Chapter 5: RYDER

The anger I had felt when I made the decision to piss my life away was long gone. Some days I even find myself doubting the rumored betrayal that had led me to make the worst mistake of my life, and that only made things worst.

I regret so many things about that day and the time leading up to it. Most of all, the fact that I hadn't talked to her about all this before going through with the wedding. I laid awake many a night wondering how things would've gone had I done that. But a mix of booze, drugs, and anger had spiraled me into a corner that I was finding it hard to get out of.

The one person who could've helped was the one person I didn't dare face. Not that I could've even if I wanted to because she'd disappeared. Once the drug haze had lifted a bit, once I realized that she was gone, something I only realized because my heart was beating differently, I wanted to find her, longed for her. But she was gone.

I looked for any news, but all that was there were old pictures of the two of us together. Old articles that chronicled our romance from beginning to end, but nothing in the last few days. There was a huge write-up about the wedding and how I'd left her at the altar to marry my now wife.

The vultures had fed on that for days, weeks, and months. Everywhere I looked, it was there. The paparazzi who I've had a very contentious relationship with at best was all too fond of calling out those questions each time they saw me, which was pretty much every time I stepped out the door.

And each time I heard the words, "what happened with you and Elena, Ryder?" I felt sick to my stomach. I'd gone so far as to hire someone on the down low to search for her, something that was very sticky to do given the situation I was in.

I had to keep up the narrative of a happily married man, or so I was told by the people around me. How would it look if the world knew that I was secretly trying to find my ex? Not that the world doesn't know, I'm pretty sure those with eyes could see. Even at my highest, I can't look in the mirror without seeing the truth staring back at me.

I was dying inside each day without the sight or sound of her. Then I grew more sullen and angry as the days went by without a word from or about her. I'd gotten so mad once that I'd destroyed an entire floor of rooms in the mansion that no longer felt like a home because all of her touches were gone. Someone had wiped her existence clean away while I was lost in a drug-induced craze.

That only made my situation worst, but what could I do? How could I say out loud the words that were screaming in my heart? How could I tell them, especially my wife, who I'm sure was the one behind it, that I wanted it all back? That I needed her things around me to feel alive now that she was gone.

I was drowning in a mess of my own making, screaming into the void and numbing myself with narcotics to ease the pain, but none of it helped. Least of all, the woman I'd come to realize was the most annoying human being in existence. It was hard to hide the contempt I felt towards her for being the one I was now trapped in this loveless, soulless marriage with.

But I could only suffer in silence, not daring to utter my true thoughts and feelings to anyone, not even the people I trusted, because the one I trusted the most was no longer there. It was only when she was gone that the severity of what I'd done hit home, and I saw just how badly I'd fucked up.

Then I got angry at her. So, so angry for not being there. It's almost as if she was punishing me by keeping herself out of the spotlight. There were no sightings of her for months after until the paparazzi dug her up in the little town down south where she'd gone into hiding. Even then, no one had been able to capture a glimpse of her, and by the time everyone knew that the suspicions that she was indeed there were true, she'd disappeared again.

After that fiasco, almost a whole year went by without a word about her whereabouts. Her family wasn't talking, and neither were her friends, all of whom claimed they had no idea where she went when asked.

That's when I really got scared, when her very best friend, the person I knew she trusted the most besides me, cried on camera because she was afraid for her friend whom she hadn't seen or heard from in months.

Now she'd been there on the screen not too long ago, and even though she was a shell of her old self, even to my eyes, it was awesome to see her again. I hadn't known how much I'd been longing to see her before I sat there mesmerized, checking her over through the screen as I cataloged all of the changes.

She'd lost a lot of weight, not that she'd had any to spare, to begin with, and her eyes, those beautiful tortoiseshell-colored eyes that I'd fallen in love with, looked dead and not quite there. Her hair, that mane of wild black curls that had always been a sense of pride for her, now looked listless with none of the usual luster I knew it to have. And I couldn't help but feel the cold fingers of guilt that had been eating me alive for the better part of three years once again crawl into the very core of me.

"What are you doing sitting alone here in the dark?"

"Huh?" I'd forgotten that she was there, which was nothing new.

"Who's here?" I watched her face fall at my question because we both know that the only time she approaches me behind closed doors is when we have company.

The least I could do to make up for the fact that I didn't love her and, in fact, didn't even like her was to keep up the façade of a happily married man in front of others. "Just some friends who wanted to come over."

I nodded my head and went back to staring off into space. She's a weird one, my wife. It never ceases to amaze me how cool and accepting she is about having the women I'd screwed in the past come over to hang out with her. The fact that they were all friends before notwithstanding.

"Do you want to come say hi?" At least she's not completely dense since there was a hint of displeasure in her voice. Too bad for her; I was feeling mean. So whereas I usually deny her and would rather stay as far away from that bunch as I possibly can, this time, I smirked and said yes.

"Sure!" I'm not sure why. It was my mistake more than hers, but lately, I hate her for being there at that altar; I hate her for being so happy on that day. I had an excuse; I was high and pissed off. But what was hers? Why had she gone along with it?

I've never asked her outright, though, in my more sober moments, I've wondered. The fact that she knew I never had any intentions of marrying her, that before all this, there was only one woman the whole world knew I wanted to marry, and still she'd said, 'I do,' makes me wonder just what kind of girl she was, this wife of mine.

There were times when I could swear her good girl act cracked just a little, but always she'd have that smile on her face mixed with that look of understanding that always made me feel bad for doubting her.

I felt one of my headaches coming on and rubbed my forehead. "Uh-oh, another headache? I'll get you some Tylenol to help with that. You should maybe forego seeing the girls tonight; you need some rest." She got up to go to the bathroom, and I watched her leave the room, willing myself just for once to feel something, anything, but I came up empty once again.

It wasn't her fault that she was not the one I saw or wanted to see when I looked across my pillow in the morning or sitting across from me at the dinner table. It's not her fault that as attractive as she is, she doesn't hold a candle to the one who lives in my heart.