After Eleven: Liv & Callum

Chapter 11: Liv

A/N: This chapter is shorter, as this week and next week are fairly busy between my regular work and social life. Thank you for all of the kind and encouraging comments, and hopefully this chapter has slightly better editing!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Liv

I feel bad about how much I've been leaning on Andrea lately, but I know I'll return the favor eventually. The great thing about sisters is that, as much as I've tormented her and as many of my sweaters as she's stolen, she was my first call in the morning and immediately knew that something awful had happened. When I started telling her, she made me stop, and then she was at my house with coffee, breakfast, and her husband and kids in no time.

She assumed that I would be packing my things, but Cal can go screw himself if he thinks I will be the one to leave. Annie and I did nothing wrong, and there is no reason why we should have to uproot our lives more than necessary. My first preference would be to have him out of our home, out of my life, and scrubbed from the last 10 years of my memories.

In the interest of Annie, however, I don't shred all of her father's clothes, books, and clutter. Instead, I tell her that mommy and daddy are going to have their own rooms now, just like her. We have a small office/guest room with a pull-out bed, and I hope that Cal gets an incurable neck problem from the cheap mattress.

I'm grasping for petty or angry energy, but it fades pretty quickly. Well, it fades for me, at least, but Andrea has no problem suggesting my next steps. I could email Cal and Emily's HR department, I could go scorched earth and tell him that we'll only talk through our lawyers, I could take him for every penny and leave him destitute.

I have a feeling that's not going to happen, though because every sweater of his that I pick up smells like him. It smells like the woodsy cologne that I started buying for him after our first anniversary. The pictures on the walls still show the face of a man that I loved - still love - looking back at me. I'll see that face when I look at Annie, or remember the last decade of my life. None of that goes away because the man that I love cheated on me.

Our love used to feel warm, reliable, passionate, heady, but now it feels like a curse. Like a slug that crawled into my head and whispers at me from inside myself.

What if this has been going on for months? What if she's not the first or only? What if I can never find love like this again?

Ultimately, none of that is helpful. I accept that I still love my husband, I accept that he's done this, but that doesn't mean that I will accept him back into our home or my heart. I won't. I refuse to show Annie that this is an acceptable way to treat someone that you love.

I need time to figure out how to move forward with my life, so I ask Andrea and her family to head home and bring Annie with them. Andrea has been on a warpath this morning, as has her husband, but anger feels like sawdust in my mouth. My brain is coming to terms with my reality, but my body is behind and speaking about him like that feels wrong.

All of a sudden I'm looking down at our bed, covered in Cal's stuff, and a wave of exhaustion hits me like a Mack truck. I've already pulled his knickknacks out of our bookshelf, his toiletries out of the bathroom, and cleared out his bedside table. The constant motion was helpful when I woke up this morning, but the next thing I know I'm on the floor. Why should I be exhausting myself to make his transition easier?

I have allowed myself to fall into this role of domestic martyr lately, and it's eating me from the inside out. This is the time to force myself to put it down and let Callum deal with the fallout of his choices.

I move into the living room to grab my cell, and I can see a text from Cal telling me when he'll be home. I realize that he'll be back in about 20 minutes, and I don't want to see him for the first time after he cheated on me looking like a wreck. I might not have the energy to go over my feelings with Andrea, but I have enough stored up to take a shower, blow-dry my hair, and change out of my pajamas because I'll be damned if I look like the jilted wife on a 90's harlequin romance cover.

The scalding water of the shower turns my skin pink, aided by the aggressive scrubbing of my washcloth. I give up when I realize that I can't clean my body enough to rid myself of this feeling. I go through the motions of my regular routine, taking note of how much extra counter and cabinet space I'll have in my bathroom from now on. When I grab a comfortable pair of linen slacks and a bodysuit, I think that maybe I'll go to Ikea and get new shelves so that I can move my shoes into the space that's been freed up in my closet.

I'm in the kitchen making tea when I hear the door open and Cal's keys hit the glass bowl on the entryway table. I used to get so excited when I would hear him come home, and Annie and I would rush to the front of the house to greet him when he came home. He would throw her up into the air and give her a raspberry then pull me in for a kiss.

But now I remain in the kitchen, and I make no move to go to him. Since he called me last night and told me what he had done, I've been primarily thinking of the future in terms of a few hours. What I need to pack, how I'll explain the immediate changes to Annie, and who to call first. Now that those decisions have been made, I'm flooded with an odd sense of calm for the coming storm. Callum made his choices already, and he's an adult who can handle the consequences.

"I'm in the kitchen," I call out to him, voice level and calm even to my ears.

His steps stutter before he walks through the living room and sees me at the other side of the counter, stirring our favorite floral honey into a green tea.

It feels like there's a stranger in my home. This man looks like my Cal, is wearing a suit that I helped my Cal pick out, but the man looks exhausted and defeated. He doesn't come to me or make any moves forward.

I won't make this easy for him just because he looks sad.

Instead, I pull my mug up to my mouth and blow over the surface before taking a sip. "So, honey, how was your trip?"