"You're going to love it at the beach. All my girls kept talking about it whenever we met up for dinner. I asked them if it would be expensive, but they told me that it wasn't! It's just fifty dollars to get in and you can stay all day if you want!"
A pretty woman with long blonde hair and a small face spoke up excitedly as she put a large cooler of drinks into the boot of a silver Toyota. The woman's name was Grace, and she had a modest figure with wide hips and medium-sized bust. She was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans and a black top that fell off one of her shoulders to reveal silky white skin.
The woman turned her blue eyes to the person she had been talking to, a small sigh escaping her lips as she saw how disinterested the person was in what she had been saying.
Beside her, her husband of five years, Harry Black, was carrying two large coolers and walking up to the car to put them in. Harry was a tall man with short black hair that was just long enough to frame the sides of his face. He had heterochromatic eyes, one grey and the other black, and a handsome face that made him look very rugged.
Harry was in the army, and he had been on deployment to Afghanistan for the past year. When Harry first came back a month ago, he had been very happy to see her again. He was always around and they spoke at length about many things he had seen and the places he had gone to.
But all that changed a week ago.
Harry became cold as ice! He didn't smile as much as he used to. He didn't even laugh whenever Grace made a joke about something that they were watching on television! Grace couldn't guess what had happened to make Harry so detached from her, but she decided that since he was not willing to open up to her, she was going to take him somewhere for him to calm down and relax a little! Maybe after he was calmer, he would be able to talk to her again!
Grace and Harry had a two-year-old son named George, but Grace had left George with his grandparents so that she and Harry could have enough time together. This way, she would be able to make Harry open up to her without the stress of a child there to throw them off-topic.
Harry was wearing a slim-fit t-shirt that hugged his body properly along with a pair of jeans, and when he raised the coolers to put them into the car, his arm muscles made the t-shirt bulge and ripple under their mass.
Grace felt her mouth water at the sight of this as she imagined herself being held in his arms, but she had to stop and she shook her head as she turned around to grab something else to put in the car. This was something else that had gone horribly wrong since a week ago.
Harry wouldn't touch her.
No matter the tactic she tried to use to make him touch her, it was like he was repulsed by the very sight of her. At first, Grace thought that it was some sort of trauma from when he was in the military. Maybe he remembered something that they did over there and it was making him feel guilty. Grace had heard from many of the other wives of veterans that it was common for their husbands to detach themselves from the family to try and atone for their wrongdoing.
But two days ago, after Grace had tried to get Harry to touch her again, Grace realized that this wasn't something from trauma. Because the glare that Harry gave her that day while telling her to get the fuck off him would have been enough to freeze hell itself.
A small part of Grace deep inside her heart felt itself shatter as she realized that something had happened. Harry had found out something that made him despise her enough to glare at her in that way, and somehow, Grace felt like she knew exactly what it was.
Thud!
"Hey, get in."
Harry closed the boot and spoke up from the side of the car just before he moved to enter and started the engine. Grace quickly made her way to the front and got in the passenger seat. He didn't even wait for Grace to finish putting on her seatbelt before he started to move out of the driveway and onto the main street.
Harry was calm as he watched the road and the scenery change from city buildings to sparse greenery and finally to a forest as they began to make their way out of the city. Beside Harry, Grace was trying to strike up conversation after conversation about the things that they were seeing on the road, but Harry was completely unresponsive to them. Harry kept his eyes on the road and refused to join in on the conversations, and after a while, Grace realized that she was not going to be getting anything out of him and she finally stopped trying.
Throughout the trip, Harry had felt his heart rate spiking and dropping constantly. His hand was tightening against the steering wheel, and there was a deep feeling of anger surging out from his heart that threatened to overwhelm him at any moment. Harry was trying his best to suppress it, but he could feel himself losing the battle quickly.
Things continued in this way for the next hour as they drove toward their destination, and it wasn't until they were passing through a road that was built into the side of a large mountain to make their way to the beach that Harry finally felt the anger in his heart overwhelm him and he spoke just three words.
"Who is David?"
It was like a bomb went off right beside Grace's face as her eyes widened and her heart rate sped up immediately! Grace knew it. Grace knew that Harry had found out what she did. But a part of her had held on to the hope that she was wrong and that even if she wasn't wrong, Harry wouldn't bring it up at all!
Harry knew that she cheated on him.
Grace swallowed nervously and shifted in her seat a little as she tried to stutter out that she had no idea what Harry was talking about, but when Harry turned to give her a look with those piercing eyes that seemed to see right through her, Grace felt her entire body go cold!
There wasn't a shred of love in Harry's eyes at all! It was like everything that they had been through was dead, and he was only seeing another one of the enemies that he killed while in the army. Grace felt tears coming to her eyes.
"H-Harry! I can explain! I can explain what happened! I was just weak! I didn't know what happened back then! You were gone for eight months and there was no one to help me with George!"
Slam!
Harry slammed his hand against the steering wheel angrily, and Grace yelled and ducked in fear as he shouted.
"Don't you fucking lie to me! You were weak!? You don't know what happened!? You knew exactly what you were doing, so don't you fucking lie to me!"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! It was a mistake! I swear, it was just once! It was just once and I never even called him again! I promise! P-Please! Please, Harry! I'm sorry!"
Harry gritted his teeth in anger as his hand tightened against the steering wheel. Harry's hands were tightened so much that he could feel the plastic steering wheel cracking under the force of his grip! Harry moved through an intersection and swerved to the left into another overpass that would lead them to a bridge. Even with his anger, he was still driving perfectly. It was something that he had learned in the army, and he knew that a bit of anger wasn't going to be enough to make him lose his cool.
Grace was still crying in the passenger seat. She had curled in on herself like a dying animal, and she was looking at Harry with wide, pitiful eyes as she begged him to listen to her. She was sorry. It was just something that happened once and she regretted it immediately after! She really didn't mean it!
After a while, Harry spoke up.
"Do you have any idea what I did for you, Grace? Do you know what I did for you in that fucking place!? Do you know the people I killed just so I could get back to you!? The lives I took! I'm a fucking murderer, Grace! I became one so I can get back to you, and this is how you treat me!? You go fuck the first person you see once you get a little lonely!?"
Grace's tears started to fall even harder as she tried to reach out and touch Harry while yelling that she was sorry, but once she touched him, Harry jerked like he was electrocuted and told her to get her fucking hands off him! Grace pulled back quickly and began to cry even harder.
Harry closed his eyes and tuned out the sound of Grace's crying. He took a deep breath and sighed to calm himself before he spoke.
"I already filed for a divorce."
It was like the floodgates burst open once Grace heard that! Grace immediately grabbed Harry by the shoulder and began to beg!
"No! No, please! We can work this out, Harry! I know we can! You don't need to do this! Please! What about George!? What about our baby!?"
Harry had to quickly get the car under control when Grace grabbed his shoulder because of how it made the car swerve to the left. Harry shoved Grace off him and parked the car to the side of the road before sighing as he put his forehead against the steering wheel.
Harry was tired. So fucking tired. Finding out a week ago about his wife's infidelity had been the biggest blow that he had ever gotten in his life. Even when he took a bullet to the shoulder, it didn't hurt as much as it did when he found out about what his wife did. Harry won't deny that at that moment when he first found out, he wanted to kill Grace. He wanted to grab his gun and just put a bullet in her brain for what she had done.
But he knew that it was wrong. He wouldn't allow his emotions to get the better of him like that.
That was why Harry kept his distance from Grace for so long while working on the divorce papers. He made sure to gather as much evidence as possible about what she did and spoke to lawyers who would be able to help him in the settlement agreements. At the end of all this, Harry was certain that he wouldn't have to part with any of his property, even after the divorce. They would likely get shared custody of their son, but that was all she would get.
Harry was done with her.
Harry sighed and leaned back in the seat before looking at the crying woman beside him. Once upon a time, he would have jumped in front of a bullet just to make sure she no longer cried. He would have done anything for her. But now, he just felt cold. So fucking cold.
"I loved you, Grace. I fucking loved the hell out of you! That's why I just don't get it. Why did you do it? You didn't even think about what it would do to us? What it would do to your fucking son!? My son!"
Grace put her hands on her face as her crying increased in intensity! She knew that she had messed up, but she just didn't know what to do anymore! There was nothing she could say that would make Harry look at her in the same way he looked at her just a week ago.
It was like her life was falling apart in front of her eyes.