Ex-Husband's Regret

“What’s got you drinking in the club alone instead of being at home with Ava?” Gabe asks as he takes a seat next to me.

I was in a terrible mood, and the last thing I wanted was any form of company. That includes my brother’s. Ignoring him, I take another gulp of my whisky.

I was in the VIP section of one of our many clubs. The music was booming, people were dancing and having fun, and alcohol was flowing, but none of that did anything for me.

Tonight, I just wanted to forget. To forget the image of Ava’s heartbreak. I know it’s wishful thinking given that both of those images are burned in my mind, but I can fucking try.

Things at home have been tense. The atmosphere that was welcoming isn’t there any more. I want things to go back to how they fucking were, but I don’t know how to do that. I don’t fucking know how to fix things.

I can’t take back those words. I can’t fucking reverse them. I can’t unwind time and fix my mistakes. If I could, I’d already have done it because I love her so fucking much, and it kills me to know that I all but destroyed her.

It shatters me to know that I am the one who destroyed everything we could have had.

“Rowan?” His hand lands on my shoulder, but I shrug it off.

“What!” I was sad, heartbroken, and pissed. None of those emotions were ever good together.

“Well, you’re in a foul mood,” Gabe states, giving me a side–eye look.

“That should’ve been fucking obvious when you found me drinking alone.”

I don’t say anything else, and neither does he. While I lounge and cradle my drink, he pours himself a healthy amount. We sit in silence, both of us lost in our own minds.

“Where is Travis? I haven’t seen him in a while,” I ask after some time.

Things between us have been tense since I threw Emma in prison. We haven’t spoken since the day he came, begging me to release his sister. We’ve been friends since we were both in diapers, but I don’t see us ever being close again.

“He’s been really busy with Emma. She fell into a state of depression, so he’s trying to deal with that,” he replies with a shrug.

“Depression? Is it because I sent her to prison or something else?”

“I think that’s part of it. He told me that she’s been struggling since coming out of prison and accepting that you two will never get back together. He thinks, though, that what pushed her over the edge was when Calvin refused to forgive her and accept her back into his and

Well, that was news to me. I guess both of us were finally getting our karma, because how else would you call it? Every word I said and every action I took was slowing coming back to bite me in the ass.

If only Emma and I had realized this earlier. If only we’d known what we know now back then, We held on to each other, not realizing that maybe, just maybe, Ava and Calvin were the people we were fucking meant to be with.

“So now tell me, what’s wrong?” Gabe asks again after a few minutes of silence.

I feel the buzz of the alcohol. When I lost Emma, I started to drink. To put it plainly, I became a fucking drunkard. After Noah was born, I swore never to get drunk again. Here I was, though, trying to reach

oblivion. Trying to take the edge of things.

I stare at the amber liquid debating before finally throwing back the contents and pouring myself another.

“Ava,” I say her name.

Gabe frowns. “I thought you said she’d given you a chance without pushing for the truth. What the hell did you do now?”

I glare right back at him. “Why do you have to assume it’s me?”

I fucking know that I’m the one in the wrong, but damn it, why did he just immediately assume that I was the problem?

Rolling his eyes like a fucking child, he answers, “Because when it comes to Ava, you always manage to screw things up.”

I was about to argue with him, but I clamped my mouth and shut the fuck up. He was right, wasn’t he? I couldn’t argue with him because he wasn’t wrong. Up until a few months ago, I’d been fucking up with Ava for years.

“Now that you know I’m fucking right, why don’t you tell me what happened? Did you mess up on the date or something?” Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“The date was great and she loved it”

“I’m guessing you messed up after the date then?” he asks, his eyes into mine.

“It’s more of something I said before her accident. Somehow jerking off in the shower triggered her memory, and now she doesn’t even want to look at me.”

I proceed to tell him everything that went down. Everything fucking thing that happened and how Emma lied and manipulated me into thinking that Ava was the villain. I tell him, word for word, what I’d angrily shouted at Ava and how it came back to bite me a week ago.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Gabe tells me once I’m done talking.

I glare at him, but I accept the truth. “I fucking know that.”

We are quiet again, but it doesn’t last long.

“Have you talked to her or apologized?”

Releasing a breath, I shake my head. “She won’t talk to me. She won’t even allow me to be anywhere near her. She avoids me like I’m a fucking plague.”

Thinking about it just hurts my heart even more. I was a fucking idiot. How the hell did I not see what was standing in front of me all of these years? Why the hell did I continue hurting her? We were married for nine years, yet never did I ever think of separation or divorce, not even when I imagined Noah graduating and leaving him. That should have been the first clue that I felt something for Ava, because how did I never think of divorce?

“Did you mean any of the words you threw at her?”

“No.” My answer is automatic. “I was mad at her, and I wanted to hurt her for hurting Emma, but deep down, I didn’t mean a damn word, I said. I never compared her to Emma, and not once did I imagine Emma when I was with her. I only said it because I knew it would hurt her.”

“So what gave you the dumb idea to lie to her?” he asks while sipping his drink.

I shrug. “I don’t know… idiocy? It’s not an excuse, but you know I say stupid things when I’m angry.”

“I can’t give you any solution because those words are probably imprinted on her brain. What you can do, though, is talk to her, make her listen, and tell her the truth before this tears what you are trying to do.”

I get what he is saying, but getting it done is difficult, especially when she isn’t talking to me.

Instead of saying anything, I continue drinking. I keep chasing that euphoria all the while, hoping that I can still salvage what I ruined.