warring. My feelings for her had become so strong.

Mine! he roared.

“Lila…”

Mine!

“Oh, God, what have I done?” I doubled over, the crushing weight of my actions coming down on me. “I need you. I need you so much.”

Get. Her. Back!

“I can’t. No. I won’t…I won’t hold her down, hold her back. Someone will worship the ground she walks on, love her.”

We can do that. No one will ever understand her like we do.

“Someone will try. Someone will want and love her.”

Someone like Andrew?

My voice broke down to a whisper. “Yes, someone like Andrew.”

No! Mine. Not Andrew’s. Mine. I need her!

A crunching sound that had become all too familiar in recent months filled my ears. I looked down to find my hand embedded in the drywall.

My knuckles began to sting as I stared at my arm still lodged in the new hole. I pulled my hand out and surveyed the damage. I spun around, looking at all of the holes that the entry walls contained. All were created because of her. Because I wanted her and tried to deny it. Because I wouldn’t face the truth about what was going on between us. Because I was angry at her for making me feel for her.

That was the moment I came crumbling apart at the seams.

I grabbed at the edge of the drywall and pulled, tearing a chunk from the wall.

It wasn’t enough. At a frantic pace, I began pulling, large pieces coming off in my hands. The dust filled the air, clouding it, just like my mind and my heart. I needed the reminder of her gone.

I’d gotten one section down before it let loose; the pain, the loss, the anger. Nothing was safe from my path of destruction.

I pulled half a sheet down in one tug, tossed it to the side and manically finished the demolition of the remaining, offending plasterboard.

Every tug, every pull, I tried to push her memory away. The feel of her skin, her body beneath mine, her smile, her laughter, her mind, her taste, her need.

She needed me. I knew that. I needed her; something I was just beginning to understand.

I left. Separating us.

I screamed out, cursing myself, my life, and cursing her, though innocent, for entering my solitary existence and turning my purgatory upside down.

My hands snapped the wallboard off the nails that were holding it onto their wooden supports. In my fury I tore, pulled, and yanked the walls down until there was nothing left.

No holes. No walls. No reminder.

Nothing.

I stood, breathing hard, in the middle of the entryway. Sweat poured down my face, plaster dust clung to my wet skin and clothing. The air was thick with a white haze, the drywall bits covered the floor, beaten.

And still I could feel her presence.

I fell to my knees, the dust floating back into the air.

My arms itched from the powder coating my skin, and I coughed, gagging on the chalky substance hovering in the air. Didn’t matter. I deserved to suffer.

My body began shaking as I sat there in defeat. In the future, I would mourn two losses of my love on that date: my wife and my Lila.

I wouldn’t let what happened to her happen to Lila. I couldn’t. Lila would live. Lila would meet someone worthy and start a family. Lila would be happy.

But not with me.

A sob erupted from my chest, startling me. The sting of tears in my eyes was disconcerting as my loss crushed me. I mourned them; one taken from me, and the other I threw away.

Tears spilled down my cheeks, my body finally having had enough; enough fighting, enough feeling.

Enough.

CHAPTER 27

The next morning my alarm went off, but I was already awake. My eyes were glued to the ceiling, staring blankly at the white expanse. In the time I was staring, I noticed the nail pops, small cracks in the plasterboard, and the all-consuming ache in my chest.