Chapter 2

My marriage was falling apart, and there was just no denying it. Things had gotten weird, and awkward. My wife kept trying to desperately pull us back together, and in her defense she tried damn hard. But the simple fact of the matter was that I wasn't happy. I had resigned myself to NEVER being happy, thinking that what I had was the best I was ever going to get. I worked long hours, as much as possible, just so I wouldn't have to go home. I devised a carefully choreographed scheme that would let me be 'forced' to work late on the evenings when my wife was home. Once or twice a week I'd actually make an effort to be home, though. The only reason for that, though, was so that I wouldn't get the guilt trip from her, or the whimpered begging and insistence that something was wrong.

The thing is ... every once in a while I WOULD try. She did love me, I think, the best way she knew how. She was just flawed, and we were an extremely poor match as individuals. But every so often I'd either blow up at her or break down to her, and we'd re-affirm our desire to 'make it work'. In retrospect I can see how stupid it was, but at the time I thought my life was going to be that way forever, and I might as well try and fix it to try and find a way to be happy in that existence. I was such an idiot, and it almost cost me everything.

My online buddy, Cathy, and I started off as great friends, and that friendship just ... grew. We started exchanging emails and IMs in addition to playing our game together, and just ... clicked. In every sense of the word. She could read my emotions and feelings through my emails, and she always knew just what to say to make me smile. We talked about our home lives, quite a bit, and she would listen in disbelief as I talked about my marriage and everything that happened with us. She was going through her own drama, but almost never brought it up. For the most part she was just the ear that I needed, just as a safe place to vent. But she quickly proved to be one of the most wise people I'd ever met. She seemed to have an uncanny knack for putting her finger right on the pulse of whatever issue we were talking about. Time and again we'd end up in some conversation that just left me in awe of this woman. She was brilliant, and funny, and caring, and ... well ... everything my wife wasn't.

In retrospect it seems foolish, and naïve, and just stupid, but I got invested. We started to be in-game and in-character more often, and our characters were boyfriend and girlfriend. So I got to say all the cutesy things and all the lovey things in that realm, and pretend like that's all it was. I knew pretty early on that that wasn't the case, though. I meant the things I was saying. I was falling in love ... from 3000 miles away, with a person I had never met in person, and who I'd only seen once or twice in pictures. I didn't know what her voice sounded like, what she looked like beyond a head shot, or what the hell I was doing. But it was SAFE. I mean ... there were massive mountains (literally) between us. There was a 10 year age difference. She had a family. We were both married to other people. I mean ... that's NEVER going to happen, right? So it was safe to fall for her. I didn't know if she felt the same way, but I knew that I lived for that interaction between our two characters.

I honestly don't remember how it happened, or at what point it happened, but I know at some point I asked her in an IM. I asked her if it was all just in-game, or if she really did have feelings for me. I likewise can't remember exactly what she said, but I know for sure the gist of it. It was real, and she felt it too. We were in ... love? I'm not sure if the term is even correct. We were something, though. We both agreed, though, that the logistics of it all didn't work, and would NEVER work, so it was a ... safe love? I don't know what it was, but I know at the time I admitted to myself that it was stronger than anything that I had ever felt with my wife, or anyone else in my entire life. I mean, this person KNEW me, inside and out. We'd talked, and talked, and laughed, and then talked some more. All through the medium of the internet, but still ... she knew me, and accepted me, and appreciated me. It was the most surreal feeling I've ever experienced, and there was no way it was ever going to go anywhere. A sobering thought, that. And it was for her, too. There just wasn't any way for it to work out.