“You saw Brian at the airport with another woman?” Leighanne’s sister, Suzanne, gasped.

Suzanne was completely shocked. Brian never seemed like the kind of guy that cheats on his wife. Until Brian had asked Leighanne for a separation months earlier, he and Leighanne were always the perfect couple. They had the kind of relationship that everyone else in the world envied. Suzanne had asked Leighanne when the demise of her and Brian’s relationship came to light whether she thought that Brian had met someone else, but she never believed it.

“That’s not even the worst part,” Leighanne sobbed. She hadn’t been able to stop crying since she’d arrived at her sister’s house the night before. It was now almost 24 hours later and she was just becoming able to say the words. “He came home with divorce papers. He wants to leave me.”

“No,” Suzanne gasped again. She had always assumed that when Brian got back from his tour things would be okay again. Never in her wildest dreams did she think that he would actually ask for a divorce. “What did you say?”

“What was I supposed to say?” Leighanne choked out tearfully. “I just left. I told him that he didn’t mean it. I guess that I acted kind of crazy, but he can’t mean it. We’re meant to be together. Everyone knows it. He used to know it, too. It’s that damned girl that’s gotten to him.”

“Those things never last, Leigh, and besides, he cheated on you. It shouldn’t be his choice if he gets to be with you or not, you should hold all of the balls in your hands,” Suzanne replied softly. She hated to see her sister like this. Leighanne was always so strong. Even if Brian was her husband, no matter how much she loved him, she was too good for a man that would cheat on her. “Maybe Brian asking for this divorce is the best thing that could happen to you.”

“How can you even say that?” Leighanne asked as she wiped her wet cheeks dry. “He’s the love of my life, Suzanne. I won’t just let him go like this.”

“If a man cheats once, chances are that he’ll do it again,” Suzanne reasoned. “Is that what you want to live with? The constant fear that your husband is cheating on you?”

Leighanne shook her head slowly. “No, but Brian never was that guy. He’s just going through something right now.”

“If Brian really was the love of your life, it wouldn’t be this hard,” Suzanne replied simply, which made Leighanne furious.

“Are you kidding me?” she yelled. “Maybe that reasoning is exactly why you’re divorced, Suzanne. Marriage is hard work and I’m not done working on mine.”

“I know that you’re upset, but you have no right to talk to me like that, Leighanne,” Suzanne snapped back. “I know that marriage is hard work, but what I have also learned is that it takes two people to work at it and obviously, Brian doesn’t want to have to work as hard as you do.”

“You don’t know anything about it,” Leighanne replied, barely above a whisper.

“You sound crazy, do you know that?” Suzanne shrieked, and then lowered her voice. “One minute you’re sobbing about how terrible he is and the next minute, you’re taking up for him. Which is it going to be? Do you want to hate him or do you want to make it work?”

“I want to make it work,” Leighanne responded without a moment’s hesitation.

“Then what are you doing here? Are you waiting for him to come to you? Because that’s not going to work.” Suzanne reached out for her sister’s hand and squeezed it gently. She didn’t quite understand why Leighanne wasn’t angrier at the situation. Maybe she was right and eventually Brian was going to realize his mistake, but that could take weeks or months or years and she didn’t think that Leighanne wanted to wait that long. “If you want Brian back, you need to be there, with him, trying to talk this thing out calmly. Brian doesn’t handle your temper that well, you’ve always known that. You need to take it down a notch and just talk to him. If you want this to work, you need to fight for it to work.”

Leighanne nodded. She completely understood what Suzanne was saying, but she didn’t know how to do it. She didn’t know how to make Brian listen. They had been fighting for so long that it was almost as if they had forgotten how to simply talk to each other. She knew that her sister was right; she had to try. If she wanted things to work, she couldn’t make the mistake that she’d already made and expect that some time on tour would change his mind and make him realize what he was missing at home. She couldn’t let him leave without knowing that she loved him and that she was going to fight to be with him until the day that she died.

----

After getting off of the phone with Noelle the night before, Brian had slept a fitful sleep. He had tossed and turned the entire night. All that he could see were images of Leighanne’s distraught face as he slept in the bed that they once shared. It just didn’t seem right that he was there in their bedroom and she was gone.

Leighanne was supposed to stay at the house. Brian was supposed to be the one that left, not the other way around.

The next morning, he was up early. His body just wasn’t having it. His internal clock was already screwed up from being in Europe for six months, let alone the drama that his brain was going through. As he looked around the room, he decided that he needed to start packing and putting anything that was important to him into a storage facility for safe keeping until he could come back and find a place of his own to live.

By noon, Brian had most of the things that he cared about boxed up and stacked by the door. Mostly, he’d packed the old memories that Leighanne hadn’t destroyed. He also packed the clothes that he wouldn’t need for the rest of the tour. When everything was finished, he had called a local storage company that he and Leighanne had used to store their things while their house was being built to come and pick up his things later that afternoon.

Brian threw himself down onto the couch and slung an arm over his eyes. Packing was actually pretty torturous. It just made the whole thing real. Before he had time to dwell on the seriousness of the situation again, his phone started to buzz in his pocket. He smiled when he took a peek at the screen and saw Noelle’s face flashing at him.

“Hey Beautiful,” Brian answered softly.

 “Hey yourself,” Noelle replied, glad to simply hear his voice. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Not at all,” Brian replied as he sat up on the couch and crossed his feet on the glass coffee table in front of him. “You have perfect timing actually.”

“Do I?” Noelle asked coyly.

“You do,” Brian responded with a smile. “I was just thinking about how much I miss you.”

“You just saw me yesterday,” Noelle replied with a laugh, even though she missed him terribly too.

“Does that mean that you don’t miss me?” Brian asked, jokingly.

“Maybe that’s exactly what I’m saying.” Noelle laughed and rolled her eyes to herself. She had never missed a human being more in such a short time apart.

There was a slight pause in conversation as Brian felt an irrational surge of annoyance rush through him.

“Thanks. It’s not like I’m not having a hard enough few days.” He meant for the statement to sound lighter than it had actually come out. He hadn’t meant to be so cold and serious.

“Whoa, I was only kidding, Brian,” Noelle replied softly. “Are you okay?”

Brian knew that he’d hurt her feelings and he hated that. He’d known that she had been joking and he was just tired—mentally and physically.

“Not really,” he replied softly. “I’m not okay and I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“Well,” Noelle responded softly, nervously even. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to say really,” Brian answered. “This just turned out to be harder than I thought that it was going to be—the packing my life away and everything.”

“I’m sorry,” Noelle whispered. “Maybe I should let you go. I don’t guess that I’m making this any easier on you.”

Brian sighed to himself softly. He could hear the wavering in her voice. “It’s not you, Noelle. You’re what makes this bearable, I promise. I told you that I love you and I mean it. I do. I love you. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Noelle replied. “I love you, too. Just don’t shut down on me, okay? I don’t know where my place is in all of this. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say and what I’m not supposed to say and I just—If you change your mind or decide that you need time or something--”

“That’s not it,” Brian sighed. “I haven’t changed my mind and I know that I’m too sensitive about things sometimes, but that’s because I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel either. I know that I don’t want to be in this marriage anymore, but I don’t know what the right way to feel is.”

“I can understand that,” Noelle responded softly.

She wanted to understand what Brian was going through, but his snapping was only making her wonder if he was really ready to move on or if he needed more time. She didn’t want to get in the way and she was afraid that he would end up resenting her later on. More and more Noelle was starting to consider that maybe AJ was right.

“I didn’t really sleep that well last night. I could just be tired, too.” Brian suddenly broke into Noelle’s thoughts. He stopped when he heard a banging at the front door. “I think that the movers are here to get my stuff. I’ll call you back later, okay?”

Noelle paused, confused by what exactly had just happened. “Um, yeah. Okay.” 

When Brian hung up the phone without so much as a goodbye, she threw the phone down on the bed next to her and groaned. She was afraid that her fears may have just come true. He was having regrets and that scared her to death.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta, Brian hurried into the foyer to get the door, but as he approached he saw that no one was knocking; instead, the banging that he heard was only Leighanne trying to get through the door where Brian’s boxes were stacked.

Brian froze when he saw her enter. He didn’t know if he had another fight left in him. He said what he needed to say. Couldn’t that be it? Couldn’t they both just accept it and move on?

“What’s all this?” Leighanne asked calmly.

Brian sighed and shrugged. “I just needed to get some stuff out of here. I got everything that I wanted, the rest is yours.”

“So you’re really going through with this?” Leighanne continued, though her question came out more as a statement.

Brian nodded. “I tried to talk to you yesterday, Leigh. I thought long and hard about all of this and I know that it’s right. We’re not meant to be together.”

Leighanne shook her head and looked away from him. “I still don’t think that you mean it. I still think that somewhere inside of you you’re having second thoughts. I know you. I know that it can’t be this easy for you to walk away.”

“It isn’t easy,” Brian replied. “It’s one of the hardest things that I’ve ever had to do, but I still know that it has to be done. Sure, we can stay together forever, but at what price?”

“Brian,” Leighanne replied softly as she looked back up at him. She was surprised to see tears in his eyes for the first time since the day he left for Europe. “Brian, have you ever thought that you’re thinking about this in the wrong way? Maybe it’s not the price that you should be thinking about. It’s the benefit; it’s the end prize.” Leighanne took a step toward him and placed her hands on either side of his face. She wiped the tears that were falling down his face with her thumbs. “I love you Brian and I know that even though you may not like me right now for whatever reason, you know that you love me too.”

Brian watched as Leighanne leaned into him slowly. Just as her lips were about to touch his, he turned his face away and stepped back. He shook his head.

“No,” Brian replied. “A couple of days of tears doesn’t take away from the years that we’ve spent fighting.”

He turned away from her and picked up his car keys from the catchall table that stood parallel with the door. Luckily, he’d already been planning on leaving once the movers showed up so his tour suitcases were already packed into the car. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

“Why do you keep doing this?” Leighanne asked as she, too, began to cry. “Why do you keep running away every time that you start to feel something or every time it starts to get a little bit hard?”

“One day you’ll understand, Leighanne,” Brian replied softly. “One day you’ll see that this is right. Until then, I don’t have anything else to say.”

When the door slammed behind Brian Leighanne flinched, but this time she let him leave. Despite the conversation, Leighanne still felt good about what was said. She saw that this was harder on him than he let on. Whether Brian wanted her to or not, she found hope in his tears. For the first time in months, she really believed that maybe they could work this marriage out.

Brian was shaking as he left the house. He hated the rush of emotions that was running through him. Not since he’d made his decision had he felt such a strong indecision. It was so much easier to make the decide to get divorced when Leighanne wasn’t being reasonable. She had suddenly flipped a switch and turned the bitch that he’d been married to off and turned the woman that he remembered back on. How the hell does that even happen?

Brian knew what he needed to do. He knew where he needed to go. He needed to head south on Interstate 75.

 -----

Noelle had been a wreck since getting off of the phone with Brian earlier in the day. She was still wondering what had happened. Was he really just tired? Had he changed his mind about her? Had she been duped again by another fucking married man?

Her emotions ran from devastated to pissed off and back again. She was hoping that Brian would call her back and apologize or, at least, explain. Granted, he had started to explain his cold demeanor right before he hung up on her, but still.

Instead of dwelling on it, Noelle tried to keep herself busy. She caught up on the laundry that she had been putting off and paid all of the bills that she had been neglecting. Before she knew it, the sun was starting to set and her stomach was starting to growl.

As she opened the bare refrigerator to scan the contents for anything at all edible, she was distracted by someone knocking on her front door. Assuming it was Emily—and wondering why her friend was even knocking in the first place—she swung the door opened without looking through the peephole.

When Brian saw Noelle’s face, he dropped his duffel bag and immediately pulled her into his arms. He pressed his mouth to hers and kissed her hungrily until he had no choice but to breathe.

“Brian,” Noelle gasped, surprised. She grabbed his hand and his duffel bag and pulled him inside. “What are you doing here?”

“I needed to see you,” Brian replied as he pulled her close and kissed her again.

Noelle pulled away suspiciously. “What’s going on? You were completely bummed and cold on the phone earlier and now you ‘had to see me’? I don’t understand.”

“I’m sorry,” he replied softly. “I know that I’m bombarding you, I just… you always make me feel better about everything. I don’t feel crazy when I’m around you and that’s exactly what I’ve felt since you left Atlanta yesterday.”

Brian stopped and shook his head. “Yesterday? Really, it was just yesterday?”

“Honey,” she replied gently. A smile that she was unable to stifle rose to her face as she pulled him over to the couch where they both sat down. “You’re starting to sound crazy.”

Brian laid back on the couch and pulled Noelle down with him. When he left Atlanta earlier in the day, he’d immediately gotten onto the interstate without even thinking much about it. He had Noelle’s address in the contacts on his phone. He plugged it into the GPS and let the machine he had affectionately named Lucy lead the way. Now, as he had Noelle wrapped in his arms, he wondered why he didn’t leave Atlanta sooner and save himself from another fight with his soon-to-be ex-wife.

Noelle slid her hand up Brian’s shirt and let her cold fingers rest against his soft skin. She leaned down and kissed his chest softly. “Okay, tell me everything. What happened?”

Brian sighed. “How long do you have?”

“I have as long as you need me for,” Noelle replied with a warm smile.

Brian could literally feel the stress melting away as he ran his hands through Noelle’s soft brown hair. He knew that he had no reason to doubt that he was making the right decision. This was right. Coming to Gainesville and being with Noelle was right.

“Let’s save the talking for later. I just want to lie here for right now. I’m perfect just like this.”

As Noelle snuggled closer to him, Brian sighed contentedly and kissed the top of her head softly knowing that he would have no problem staying that way forever.