 It was a strange, unexpected thought, as I glanced over at the man I had married, wondering how the ugliest of hearts could be wrapped in the most beautiful skin. The down-comforter was tucked up under his chin, hiding his life body that required no effort whatsoever to maintain. Sometimes I joked that I despised him for it, eating anything he wanted without gaining an inch on his waistline. If I even looked at dessert, I gained two pounds. Sometimes I wasn't joking when I said I hated him. It wasn't that I hated him, not exactly. Years of togetherness had given me so much, but now he had taken too much. For so long I had just followed him blindly until he let us both off the ledge. I needed to find my way back and I couldn't do that with him any more. For years he had been my rock, tied to my ankles. I'm sorry. I whispered and I meant it. Once upon a time we had loved each other deeply. It showed in the way he carried me over the threshold when we had first bought this house, or when we took our first vacation together in Asheville, North Carolina, where we toured the Biltmore House and booed and awed over the thousands of tulips blooming in the gardens, or the first time we made love on a bed of rose petals as he sucked the tender spot on my neck and caressed my thigh longingly. Those memories had been so pure and good, but now only painful memories remained. Like chess pieces the bad had knocked all the good off the board. All I could remember now was the way he hurt me, the way he betrayed me, the way he lied. A moonbeam cast a silvery stripe across the bed. He slept soundly beneath covers that were charcoal like the sky, unaware of me standing over him. And I regretted what I was about to do. I wondered if he had any unspoken regrets. I had a mouthful of them. I had spent the best years of my life loving this human being more than anything else, deeply and passionately, with a forbidden desire I couldn't quench. Only now did I realize it had never been love, but obsession, and obsession with stability, with security. I needed him. But he had never needed me back. We had been wrong from the beginning. I knew this. But I let him consume me regardless. Nothing could stop me, not even myself, not even all the red flags. The mystery of love. Yes, it had enthralled me. And now here we were, lost in its unanswerable riddle. I still couldn't figure it out. Why I had ever loved a monster. Some days he felt like a warm rain. But recently he had become a torrent sweeping me out to a stormy sea, drowning me. Now here I stood over him, wrapped in Sunday morning nostalgia, watching him sleeping in the Ethan Allen four-poster bed we shared, controlling my breath as I whispered my goodbyes. I reminisced about the idyllic weekends of long ago, pure heaven, the scent of French roast coffee wafting to our bedroom, the humming stillness of the house, two lovers pretzeled together beneath mulberry silk sheets, our bodies sweat glazed from creative and energetic sex. Now that was laughable, really. His touch burned me, his lips disgusted me. Not because of times toll on our bodies. Gravity works extra hard after age forty, you know. It wasn't that. It was the slow rot of who he used to be. Once upon a time we cuddled like two toothbrushes in a cup, the length of our bodies resting on one another. I wished I could reach that man to-day, right now. But I knew he was long gone. I thought about the apology flowers. They just bought me. I was face lit up as he handed them to me. How I tenderly- Sample complete. Ready to continue?