Its funny how your entire life can change with the simple sound of a door bell. Maybe I’m being unfair. I guess it started long before the bells chimed through our empty house. OUR house. But for me that’s the beginning and the end. The moment I can look back on and pinpoint the moment everything changed. Not many people have that. Can’t remember the exact moment, but I have that at least. That knowledge to carry me through, but all it really seems to do is haunt me.

I can’t stop thinking what if we hadn’t been home? What if we just hadn’t opened the door? Futile questions that I ask myself knowing that it won’t change anything.

Things were finally falling into place in my life. After years of enduring the shitty dating scene I had found one, the one. The best part is I know that he felt the same way. It wasn’t official just yet, but we had just closed on a place together and he had taken my little sister out to start looking for the ring.

And then came the door bell. It comes easily to me if I just close my eyes. The chimes that I once had thought were melodic now sound foreboding in my memories. I can see him crossing the room to reach the door and when the memory invades my dreams I scream in vain for him to leave it alone for him not to answer, but he always does.

And then everything comes crashing down around me. Whoever thought that something so small could cause so much destruction? He froze in the doorway and ignored my questions of who was behind the door. I rounded his frame letting my hand trail along his back as I did.

There they were. Melody, kind of ironic, and her son. Their son. A small boy with an undeniable resemblance to the man I loved. For the longest time I just looked between them and tried to pull out pieces of the boy’s face that could make this a hoax. Just another bad memory from his past that we could push out the door and eventually forget.

But it was there. A night almost three years ago. The real beginning of this story. A girl he had met out at a club and had slept with in a haze of pot and celebrity. But she waited. Didn’t tell him about the result of their impulsive night. Left him thinking he was free to move on and it was only two months later that he walked into my tiny store and smiled at me.

The worst part is I couldn’t take out my anger and confusion on him, she, this, had happened before we knew each other. So I let him vent his frustration and disbelief to me. Sat and watched the reality sink in long after they had left. Watched him pace the floor and do everything from curse her nerve to cry.

Even though I didn’t realize it then that was the beginning of the end for us. This was something I couldn’t go through with him, as much as I wanted to and as hard as I tried. This was a new part of his life that I couldn’t be a part of and suddenly the idea of sharing everything with this man seemed far from possible.

She named him after Justin. Left his name off the birth certificate, but gave him that little assurance. There were paternity tests to be sure and I sat with him in the hospital and rubbed his back while he waited for the results. And when he told me over and over that this wouldn’t change us, the way he felt about me, I believed him. Believed him because I needed to.

As soon as it was official he began to transform before my eyes. I always knew that he would want children and there was never a doubt in my mind that he would be a fucking fantastic father. I just never thought it would be to another woman’s son.

It didn’t help that the kid was adorable. A total sweetheart and so easy to love. I tried to stand back and not interfere as they began to create a bond, but every time that tiny voice called him daddy my heart broke a little more.

This was something that she had taken away from me. Even if we got through this, made it work, I would never be able to say that my firstborn was his first. He had a child and now any we might have would be second. That killed me.

But I stayed. Helped him decorate a room in what was supposed to be our home for his son. Nodded understandingly when he told me that he didn’t think it was a good idea for me to go with them on their outings. Something about father son time and not wanting to confuse the child with why his daddy was kissing another woman.

So I played the role of friend in front of his son and it wasn’t long before that was all I was. He still came home to me at night, but when he was with me I knew he wished he was with them. His instant family. And I began to think about taking my self out of the picture. Bowing out gracefully before being told I had to leave. Like he could sense it coming, he came back to me for a time. For a few weeks he was the man I had planned on waking up to for the next 50 years.

In the midst of it he finally asked me the question that had long been forgotten in my mind. But, I savored the moment for what it was and when he slipped the ring over my finger I let myself believe that we could make this work. It wasn’t long after he got down on his knees that I lost sight of the man I loved once more.

When my mother started asking about wedding colors, I fended off her questions, feeding her a lie about wanting to have a long engagement even though we has always talked about getting married in June.

June came and went and I made my final efforts to bring him back to me, but no matter what I did I just couldn’t compete with his own blood and I didn’t want to. I slowly began to remove myself from his life. Called my best friend and tearfully pleaded if I could move back into my old room and bit by bit transferred all signs of myself back to my single life.

I cried with every closed box and every newly placed item. I cried until I felt dry. And then I cried a little more. My friends kept me company and kept their mouths shut.

I took the things he wouldn’t notice at first. My TV, which was never used, he had a bigger one, my boxes of wall décor, he wanted us to fill the house with OUR things. And he didn’t notice. When all of that was gone I struggled with the essentials. And in a lot of ways I tried longer and harder than I should have.

My last day with him was spent with his son. We went to the zoo. I held his hand and laughed when his son growled at the lions. As much as I could I spent the day taking a detailed metal image of him, trying to create a perfect resemblance of him in my mind because I knew that long after I left I would need that to fill my emptiness.

And that night I made love with him one last time, for the first time in months. Took the time to run my hands over his face and kiss each freckle on his shoulders. I did it knowing that the next day he was talking JJ to preschool for the first time and wouldn’t be home to protest as I finally deleted myself from his life. I curled into his body and spent the night awake, just needing to feel him behind me. I clenched my eyes shut when his alarm went off and pretended to be sleeping to avoid the goodbye he didn’t know was coming.

I let him kiss my forehead and leave thinking that everything was fine. And I was left to roll into his warm spot on the bed and try to think of reasons to stay. He was the only reason and he wasn’t with me anymore.

The house felt cold as I slipped my ring off my finger and left it on the marble counter top. I took the time to run my hands over the surface and glance around what was our dream home. The pile of toys in the living room was enough of a reminder and as I closed the door behind me I rang the door bell.