17 years of secret love. I'm sorry if you don't understand

by G
(Indiana)

17 Years of Secret Love

I ask you...

Am I really that bad of a guy?

Seventeen years. We were seventeen when we first kissed in high school. I loved her so much then I almost couldn't stand it.

Then the world got in the way.

We were apart for years until her mom told me she had cancer and could die soon. What else could I do but write her? We started having lunches, purely innocent at first. Gradually, passions flared.

Her husband worked all the time and then drank his paycheck.

I took her to the doctor and waited as she had chemo. I cut her hair when it started to fall and I shaved her. I gave her baths. I kissed her and told her how beautiful she was to me as the disease and the drugs ravaged her body. I supported her as she got stronger.

And then I did it all again.

I drove her to to the hospital for her mastectomy and then I was the first to kiss it when it was done. I was there as she got stronger.

She tells me that if I had not been there she would be dead today. She says that the cancer would have killed her or the depression about her marriage but today she is a vibrant successful woman of incredible talents which her husband has always scoffed at and put down but which I always told her she had.

Seventeen years of secrets told to shield our children from having their worlds ripped apart. Her 3 and my 4. No one has ever known a thing.

So, I ask you. Who has really husbanded my angel through her toughest times and am I really that bad of a guy?

Maybe one day when all the kids are grown and have moved on we might be together but all I know for now is that I love her. I loved her when I was young. I loved her when I was not so young.

I love her today. And I will love her tomorrow.