Missing Like You

THIRTY

SCOTT DONOVAN
JUNE 2021

It was halfway through June when I finally made the decision to stop seeing Lexie. It was a long time coming, something I should have done much earlier. Instead, I waited until I was in way too deep and thought that I could somehow recover from it and revert back to how my life was before. That was an impossibility I wasn't aware of at the time.

Lexie and I saw each other on such a regular basis and were practically in constant contact with one another. Suddenly, that all stopped. I had no idea of the consequences that awaited me.

I did it on a Thursday night. We went out for dinner, then drove around in my car for a bit before heading in the general direction of her house. I didn't know where she lived exactly. We kept these things to ourselves. I didn't intend for her to ever know where I lived either, but there was this one time where she had grabbed my driver's licence to look at my photo, then I watched as she recited my address aloud. I think that's when the pit in my stomach first began to grow.

I drove to a quiet neighborhood and put the car in park, idling under the dimly lit street lamps. I reached over and turned the car off. I could feel her eyes on me, watching me. It had finally come, the moment I had been dreading for so long. But there was nothing else I could do, I didn't have any other choice. I had to cut the tumor off once and for all and never look back. Either that, or I let it consume me until it slowly killed me.

"Lexie," I said, and I think it was then that she knew something was wrong by the tone of my voice.
"Scott," she countered.
"Alexandra," I used her full name. She winced.
"Whatever you're going to say," she looked at me, her eyes seeming almost black in the dim light. "Don't say it."
"I have to say it."
She turned away from me, couldn't look at me.
"This is wrong, Lex. You have to know that."
"Don't fucking tell me that," she looked at me then. "Don't you fucking dare. You didn't have a problem with it all those times in the hotel room. You didn't have a problem with it every time I –"
"Stop."
She closed her mouth.
"I don't want to do this," I told her. "You think I want to? But I have no other options. I can't keep living in secrecy like this. We knew we were never meant to last. We knew from the start it was just some fun."
"But it's not just fun anymore, Scott. I think we both know that."
Neither one of us had said it, but we both knew it deep down. We were in love with each other.
"You'll break my heart," she said it so faintly that I thought in that moment, she just might break mine.
"I'm sorry," I said.
She shook her head, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Why now? Why all of a sudden? What changed?"
"Nothing changed."
"Is it Isabelle? Is she pregnant or something?"
"What? God no."
"Then why!? Why now?"
"I don't want to prolong this any longer than we already have. Five and a half months, Lex. Let's not get to six and then have our hearts break even more."
She stared at me, and I had no idea what was going on in that little brain of hers. Then she said, "Well who says it has to end?"
"What?"
"We don't have to end things. There's a very simple, straight-forward solution to this problem."
"Yeah, and what's that?"
"You leave Isabelle. I leave Mark. You and I," she said to me. "We stay together."
I stared at her, unsure of what to think. I must admit, I did consider it for a moment. For the briefest of seconds, I contemplated her words. I probably shouldn't have done that. I turned away from her. "No."
"Why not? You're in love with me, Scott. I know you want to be with me. I know it's killing you to have to do this right now."
"I love my wife!" I yelled. I didn't mean to yell. I didn't mean to scare her. But I did. She flinched backwards at my words.
"I'm sorry," I said quickly. "I didn't mean to..."
It was quiet between us. There were thousands of words running through my mind, but I didn't say any of them. I just sat there in silence. I presume she was doing the same.
"Lexie," I said when I couldn't think of anything else. "It's time to say goodbye. For good."
"No."
I didn't know how to respond.
She surprised me by what she said next. "What do you think Isabelle would say if she found out?"
I looked at her and saw the determination in her eyes. Here she was, the Lexie I had always feared but brushed off, finally coming to life. "You wouldn't."
"I would."
"If you truly cared about me as much as you claim to, you wouldn't ruin my life."
"Oh, but you're perfectly okay with ruining mine?"
"It's not the same, Lexie. Fuck!" I yelled again. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"I could ask you the same thing."
"It's not comparable! I am trying to do the right thing. I am trying to right my wrongs and do what's moral."
"Fuck morals. You don't know what morals are."
"I'm trying here. You're doing the opposite."
"Scott," she said my name, then grabbed my hands and held them in hers. She stayed like that for a long time, our hands intertwined. Then she looked up at me, that face I had come to know so well. I could navigate every inch of her body with my eyes closed and never get lost. I knew every birth mark, every crevice. Every freckle, every curve. She took my face in her hands and stared at me. "Don't do this," she said. "Make the right decision."
I only let the moment go on a brief second longer. Then I pulled away from her and unlocked the door. "It's time to go."
She pulled away from me as though she'd been burnt. Her facial expression changed from empathetic to cold. I did not recognize her anymore.
Slowly, she unbuckled her seatbelt, never taking her eyes off of me. She opened the car door and got out, then leaned down so we were still facing each other. "You're going to regret this," she said to me, and I felt my blood go cold.
Before slamming my door and disappearing into the night, she looked at me and said one last thing. "Don't forget, Scott – a girl who has nothing, has nothing to lose."