Almost Mine

Excerpt - Almost Mine

I’d had enough of this. I loved him. He loved me, I knew he did. Even if he crushed my heart with his singular intention to reject me until I broke, I could never just shrug and walk away from what we once had. 

With determination that matched his detachment I rinsed my unfinished tea down the sink and reached for my recipe books that stood like soldiers above the fridge. And in my classically designed kitchen that was built all of those years ago with the sole purpose of making me happy, I began obsessing over the perfect, celebratory dinner that would save us.

It took me the whole of the day of fussing and prepping, and at six thirty when my husband finally entered the house, I was carefully placing the finishing dollops of sour cream onto our entrée; roasted pumpkin and garlic soup was one of his absolute favourites. 

I didn’t realise how tense my entire body had been until I looked at him as he stood at the wide threshold between the open planned dining room and kitchen, every muscle calming immeasurably at the sight of him; my husband, the most breathtaking man I’d ever seen.

Even though he should have had ample time to shower considering he’d left for his run over ten hours ago, he was still wearing his sweat pants and hoodie. His wavy, chocolate brown hair that framed his withdrawn expression was tousled and matted as if he’d run a marathon, and, given the time fame, perhaps he had.

The relief that I felt at this first sight of him always led me to believe that nothing could ever be this unbearably wrong between us. My chest still burst exquisitely whenever he entered a room, even after a life-time of knowing him. Even if nothing else existed on his adorable face — that at times gone by had revealed sexy, hungry grin whenever he looked at me — I would still have the same, deep tugging reaction to the way he beheld me; as if to him I was all that existed. He was the literal boy-next-door, and I loved him more than I ever thought that I would be capable of. 

I stood motionless, awkward even, in a home that had long since ceased to feel like one, as we stared at each other, and in that split second, within the very first moments of being in the same room with him, I felt a rush of hope that I would be blessed with requited love. Of course, after that initial glimpse of him lingered on, my stomach fell heavily as it had for the past few years when I’d hoped for an open smile but instead was confronted by a desolate frown. Just as inevitability dictated that my perfect dinner was always going to be nothing but a figment of my cruel imagination, so was a kiss or a wink or an implicating squeeze of my bottom to replace his perpetual impassive expression.   

But I wasn’t giving up. I could not give up.

I did note something unusual about him, something that threw me a little as I eyed him with curiosity.  He looked as he always did but there was something new, something out of place that he’d brought in with him. A smell, no, a scent; one that was I was familiar with but which was too indistinct to immediately place.

I forced a smile that only reached my mouth in an attempt to push the undercurrent of apprehension deeper, and with a match I began lighting the candles that I’d arranged around the kitchen and dining room. He eyed the cooling pie on the granite counter.

‘It’s apple,’ I brightly answered his unspoken question.