“Come on, Gabi. What's got you so mad?" Antonio pleaded with his wife to let him in on what was troubling her.

 "Nothing." She steadfastly insisted, but it was accompanied by a furious glare that contradicted her words.

 "Gabi, I know something is wrong. Just tell me so I can help you! Did I do something to make you mad?" She was doing this more and more often, going into fits of irritation or annoyment with him, without any explanation.

 They had attended the dinner party of one of the associates that Antonio worked with, an elegant affair that Antonio had actually enjoyed. And he thought that Gabi had been having fun, too. Obviously not, he now realized.

 "You should know what you did, Antonio! I guess you just don't know me as well as I thought." His grip tightened on the steering wheel as he pulled into the driveway of the house that they shared as his own anger, slow rising but explosive when it did, began to surface.

 "I'm not a mind reader, Gabi." He said through clenched teeth as he climbed out of the car.
 
 "Really? From the way you seem to know everything I want to do, I'd think you inherited it from Carmen." Her remark about him knowing everything she wanted to do was most definitely not meant to be taken the way it was worded, and her sarcastic tone ensured that he would take it no other way than it was truly meant.

 "You're mad because you I accepted the invitation to this party without asking you?!?" He guessed as they entered the two-story house that they had purchased only a couple of years ago, when their children had both moved out.

 "NO!" She shouted, confusing him even more. To be truthful, she herself was confused.

 "Then why the hell are you shouting at me?" He yelled back his tolerance having reached its breaking point finally.

 "Because you're so damn arrogant!" Even as the accusation left her mouth, she knew it was unfounded. Arrogant was the last thing Antonio Torres was, and she knew it. She felt horrible as pain flashed across his handsome features. But as soon as it was replaced by anger, her conscience abated. "You make so much money at your fancy job, it's made you arrogant!"

 "Arrogant? I'm arrogant? Gabi, I'm successful, I've made a life for us, paid for school for our kids, and I'm arrogant because of it?" His argument was solid, so she quickly switched to another subject, which he would not so easily find a comeback.

 "So now you're blaming me because you didn't want me to work? Is that what you're saying, that you have a right to be arrogant because you make money for me?" She screamed, all the while knowing that he was not going to win no matter what he said because she wasn’t in the mood to give up, no matter what he did.

 "That is not what I'm saying, Gabi! You know what I'm saying! I'm not arrogant, where did you even get that from?" He was hurt by her sharp words, but he was also fueled by her false accusations.

 "Well, your women certainly don't think you're arrogant!" She said, her voice dripping with resentment. He was shocked by her hateful observation.

 "What do you mean, my women?" He said, the sinking feeling in his heart made even heavier by the cold look in her eyes.

 "I mean the women that hang all over you at parties like the one we just came from, the ones that you run to when I get too mean, too tired to put up with your never sated hormones, or just too boring for you! The ones that you stay late at the office to go over 'work' with. The cute secretaries that you hand pick from dozens of young, beautiful girls. You look so shocked, Antonio. Are you wondering how I know? I'm your wife, Antonio, and I know ALL of your secrets. I've known for a long time, since the very first time. A hotel room in LA, right? What was her name…Cindy? Sandy? Something like that.  You go to them because I'm too old now, is that it? Or have I gotten too boring for you? Is their young energy what keeps you going? Am I so horrible in bed now that you have to screw twenty-year-olds for kicks? Or…do you just…not love me anymore?" She said, her voice sounding more helpless at the end than angry. Tears she had held back finally overwhelmed her, and she ran, sobbing, up the stairs to their bedroom. Antonio covered his eyes with his hands with a weary, exhausted sigh.

 He hated the thought that he had hurt Gabi. He loved her, more than anything else in the world. He didn't even know why he had these affairs. Gabi was still amazing in bed, even more spectacular than she had been twenty years ago. He just couldn't keep his hands off the others. They were too…tempting. And resisting temptation had always been his downfall. Especially when beautiful women where involved. He often wondered how he had lasted as long in celibacy as he had. But the priesthood was behind him now. Way behind him.

 Gabi wasn't though. He needed to talk to her, he knew that. She was his wife, not some girl he could leave behind after a night in a cheap hotel room (well, not so cheap after he had become a successful businessman) He didn't want to leave her, anyway. He still loved her with a furious passion, something that hadn't lessened as the years passed by.

 Reluctantly, he made his way up the stairs. All of her built up resentment made sense to him now, and he understood why she had been pulling away from him. For almost half of their now twenty year old marriage he had been unfaithful to her. And she had known. He could only imagine the pain that she had gone through, alone all those nights when he was with some girl, and knowing what he was doing.

  He made his way to the door, and knocked softly, finding it unlocked. He pushed gently, revealing Gabi's sobbing form laying in fetal position across the bed. He immediately walked over to her and took her in his arms. She clung to him with a fierce determination not to let him get away, grateful that he had come to her. She had been scared that her confrontation might have scared him away from her for good. That was part of the reason she never told him she knew before. After all they had went through all those years ago to be together, she had vowed to herself to never, ever take the chance to lose him again.

 "Gabi, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, if I could go back, I would do it differently." He said, speaking into her soft hair.

 "No you wouldn't, Antonio. I love you. I know you. And I know that you wouldn't do one thing differently." She said, speaking from her heart. He knew that she was telling the truth.

 "Yes, there is. I wouldn't hurt you." He said, dangerously near tears. He hadn't cried in over a decade, but seeing the love of his life in pain because of him hurt him in an indescribable way.

 "I love you so much, Antonio." She said, looking up at him with her tearstained eyes, eyes that had seen so much heartache. He remembered when they had first gotten married that he had made himself a promise to take all of the pain in those eyes away and fill them with happiness and love. He hated himself for what he had become.

 "Gabi, I love you, too. I love you with all of my heart and soul, and I promise that I will never-"

 "Don't say it, Antonio. Don't make me any promises that you can't keep." She pulled him closer, and tightened her hold on him. "Just tell me that you love me and that you'll never leave me."

 "How can you forgive me so easily?" He was amazed that she could even still love him after what he had done.

 She knew that part of what he had done was her fault. She wasn't the perfect wife. She was jealous, overbearing, irritable, and sometimes downright mean to him. She had been jealous of the attention that he devoted to his job, even to their children. She would scream at him, most of the time just because she was upset with herself for not being good enough for him, though he reassured her constantly that he loved her. She had pushed him into the arms of other women, and she hated herself for it. She hated herself for what she had become.

 "I love you. And I'm scared of losing you." She admitted.

 "You won't lose me, never. I love you. I would never leave you. Though I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to leave me." He whispered, wiping a tear away. She simply shook her head.

 They would never regain the perfect, untouchable love that they had lost so many years ago. His affairs would continue, her anger would grow, as it always had. The young, unstoppable passion that had broken through all barriers to keep them together had evaporated with the passage of time, but the chains lingered behind, tying them together whether they liked it or not. They might never be able to live together peacefully, but they would certainly never be able to live apart.

THE END