He tried to claim that he was just trying to manage both lives and that Monica had been pressuring him for more money recently. I looked at him with total disgust and told him that he had chosen to lose me the moment he decided to fund his secrets with my hard work.
“I just needed a little more time to figure things out,” he stammered, but I told him that cowards always beg for time while decent people find the courage to be honest. I had already sent all the evidence to Tasha, and by the next morning, we had frozen the accounts and started the legal process for the theft of my car.
Mrs. Gable called me in tears to apologize for her son’s behavior, and I told her that I knew she was just another victim of his endless manipulation. Garrett spent the next week begging for my forgiveness and asking me not to ruin his reputation, but his words meant nothing to me anymore.
I told him that he could never repay me for the years of my life that he had stolen through his deception. The last time I saw him, he looked small and broken as he stood in our doorway and asked if there was anything he could do to fix the situation.
I told him to go be a father to the daughter he had hidden for so long and reminded him that he no longer had any place in my future. I closed the door on him forever and felt a strange sense of peace settle over me despite the long legal road ahead.
Months later, I am still taking the bus to work while I save up for a new vehicle and wait for the lawsuit to finalize. I am often tired when I get home, but when I look in the mirror, I realize that I am finally seeing myself clearly for the first time in years.
I lost a car, but I gained my freedom from a man who never deserved a single second of my devotion. I am no longer a passenger in someone else’s lie, and I am finally the one sitting in the driver’s seat of my own life.
THE END.
