Free Savage Love by Jodi Woody Page B

hard work and sacrifice earned me this money and it was totally legit.”
         “I really am sorry… we were speculating and I guess I let my imagination get away with me. I didn’t think you looked like the gangster type. You just never know these days. Does it bother you to be away from work?”
         “Not really. I mean, I love what I do, but not all the crap that goes with it. Before I got sick, I was pushing myself too hard, trying to live up to all the expectations, just like you were talking about. I was having pretty bad anxiety attacks and some days I couldn’t even perform…um at work,” Daffyd caught himself.
         “So you have a career that you love, and you’re not even thirty…and I am still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life and I am pushing forty. My perfect put together life seems to be coming apart at the seams. Maybe it has always been a mess and I just pretended it wasn’t. Why do people do that, do you think?” asked Samantha.
         “For me it’s a two sided sword. On one side I don’t want to disappoint. On the other I don’t want to admit that I might have made some bad choices,” said Daffyd.
         “I think you are right. I made a choice all those years ago to be a teacher. Then I made a choice to marry the first man who was kind to me. Both were probably not the best choices for me. Now Richard is gone and teaching is getting old, and I have to face up to those choices. It all started with the choice ignore the warnings and getting pregnant in high school. Of course I can’t regret that one, because of Seanna. I wouldn’t change having her for anything. But my life was suddenly on a course that I didn’t seem to be able to control. Doing what I thought was right ended up being a compromise.” Samantha was thinking all of this through for the first time.
         “Was your marriage…bad?” asked Daffyd quietly.
         “No, well…I guess that depends on how you look at it. Richard was so kind. He was a good listener when I first met him. I told him about my problems and he seemed so much older and wiser than me. He was good to me and accepted me for who I was. He also was completely smitten by Seanna right from the start. But after we were married I started noticing things that I hadn’t before…” Samantha paused, not sure if she dared speak it all out loud.
         “Was he cheating?” prompted Daffyd.
         “Oh, no. He was faithful…I guess it was just that he never talked about himself, how he was feeling or what his life was like growing up, nothing. Our conversations all evolved around me and Seanna or the store. I practically knew nothing about him. Oh, I could tell you his favorite movie, or food, where he liked to get his hair cut, that kind of stuff. But I never knew the real Richard. After a few years I ended up just like him. I stuffed my feelings, we pretended everything was ok and just put on a happy face.”
         “You’re sure he was pretending. What if he just didn’t know how to talk about himself?” asked Daffyd.
         “I guess I was willing to believe that for a long time. But when we went to his father’s funeral, Richard’s mom told me some things that made it all clear. He was living a life of lies. Pretending to be someone he wasn’t. I just can’t talk about it. Not yet it’s still all too painful…”
         “I am sorry…” said Daffyd as he handed her a Kleenex.
         Samantha hadn’t even realized she was crying.
         “Look at me, blubbering like a baby, you probably think I am silly,” she said.
         “Not at all, you’ve been through a lot,” he said.
         “So have you and you’re not blubbering on…”
         “I save all of my crying for bed. What else am I going to do when I can’t sleep?” He joked.
         “Thanks for listening anyway. I think I am going to go and help Trisha in the garden,” she said. “So…I