Another LIKE Excerpt…
Greg and Candy had been messaging each other back and forth the past couple of days since she first contacted him. Through some sort of unspoken understanding, neither of them friend-requested the other, or moved beyond the bounds of Facebook.
I’m married. What good can come of this? he wondered, with no small measure of guilt. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, or what this was all about. Messaging my high school sweetheart? I must be out of my mind. This just can’t end well.
An eclectic mix of thoughts bounced around his mind, some conflicting, some irrational, rebounding from the inner surfaces of his cranium like little rubber balls in a competitive racquetball match. You could almost hear the thwock! as they ricocheted around in there, the mental tug-of-war that transpired. Yet somehow he justified all of his actions, though he simultaneously wondered if they were wrong.
It’s not like I’m cheating on Claire—it’s just a few messages, he thought.
Then why don’t you tell her? he replied to himself.
I knew Candy before I ever knew Claire—it was just a high school thing—she wouldn’t understand, he responded, avoiding his own question.
She wouldn’t understand because it’s wrong!
The arguments continued without answers or resolution. He honestly believed that, while the situation would appear strange, he wasn’t cheating, and that his wife just wouldn’t understand if he told her.
Heck, he didn’t know if he completely understood it himself, but the communication with his ex seemed driven by three different things.
For one, part of him was just curious.
Another part of him wanted to show her how well he had done, sans Candice Graves, with his life. He was a success, and he wanted her to know that. He couldn’t identify why that mattered to him, but it did.
The final part, well, it was a mystery he couldn’t explain even to himself. An enigma. It was without explanation, or maybe the explanation was one that he dare not voice or even think.
He rationalized the situation with an imperfect analogy: if my dog ran away years ago, and went to live with another family, I’d want to know the dog was okay, even if I never petted the dog again.
He shook his head, snapping back to the here and now of his kitchen.
