Another excerpt from "Open....The Novel"

It's been quite a while since I've shared another excerpt from the novel. If you haven't read the first one, you may want to look in my past blogs and get an idea of what it's all about. Enjoy!

Open...The Novel...(excerpt)

It was New Year’s Eve. I was home. He was out, bringing in the year with friends…friends I really didn’t care for at all…friends I didn’t trust. He called me when it became midnight on the East coast and while he thought he was doing something special for me, allowing me to bring it in with him, I only heard loud music, loud celebrating, kisses on his lips and whispers in his ears. I was hurt. I was alone. And I was totally uncomfortable with his surroundings.

“I’ll call you at midnight your time”, he yelled into the phone over the chaos.

“Don’t say that if you know you aren’t going to be able to. I know you’re busy.”

He sighed. “I promise. I will call you at midnight so you’re not bringing in the New Year alone, ok? I gotta go. I love you.”

He hung up the phone and I continued to sit around till it got close to 12am. My house was quiet for the moment. I was drinking wine, sitting on my computer trying to do some homework and get through this misery and this uneasiness in the pit of my stomach.

11:55pm came and my phone didn’t ring.

12:00am came and my phone didn’t ring.

1:00am came and my phone never rang.

I turned off my lights and went to sleep, heart heavy already knowing what had taken place.

He called me the next day, late in the morning. I was furious. Again, he had promised something and failed to follow through.

“What happened?” I asked. My heart was racing and my head was pounding.

“I got caught up,” he stated nonchalantly. I couldn’t stand the way he always sounded when he knew he hurt my feelings; as if nothing mattered and nothing was important unless it affected him.

“Caught up with what?”

“You know we had people over.”

“Yes, but how hard is it to just call and say Happy New Year? Were you still up?”

“Yes, I was, but I was busy, “ he replied.

I took a deep breath. I felt as if I had a heavy weight in the pit of my stomach.

“Did you sleep with her?” I asked the question even though I already knew the answer. I knew the answer when he told me she was coming to their house for the night. I knew the answer when he completely denied that anything would happen between the two of them before they even got to his house.

He sighed. “Yes, I did.”

It was at that moment I realized for the 100^th time that this “Open” life wasn’t for me. It wasn’t about cherishing someone and loving someone and having some type of commitment to someone, as he claimed it to be. With him, it was about doing what you want to do, when you want to do it, without any concern for the other people you were relating with. It was about immediate pleasure. It was about ego. And Love was momentary.