A Place Beyond The Horizon Ch. 05

"I was falling...."

"Yeah, falling, and every time I was the one catching you. But then you're falling again. I could only catch you so many times."

"One less time than required," Rosa shoots back bitterly, "No. You wanted out, Aidan, you wanted to escape from your crazy, broken wife. You wanted to justify that to yourself. Well, looks like you got what you wanted."

The phone slips from his ear and he finds himself watching the tide surge in between the rocks, white foam bubbling over honey-coloured sandstone.

"Rosa," he gasps.

His vision blurs with tears.

"I... I gotta go," he croaks, "See ya."

Aidan ends the call. His phone hangs uselessly in his hand. He's sitting on a beach on his own, a long way away from the woman he's always loved, that he misses terribly. Rosa's angry at him. She's still stuck in the mind games, finding someone else to blame. Aidan feels foolish now, for believing that the woman he knew so intimately would have responded any other way. He's staring down at his feet, feeling dampness running down his cheeks.

It's like a physical pain now, after the call, just like the day that he packed up and fled their apartment, the last time he ever saw her. Sitting alone on the rocks in the slanted light of the afternoon sun he can picture her achingly beautiful face as clear as if she's standing right in front of him. All of a sudden, it's too much to bear. He curls up, gasping as the waves of pain pass through him now, waiting for it somehow to pass, the tears streaming for the first time since he left.

Aidan had set out on his own to try and make sense of his life, but somehow he's gotten himself lost. For the first time, he begins to fear that maybe it's too broken, maybe there's no way back.

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[Next chapter: Aidan learns about fame: how you become famous, and how you stay that way. She reveals more of herself.

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