my careless contagion

Humble pie. I don't think I would have ever called myself humble in my previous life. This new life, however, has shown me my true value.  My ex-wife once said when we first met I was "so cocky," and you know what? She's right. I was a cocky son of a bitch. I had faced so many ridiculous challenges in my life and overcame them, beat them small; what on earth could get in my way? I had to be cocky. I grew up in a household where I didn't get any respect for any of my God-given talents or any of my hard work. I spit in the face of adversity, rampaged over obstacles, laughed at the devil, and rode hard into the night. I was unstoppable. There is pride in being young and capable and full of energy. Because of my inscrutable misadventures, I've had to jettison many things of little or no worth just to survive. My pride was one of those things. With 41 years under my belt, I've seen many changes. I've seen the world change, and I've seen myself ...

What you did to her I don't know you. I don't know what you did to her. I just know what she used to be like. You took a virtuous young woman and took and took and took. She would have kept giving, even though you took all. She told me she would have endured any amount of "pain and humiliation" to keep you, to keep you happy, to keep you coming home to her.  I don't know what you did to her, but I see the end result of it, how she's done with life, done with men, just ... done. She'll never trust again the way she trusted you, and never will she lay herself bare and vulnerable in a man's arms again. Whatever you did to her, I don't know, but she'll never be the same. She's always going to have that awareness in the back of her head that she's been done wrong, that she's going to find out any day just how wrong she's been done. You made her a detective when you should have been making her smile. You made her question ever...