**A Love That Consumes**
“Do you really think that free spirit will stay married for long?” Emma tried to talk some sense into me.
“Time will tell,” I replied with a blissful smile, unaware those words would become both the motto and the curse of my life.
I remember that evening as if it happened yesterday. A stifling banquet, the scent of expensive perfume, idle chatter about money, and plastic smiles. I stood with a glass in hand, thinking how tired I was of it all. I was ready to slip away when I heard a womans infectious laughter behind me. I turned as if pulled by a string.
And there she was. Kate. Gesturing animatedly as she entertained a group of men. Slender, in a simple dress, but with such fire in her hazel eyes that my carefully constructed, safe world shattered in an instant.
“Whos that?” I asked Emma, an old acquaintance.
“Thats my friend Kate,” she sighed. “Fair warningshes a force of nature in a skirt. Being with her is like flyingexhilarating, but theres always the risk of crashing.”
I barely registered the warning, already spellbound. For someone raised by professor parents who lectured even over breakfast, Kate was life itself. It was love at first sightor, more accurately, a diagnosis with no cure.
We married six months later, against my parents pleas. “Shell break you, son,” my father said, peering over his glasses. “That girl wasnt made for marriage.”
“Shes a beautiful, poisonous vine,” my mother agreed. “Shell choke you until theres nothing left.”
But all I saw was sunlight. A hurricane was exactly what my rigidly scheduled life had been missing.
The first months were madness. Kate would wake me at three in the morning, exclaiming, “James, look at the moon! Lets drive to the river!” And we would. Shed strike up conversations with homeless men outside our building, and within minutes, theyd pour out their life stories. She was chaosand I drank it in like a prisoner tasting freedom for the first time.
Then came the first storm.
The financial crisis hit without warning. My business, my lifes work, faltered and collapsed within months. I fought to salvage what I could, but it was futile. One evening, I came home hollow-eyed and defeated, the ground crumbling beneath me.
Kate met me at the door. Not with an embrace. Arms crossed, she stared at me with a cold, unfamiliar gaze.
“Well, genius? Lost it all?” Her voice was sharp, merciless.
I struggled to breathe.
“Kate, IIm trying”
“Youre trying to bail out a sinking ship,” she cut in. “I wont drown with you. I dont do poverty. I need stability. You cant give me that anymore. Sorry.”
She packed her bags right in front of me. My throat tightened, words failing.
“Kate, wait please,” I whispered. “Ill fix this. Well fix it”
She paused, shoved her burgundy passport into her handbag, and finally looked at me. No love, no regretjust icy irritation.
“James, stop groveling. Its pathetic. Dont call. Dont look for me. Bye.”
The door slammed. The sound reverberated in my chest like physical pain. I crumpled to the floor, crying like a boy, smearing tears across my face. The world lost its color. Food turned tasteless; the air thickened.
Kate returned six months later.
I opened the doorand there she stood. Thinner, tanned, smelling of unfamiliar perfume. My legs nearly gave way. She stepped past me, kicking off her heels.
“Well,” she said breezily, “that broker turned out to be insufferable. Even his car music was classical.”
She said it as if shed just popped out for milk, not spent months in another mans bed.
Instead of throwing her things down the stairs, instead of shouting, I felt a wild, overwhelming joy. Shed come back! Shed chosen me!
“Im sorry I failed you,” I choked out. “I was weakI wasnt what you needed.”
She froze, surprised. When I met her eyes, I saw not remorse, but satisfaction. Shed been right. Always right. And II had been wrong.
There were more departures.
First, a “guru” who whisked her off to the mountains “to find enlightenment.” I didnt leave the house for weeks. I lay on the living room rug where wed once danced, staring blankly, imagining her laughing with him, gazing at him with the same awe shed once reserved for me. The thoughts made me physically ill.
Then came the “real man”muscular, with a cocky grin. I saw them in the park by chance. He whispered something in her ear, and she threw her head back, laughing that same laugh that had once pierced my heart. My vision darkened.
And each time, she returned. Each time, I was there to open the door.
Emma, whod introduced us, grabbed my shoulders after one such return, nearly shouting:
“James, wake up! Shes using you! She bragged that you apologized againfor what? For heavens sake, what could you possibly have to apologize for?”
“For not being enough. For boring her. Its my fault, Em. Always mine.”
I wasnt a man. I was a doormat. A waiting room for Kates convenience. The worst part? Id chosen it. Because life without her seemed worse than any pain she inflicted.
One night, after another return from some “stallion,” I broke. I entered the bedroom. She slept sprawled across my side of the bed, serene and breathtaking. I sat on the edge, my throat tight, and whispered:
“Tell me why do you always come back to me?”
She stirred, stretched, and flashed that same disarming smile.
“Because youre my home, Jamie,” she murmured sleepily. “My safe harbor. You always wait.”
There was no love in those wordsonly convenience. And that hurt more than all her betrayals combined. Yet when she wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing her warm cheek to my chest, my pain, my pride, dissolved.
I despised myself in those moments but couldnt let her go. Even knowing the door might slam again. Even knowing Id keep waiting. Because those stolen moments when Kate was near were the only air I breathed. Without her, there was only silencea vast, gray emptiness.
Kate left for good the day I almost lost the last remnant of my true self.
This time, it was a gallerista “sensitive soul,” shed sneered, eyeing my corporate ties. Alone again in our sterile flat, my phone rang. My father had had a stroke.
Rushing to the hospital, his warnings echoed in my mindthe ones Id dismissed so fiercely. “Shell break you, son.” Id thought he meant my career, my finances. But hed meant me. My soul.
I burst into the hospital room. My mother, always composed, wept silently by his bedside.
My father lay pale, face slack, staring at the ceiling. A ghost of the formidable man whod shaped me. Staring at his limp hand, something snapped inside mea near-physical click. With icy clarity, I saw myself in him: broken, paralyzed. Only his ruin was illness. Mine was love.
I sat beside my mother, took her trembling hand, and whispered:
“Im sorry. I shouldve listened.”
“We always hoped youd wake up,” she murmured.
That night, back in the empty flat, I did the first thing that came to mind. I packed Kates things. I almost tossed them but stopped myself. Instead, I shut the wardrobe door and taped a sign to it: “Waiting Room Closed.”
The hardest part was ignoring Kates text two weeks later: “Miss our coffee. He drinks some overpriced dust here.” My fingers itched to reply, “Come home.” But I remembered my fathers face. For the first time, I stayed silent.
She didnt understand. Messages turned to callsfirst confused, then furious, then mocking: “Jamie, what, on a vow of silence? Wasting away without me?” I said nothing. Silence became my fortress.
Then she showed up unannounced. Dropped her bag in the hall and demanded:
“James, fetch my suitcase from the car!”
“You misunderstood,” I said softly, each word deliberate. “This isnt your home anymore.”
For the first time, fear flickered in her eyes. Shed lost control.
“Whats wrong with you? Are you sick?”
“Yes, Kate. I was. Now Im healing. And it hurts. You were my sickness.”
It was agonylike detoxing from an addiction. But my fathers slow recovery steadied me. My mothers quiet strength. And my own will, finally turned toward saving myself, not waiting for her.
The first months of freedom felt like convalescence. My body and soul ached, unlearning poison. I caught myself checking my phone, listening for footsteps. But the urges lessened with time.
Six months later, Kate sent a postcard from a tropical island: “No one ever waited for me like you did.”
I boxed her remaining things and stored them awaynot in anger, but as hygiene. Clearing space for my own life.
Months after, Emma invited me to a gallery opening.
“Dont worry, your storm wont be there,” she joked.
But I wasnt afraid anymore. I studied the art, sipped wine, and met the gaze of a womannot dazzling like Kate, but with calm, attentive eyes. We spoke of books, of paintings. For once, I didnt have to pretend.
Walking her out, I realized with surprise: I felt no anxiety. No fear of misspeaking, no desperate need to impress. Just quiet.
For the first time, I was enough.
Life isnt about waiting in an empty room for someone who treats you as an option. Its about choosing yourselfeven when it hurts. Especially then.
