The Road Not Taken: 2012

He just stood there without an umbrella, not caring that the pouring rain was ruining his expensive Italian leather shoes or soaking into his wool suit. His dark hair was plastered to his face and water dripped off his chin, joining the raindrops.

His emerald eyes burned with tears and he trembled with cold and understanding. The letter that had been left on the kitchen counter had been a goodbye. But she had been gone for much longer than that. He saw that now in the way he imagined she was laughing with the man he had seen her pull up the building's steps. Up to an apartment he had no idea she had.

The letter was now pulp in his fist, the rain washing away the words into black tears. All evidence of her venom and disatisfaction, gone in seconds except for what he had memorized. Had he really not known? He had thought they were happy. He had the gold wedding band to prove it and tickets to Aruba for their three-year anniversary. When did it all of a sudden become not good enough for her?

The city's traffic flowed around him, people giving the soaked man strange looks as they walked past, dry and safe under their umbrellas, thinking only of themselves. Cabs honked and thundered past, cars speeding without regard, bike messangers cursing the downpour and lack of courtesy of the people they shared the road with.

He noticed none of it today. He felt that he was a great observer of people and enjoyed listening to conversations on the subway or while walking to his office. In the ebb and flow of the city, he stood, lost. If he was such a great people watcher, how had he not seen this coming?

'We were never meant to stay together.'

That's what she had said. If that was so, why had she said yes to him that cold January night on his apartment roof? It had been perfect, a small fire burning in the fire pit he had bought. The white Chirstmas lights he had strung up with the help of his landlord and his wife. She had said yes with no hesitation.

They had loved each other at one point, right? They must have. They had carved a life out together. Bought an apartment, had a beautiful wedding on the beach in Cape May where his parents lived. She had looked breathtaking in her simple gown, her reddish-brown curls in an elegant side bun. He knew he had seen love in her eyes that day. When had that disappeared?

They didn't fight often, but worked long hours, eaking out an exsistence in a world that swallowed most people whole. Her, a marketing analyst for a credit card company and him, a rising associate in a civil rights lawyer's office. They lived well for a couple their age, not quite out of their party years, but ready enough to settle down and start a family.

He had seen her put a hand to her flat belly the night before and he had felt a flutter of excitement. True, it had been a while since they had made love without protection, but it tok a while before a woman realized she was pregnant. In the past month, she had been unintrested, the passion squeezed from her eyes. She would stare at him levelly when he would kiss her or push him away when he tried to tease her or touch her when they were in bed at night.

When had she decided that he wasn't enough for her? That she needed someone else to fufill desires that she craved? Desires that he had tried to satisfy, but was rejected at every turn. Why wasn't he enough for her? He thought the letter she wrote was her telling him she was pregnant, not the disinterested monotone that was the voice of the letter telling him she was leaving. It was unlike her. She had written him letters throughout their courtship.

She had a way with expressing herself through her beautiful, flowery script. He had all of her letters stacked neatly in a box in his closet where he would sometimes re-read them and fall deeper and deeper in love with her. Her letter, dissolved by the rain, held none of that love her previous writings had shown. It was cruel, direct, and hateful.

Was he that terrible of a husband? Questions kept racing through his head as he continued to stand in the downpour. How long had he been there? An hour? Two? Four? He didn't know. Couldn't remember. The city continued to pulse around him, like a beating heart. The biggest question was why. Her words hadn't explained anything, hadn't made sense to him.

"You're acting like a fool," came her voice, cold and sharp like the rain he stood in.

He refocused his gaze, seeing her standing on the front steps of the apartment building he didn't know existed. Her hair was messy as if hands had been tangled in the thick auburn curls, make-up slightly smudged, and her dress, a little wrinkled, hugging the curves he loved to kiss.

"Why?" was his desperate question, grasping for an answer.

She crossed her arms under her breasts, eyes blazing with the satisfaction of getting what she wanted. Of being free from him and the illusion of white picket fences she had been stuck behind.

"We aren't who we were in college."

He squeezed his green eyes shut. Where was the girl he had fallen in love with? Who was this woman in fron of him, breaking his heart?

"Then why did you say yes?" he asked in a whisper, remembering the way her face had lit up when he presented her with a ring that was no longer on her finger.

"I thought I loved you enough for forever."

"I did love you enough for forever," he said, wanting to say that he still did.

"And I realized I didn't," she said, holding out her hand to him.

He reached out, woolen suit heavy and dripping. His hand shook as she dropped her engagement and wedding ring into his palm. Her left hand looked naked to him without the glint of diamond and white gold.

Her face softened, reminding him whil he fell in love with her. She sighed, looking at his saddened, soaked state.

"What did you expect?" she asked softly.

He gazed at her, seeing the life they could have had. Their children, the house they would have bought, their grandchildren. Everything. He felt the corners of his mouth tighten into a frown. He placed the rings in his sopping pocket, clenching his fist so tight that the bones popped and he knew his knuckles were white. The edge of the diamond sliced into the pad of his thumb and he felt it begin to bleed.

He couldn't do this anymore. Stand in the rain and stare at the girl that used to love him. A girl he still loves, even after her infidelity and lies. But he cannot stand in the rain for hours without an umbrella, in front of an apartment he didn't know existed.

"What did I expect? From you? A lot more," he said before turning away and shuffling down the near empty street in waterlogged Italian leather shoes and a heavy, soaked dark grey wool suit.