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Sharon picked up a heavy bag of compost and started waddling with it like she was twelve months pregnant. It was heavy, but she only needed to move it a short distance. She dropped it on the floor and started waddling over with the next one. She had to move several of these heavy bags to get them off of the wooden pallet and over to the customer display. Once she had finished that, the siamese cat had plenty of more work to do. The store had gotten a restock of fertilizers and pesticides earlier in the day and most of it needed to be stocked onto the shelves. She was doing everything she could to keep herself busy, trying not to let herself fall idle. Some of her coworkers had noticed her shift in attitude, and she was doing her best to deflect their questions in whichever way she could. If she could just quickly move from one thing to the next, finding every little thing she could do, then she could keep her mind off of what was bothering her. But it wasn’t working. Even though she wore a smile and played the game of little pleasantries with her coworkers and customers, she was stuck in this wheel of negative thought that kept spinning uncomfortably. It scared her, she didn’t know what to do and she didn’t even know who to ask yet. She couldn’t ask her mother, because what would she even say to her? This past Monday she had to work late to cover Brenda’s shift, and when she got home, she hadn’t noticed that anything was wrong at the time. But now she was convinced that she’d just been too tired to see the problem. After having put in thirteen hours of work that day, she got home feeling dreadful, she was just so tired. All she had wanted to do was to take a shower and collapse into bed. Trey had been home, and he’d greeted her, had even asked her how work had gone. It seemed normal enough at the time through the fog of sore feet and an aching back. But starting Tuesday, it turned out that things weren’t normal at all. He hadn’t interacted with her much after Monday. She’d been so quick to fall into bed at the time that it took her a full day of retracing her steps to realize he’d not hugged her once, even after they were both in bed together. The cat finished organizing a small display rack of spray insecticides, then started walking through the aisles to check what gaps in the shelves needed filling with fresh stock. Trey had been distant all week, even when she’d try and ask him about how his work was going, or about anything he’d done that day. Normally, he always was working on something. Sometimes he’d have weeks where he’d have to show off one or two houses a day, and no matter what he did for work, he always made time for the gym since he worked from home so much. He liked to browse the news and catch up on the sports he was interested in. But every time this week when she’d ask about any of those things he just had this… Coldness to him. He didn’t have much to say to her, not just distant but like he was even trying to avoid her. Now it was Friday, and she didn’t understand what had gotten into him, it was like… Was he depressed? He was being so unlike himself, and she was reluctant to try and to talk to him about it. She’d never seen him like this before, not ever. It scared her. She couldn’t ask her mother, because Sharon wouldn’t even know what to say to her other than ‘Trey is acting distant and he might be depressed.’ Her mother would just turn around and ask a bunch of questions, starting with ‘Have you talked to him about it yet?’ No, they hadn’t talked about anything yet. Sharon knew she needed to talk to him, but every hour, every day, that passed left her feeling more and more worried. She was avoiding the responsible thing to do, typical of her. It wasn’t like this was the first time she avoided talking about something difficult. As the cat walked towards the storeroom to look and see if they had any more garden stakes, she kept spinning her mind back to what she ought to be doing and why she couldn’t bring herself to do it. From the moment she’d first met him, Trey had always been a confident and self-assured man, bold even. Charismatic! He was a salesman, and a good one! She’d never known him to be otherwise. Never in their marriage, or even when they’d been dating, had he acted this way, and everything had seemed fine up until this week. She kept thinking that something must have happened on Monday while she was at work, but Trey hadn’t said anything to her about it. She just needed to talk to him! Maybe someone died? She was just trying to think of anything that would shake her husband so bad that it would make him act this way. But the problem there was that she didn’t think anyone had died. She checked Facebook every day and no one was talking about anybody dying in either of their families. No one had texted or called to talk to her or Trey about anyone dying. If someone had died, someone close enough to her husband to make him act so out of character, then she’d be bawling her eyes out right now, because anyone that close to her husband would also be someone she’d know! So, maybe something happened with his work? He was really hoping to sell that crazy expensive house they showed off this past weekend. Could it be that the couple they showed it to had backed out of buying it? Or maybe the person selling it had changed their mind, since he was already overpricing the house anyway. Being greedy. She just didn’t know and she knew it was pointless to just speculate on her own when her husband was right there at home where she could just ask him. She just needed to talk to her husband! Sharon was just so caught up with what she was most afraid of that she couldn’t get herself to do the right thing, and she hated it! It had been years since she’d felt like this about anything, it made her skin crawl. She just had to shake her hands out and pick up the box of plastic garden stakes so she could take them back to their spot in the aisle. Three days of him being distant were three days too many, and she wanted him to hold her again. She was just so afraid that she knew why he’d suddenly changed. She needed to do the right thing for once. Sharon just needed to talk to her husband, just talk to him, instead of pulling her hair out at work. --------- She pulled her sedan into the garage, the cat coming to a stop soon as she felt her front wheels bump into the rubber strip her husband had put down on the concrete to keep her from bumping into the wall again. After putting the car into park and turning off the ignition, she just heaved out a long sigh and sat in the driver’s seat for a while, gathering her courage so she could step inside her own home. Her hair was still on her head, so she managed to at least not pulling anything out while she finished out her shift, but that didn’t mean she still wasn’t anxious about talking to her husband. She knew he was home as his car was next to hers in the garage. Finally, she reached up to the sun visor and mashed the button on the fob to close the garage door behind her. Climbing out of the driver’s seat with her purse, she locked up the car and headed inside. The kitchen was empty, and she didn’t see her husband in the living room. Setting her purse down on the counter and dropping her keys into the tray, she called out for Trey. After a moment he called back, his voice coming from the study he used as his home office. It was now dragging into late afternoon, so it was a bit unusual for Trey to still be working. Maybe he had spent more time showing off houses today and needed to catch up on his paperwork, or so she hoped is all that it was. The siamese cat looked down at the front of her body, over the swell of her large chest and used her hands to brush off a few stray bits of plant matter that had stuck to her at the store. Feeling self-conscious she hesitated to leave the kitchen. Her anxiety was making her do all kinds of strange things. She forced herself to leave the kitchen and wander through the living room until she was standing in the doorway to her husband’s study. Trey was still dressed for work in a white button down, and he was at his computer with a thin stack of papers next to him on the desk. “Hey.” Trey said to her, now looking up from his work. “Well, hi! Still working?” She asked him with a smile, leaning gently against the doorframe. Her nerves were making her hands fidgety, so she put a stop to it by grabbing one hand with the other and just held them together in front of her lap. “Yeah, had a lot pile up today.” He replied flatly before looking back down at his screen. He sounded tired, and his shoulders were slumped. To Sharon’s eyes he really did look depressed, more than he had yesterday, and it frightened her so much more to see him that way. It just made her feel so much worse, her fears coming alive even though she still hadn’t spoken to him at all! “Is there something you’d like for dinner?” She asked a different question instead of the one she should have asked. He shrugged in reply without looking up. “Anything, doesn’t matter to me.” He told her. She nodded, leaning away from the doorframe. “Ok, I’ll think of something.” She told him, then turned to leave. Absolutely failed to do a single good thing! The cat lifted her fidgeting hands and rubbed them together as she returned to the kitchen. Shaking her head, feeling so upset with herself, she opened the pantry door and looked inside. As she skimmed what she had in stock, she kept turning her thoughts back to her husband. He hadn’t look depressed yesterday, had he? Or the day before? Distant, but not depressed. At least she didn’t think so, it was like he was getting worse and quickly! Surely no one had died, surely no one he would care enough about that it would do this to him! Surely not, Sharon really would be crying right now because she’d be devastated too! Trey did say he had a lot of work piled up, but he’d never acted depressed over work before! Not in any of the four years they’d been together. Not when they dated, not after they got married! Never! He liked it when there was a lot of work, because then he made more money! Every sale gave him a commission, that’s why he was so successful! More work, more money, more reason for him to be in a good mood! Grabbing a box of macaroni, she sat it down on the kitchen island, then left the kitchen to go back into the garage where they kept a large freezer. The freezer was stocked with a lot of frozen veggies and a few meats. She tried to think of something she hadn’t cooked in a while and decided to grab out a frozen package of butter beans. Macaroni and butter beans, but she needed a main course. She’d need to start brewing a pitcher of tea, too. She stepped back into the kitchen and dropped the package of beans in the sink to start thawing. All of a sudden, she felt herself shiver, stopping dead in her tracks until she had to put her hands on the kitchen counter to steady herself. Her heart was quietly pounding. She started mouthing out words, telling herself she was a crazy person. Stepping back from the counter she rubbed her hands together quickly to warm them up, then shook them loose. She was a mess, Sharon knew it. She just needed to talk to him. Pivoting on her heel she did not go back to her husband. Instead, she avoided him altogether by going back out into the garage so she could check the freezer again. She rummaged through the meat she had until she came across a package of chicken breasts. Trey and Sharon had been together for four years, so this shouldn’t be so hard! They’d had tough talks before, but she’d never seen him act like this. No one she knew had died, and nothing could be going wrong with his work. And Trey couldn’t have gotten fired; he’s sitting in his office doing paperwork! She started rubbing her face. He wouldn’t be cheating on her, would he? She started to violently shake her head. An immediate heel pivot later and she was stepping back into the kitchen, dropping the package of chicken into the sink, and began heading to the bedroom. It was there that she locked herself inside the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror. Nervously, Sharon started checking her face and hair. Losing it, just totally losing it. She just needed to ask him what was wrong, but she just felt this tight feeling in her stomach, an ugly feeling that made her want to bury her head in the sand. Trey wouldn’t cheat on her, she didn’t marry that kind of man! That’s not something he would do to her. She almost started crying. Because why would he cheat on her when he could just leave her like all of her exes had? It was then that she started to quietly cry. Was that it? Was Trey finally sick of her rejecting him? Of all the stupid horrible things she’d done, lying to Trey was right at the top of her list. He was such a good man, she shouldn’t have let herself drag this out for so long. When they first started dating, she treated him the same way she treated all her other exes. No sex until marriage, not even anything tame. She pretended to be this very vanilla, tame woman. Her exes all got sick of it and left her, but Trey actually stuck around even though she knew he wanted to sleep with her. He was so wonderful, she couldn’t have asked for a better man to be her husband. It was only when she grew so afraid that he’d leave her too, that she gave in and broke her own rules. She started giving him blowjobs. But all she gave him were bad blowjobs, because she didn’t want him to think she was a slut. Sluts all know how to give great head, so she fumbled on purpose, letting him think she was this vanilla girl that hardly knew anything about a dick except for what she learned in sex ed. And it worked. So long as she gave him head, that seemed to satisfy him, and they had another wonderful year of dating before he proposed. By then she’d stopped pretending to give bad head and had managed to suck a diamond on a gold band right out of his cock. Just thinking about it that way made her feel sick to her stomach. What an awful, disgusting way to describe how her husband fell in love with her. Taking a few steps backwards, she sat down on the edge of the tub and took a few minutes to collect herself. If she was a smart woman she’d have cut the act on their honeymoon, but do you know what a stupid woman would do? She’d scare herself so bad by thinking her new husband might discover she’s a disgusting slut and divorce her, that she’d just keep on pretending to be this little vanilla woman. Pretending that she wasn’t interested in letting her fuck her tits, or pretending that she was afraid of trying anal, or pretending that he was going too fast or too hard. Pretending, pretending, lying, liar. Sharon reached up to wipe under the eyes, knowing she looked awful now that she’d been shedding tears. She’d long known he wanted more from their bedroom, but he was such a wonderful man that he never pushed. He saw a boundary and he was respecting the hell out of it, because he loved his stupid little vanilla wife. So, he wouldn’t cheat on her, but he might just give up on her. That’s what she was most afraid of, that’s why she couldn’t get herself to talk to him because what if her fears were on the money this time? Wiping under her eyes again she stood up. When she looked herself again in the mirror, she looked miserable, and like a slut. The little bit of makeup she put on for work was now smeared across her cheeks like a train had just been run on her. Turning on the faucet, Sharon had to clean her face. The beans and chicken needed time to thaw anyway, so she had time to clean herself up. Once her face was washed and it no longer looked like she’d been crying, or like anything else had been done to her, she started stripping. She stopped when she was reduced to her underwear and left the bathroom to find something to change into. She settled on a tee shirt and a pair of pajama pants. Now she didn’t smell so much like topsoil and mulch. Checking herself one more time in the mirror, she thought she looked ok, then headed back out to the kitchen. The frozen items in the sink had hardly thawed, so she turned on the water and let it run, rinsing off the bits of frost until the packaging was cold and glossy. She should have thought ahead and left things out in the fridge this morning, so they’d already be thawed out by dinnertime. Just add it to the list of things she should have done but didn’t. The chicken wasn’t going to thaw fast enough, so she pulled it from the sink and grabbed a paper plate. As she went about opening the package and transferring the chicken to the plate, she kept trying to work up some courage. Once the chicken was on the plate, she put it in the microwave to set it to defrost. She looked across the island and towards the hallway. Her husband was right over there in his office; all she had to do was talk to him. Maybe it had nothing to do with her, or anything she’d done or didn’t do. She’d gotten too comfortable with how things were, she should have changed a long time ago. Every time she and Trey were intimate, she knew he wanted more. She should have encouraged it, even, but every time she felt him speed up, or grip her tighter, or suggest something new, she had squashed it. That was all on her. It’s been over ten years now; she needed to let it go. The microwave beeped, and she pulled the chicken out of the microwave and touched each breast with a fingertip to check them. They still felt frozen in the center, so she sat the plate on the counter so they could continue to thaw. Even if it wasn’t anything she’d done, Trey was still her husband. She was being a horrible wife for not trying to talk to him. He must know that she can tell something is wrong, and he might even be wondering why she isn’t reaching out to check on him! He could have cancer right now and his wife hasn’t even bothered to ask him why he’s acting depressed! Sharon smiled grimly herself, knowing that it was all true. Anything could be wrong, even something like cancer, and she simply wouldn’t know it because she was so afraid of him leaving her that she was abandoning him first by not trying to talk to him. Even if this wasn’t her fault, she still had things to fix in their marriage. She could do it slowly, maybe invite him to suggest something in the bedroom they can try. Let him take the lead and try something and she’d allow it. Baby steps, and then they can both start feeling better about it. He won’t think she’s a slut, or anything worse, especially after four years of being together. She sighed. Sharon touched the box of macaroni and stared at it, now on the cusp of pushing her thumb against the perforated top to break the seal. She stopped and sat the box back down. The beans were still frozen in the sink; the chicken wasn’t fit to grill. Delaying the inevitable, she fished out a frying pan from the cabinet, then pulled the jug of vegetable oil from the pantry and sat it next to the stove. The salt and pepper shakers came next, now sitting next to the jug of oil. She had butter in the fridge, what was she thinking. She put the vegetable oil back where she found it. She reached out to one arm and pinched herself hard. It hurt, and she screwed her eyes shut and exhaled hard as she felt at war with herself. Trey was sitting right over there. Just ask him how he’s doing! Running her hands over her face she tried to settle herself down, using deep breaths until she felt like she was in control again. She was crazy, she had no reason to be this nutty over something she didn’t even know! Sharon exhaled one more time and then started to leave the kitchen. Her feet were uneasily drawing her back to her husband’s office, and when she got there, she felt incredibly small. When she appeared in the doorway, Trey looked up at her from his computer. “I picked out grilled chicken, with macaroni and butter beans.” She told him. His only noticeable reaction was a nod. “Cool.” He told her, voice flat. Sharon nodded back, now leaning herself against the doorframe. “How was work this week? I haven’t heard any updates.” The cat asked. Her husband sighed, then leaned back in his chair, his eyes not looking at her but his computer screen. “It’s been going alright. Nothing new yet.” He told her. Holding her hands together, she struggled where she stood. He never had so little to say about his work, this wasn’t like him at all. She made herself smile and squeezed her hands together. “That’s good. Are you still going to be able to sell that one house? The one we showed on Saturday?” She asked about the expensive house. He finally looked at her and nodded. “Yeah, just waiting for everything to go through. Maybe late next week it’ll close, but might be week after that.” Trey told her. “That’s good!” She replied. Just ask him! Please, just ask him! She was now squeezing her hands together painfully, upset with herself as she struggled with the fear of what might be, too scared to ask him how he was really doing. Sharon finally opened her mouth to ask the important question, her voice catching in her throat and leaving only silence to escape. She tried again, unable to make eye contact with him at all as she found a spot on the back of his computer to look at instead. “You’ve been acting different all week.” Was the best she could muster up. He didn’t say anything to her, and the silence started to drag out between them uncomfortably until she had to find the strength to speak again. “Are you doing ok?” She forced herself to ask him, finally dragging her eyes back up to his. She felt cold when she saw his face. He looked so depressed, almost blank in his expression. He broke eye contact with her, just staring at his computer. The silence between them returned and started to drag out. The longer it dragged the more uncomfortable it became until it was too painful to endure it. Sharon could feel her emotions rising sharply inside her, a painful lump in her throat expanding as it threatened to force out fresh tears as her fears of him leaving her almost seemed to be coming true from all of the silence. “I don’t know.” He finally answered. She let out the breath she’d been holding. “What’s wrong?” She asked, trying her best to keep herself together. She watched as he shifted in his chair, staring off at something on his desk. Sharon waited, the lump in her throat hurting more and more as the silence dragged out far longer than it should have. Finally, he shook his head. “It’s nothing, Sharon. I’m fine.” He told her, but that’s not what his face was telling her. “Please, you’ve been acting this way all week, baby. Something’s wrong.” She begged him, almost stepping into the office to join him, her voice frail. He exhaled, Sharon watching his expression go tense, his jaw tightening and loosening as he fidgeted in his seat. Her husband reached up to touch his face, rubbing his cheek anxiously until he finally lifted his eyes to look at her. Suddenly, she felt afraid. Her husband’s eyes were glossy and wet; she’d never seen him this pained before. Trey opened his mouth to speak, and she held her breath again. “Do you know who Cherry Temple is?” He asked her. She felt ice cold, all at once. As her heart began to pound violently in her chest, she stood frozen in the doorway as her husband watched her from his seat. Sharon felt her mouth open, but she couldn’t speak. The painful lump in her throat was lodged so deep, that she couldn’t speak. The look on his face changed, from looking so pained to looking angry. “Do you know who she is?” He asked her again, his voice firm. And she couldn’t speak, her own eyes beginning to water until fresh tears began to spill down her cheeks. Her quivering lips gave birth to a choking sob as she began to cry. Rapidly, her sobs grew more violent as her husband began to sag deeply into his chair, staring at her with a grim and defeated expression. Gripped with fear, she fled. Turning away from the door she ran down the hall and slammed the bedroom door shut behind her. She took a spill as she stepped away from the door, yelping as she collapsed to the carpeted floor. Sharon didn’t pick herself up, she just kept sobbing, hiding her face behind her hands. He was going to leave her! Her heart was no longer pounding; it now lay shattered in her chest as she sobbed louder with her back to the floor. It had been more a decade, more than ten years since she’d heard that name. She thought she’d escaped it, that it was behind her and couldn’t catch her anymore! As she wept harder into her hands, she didn’t know what to do, her husband was going to leave her. And she deserved it. She was just an awful whore, and he was going to leave her because of it!