Todd

At the time, I thought marrying Todd had been the happiest day of my life.  After being in several debilitating and volatile relationships, but I thought Todd and I had the perfect relationship.  Until his two teenagers came over from staying the last two week with their mother.  There had been no mention of any previous marriage, much less two teenagers who also knew nothing about me.  Needless to say, we did not get off to a good start.  After a healthy, yelling match between Todd and his children, they stormed off to their rooms while I sat at the kitchen table, dumbfounded.  Todd shrugged his shoulders and stood up from the table. 

“Todd?  What – “  I started to get up when he didn’t stop or even look around.  When he didn’t return or say anything, I sat back down.  How could in the two years we had been dating, he not mention he had two teenage children?  The amount of effort that had gone into keeping that secret was astounding.  When I finally went to bed that night, Todd was nowhere to be seen.  All I could assume was that he was spending the night in the guest room.   

The next morning when I woke up, Todd was not awake.  Or he had at least not started the coffee like he usually did.  I saw the note when I made it to the kitchen.  Todd was gone.  He was gone and not coming back.