After Eleven: Liv & Callum

Chapter 14: Cal

The drive home has a bizarre, liminal feeling; I'm not just going from work to home, I'm moving from one chapter of my life into another. This was never what I wanted, but I can't necessarily bitch about the ending to a book that I've been writing.

Despite the fact that I was planning to quit, being fired adds another bite of shame to this situation. I'm unemployed, my wife is probably going to leave me, and I'm realizing how little I know about my own family right now. I don't think that I could be lower, and Liv's earlier comment about me being a cliche comes back. She couldn't be more right, unfortunately. A work trip with the woman my wife told me to watch out for, ignoring everyone's concerns about the situation, and then doing exactly what they all knew I would. Hook, line, and sinker.

I desperately want someone else to blame and I can feel the justifications wanting to come out. I was overworked, I felt pressure to support my family, I was seduced, I, I, I, me, me me. If one of my friends put themselves in my position and came to me to complain about it, I would probably smack him over the head. I had every chance to create distance and boundaries with Emily, but instead I chose to create them with my wife. I wasn't really seduced, because when I look back on it I opened up every door for Emily to walk right in. A seduction would imply that I made her work for it, for me, and I didn't.

Looking back on it, I think that I knew where this would go the entire time it was happening. What else would have happened? Momentum between people doesn't just suddenly stop unless one person stops it. I shoved my head in the sand in order to give myself plausible deniability when the situation inevitably boiled over.

Emily is the obvious target of my anger, and while I hope that I never lay eyes on her again and she learns a lesson from this whole thing, I know that none of this would have happened if I didn't encourage and foster the relationship between us. I was drinking that night, but so was she. It feels like a blurry memory, but I know enough to know that I was an active participant until the very end. If anything, I feel bad for Emily since she obviously thought that we were building an actual relationship, and I know that I used her as an easy ego boost, seeing as I was well aware of her past habit of getting involved with someone at work.

Either way, seeing Emily is no longer a concern for me. I don't have a work phone, a job, or any reason to communicate with her and she never followed me on any social media. She's out of my life and now I need to figure out how I'm going to move forward with mine.

All of the sudden I'm home, grateful that I've driven to and from work so many times that it required very little thought on my part. Pulling into the driveway while it's still light out during a weekday feels bizarre. I don't remember the last time that I took a long lunch or a half day to surprise the girls, which I used to do at least a few times a month. When did that stop?

The house is quiet when I get back, but I can see the evidence of the morning's activities in the small silicone cups that Liv gives to Annie, left on the coffee table next to brightly colored blocks and washable pens. I always thought that sippy cups would make our lives easier, but Liv was adamant that the open cups would be better. As is true with most things concerning parenting decisions, Liv was right. Annie can now sit at a table with the adults, and we would constantly get comments about how good her table manners are when we would go out to eat as a family. Yet another thing that we haven't been doing as often. Everywhere I look I can see glaring reminders of the life that we used to have together but I just can't seem to hold onto it.

I'm still frozen at the front door when Liv comes down the hallway. She's cleaned up since this morning but she's still in casual clothes and I want so badly to be able to go to her. To wrap her up, as I did this morning, and smell the eucalyptus scent of the body lotion she's been wearing for years now. But I'm still stuck at the threshold of the house, unable to make myself move any farther in.

She looks at me curiously, "In or out, Cal?"

Well isn't that the fucking question.

"In."