I Am Not A Wimp: Another Sequel

Author's note: A few weeks ago, cageytee put out a story called, "I Am Not a Wimp," and invited other writers to take a crack at ending it. Recently, fdkman262 tried it, and while his story isn't bad, it really didn't resolve anything and was way too short. But it piqued my interest, so I decided to see what I could do with it.

The plot is fairly involved, so you need to read the original "I Am Not A Wimp," so you can become familiar with the characters and the actions they take. The narrative here alternates between the perspective of Ted and Jenny as they fight their way through the crisis that has imperiled their marriage.

This story picks up as Rob, Jenny's brother and Ted's best friend and business partner, is leaving Ted's cabin in northern Georgia after pleading with him to come home and try to save his marriage, all to no avail. But before he leaves, Rob has a parting shot that rocks Ted to his core...

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..."Ted, you are my best friend and I couldn't love you more if you were my own brother. I have admired and respected you for quite some time. I watched you stare down a huge client, showing the guts to stand by your principles even if it meant a huge financial loss. Your courage has been a major factor in the success of your business. But... To see you deal the way you have with a woman who loves you unconditionally and one whom you love to the extent of risking all to make her dream come true, all over not wanting to take a chance on her possibly hurting your feelings again some time in the future... Well, Ted, I can only say is, that in this matter, you're a wimp!"

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TED

I sat there stunned as I heard Rob's car start up, back away then drive off.

Wimp? Me? A self-made businessman? A former college football star? A wimp?

I've been called many things in my years on this planet, not all of them flattering, but I'd never been called a wimp.

I could feel the heat rising from my chest to my face as my anger came to a boil. Wimp, huh?

My father; there was a wimp. He was a weak, spineless man who was so undone by my mother's sudden death that he lost his ability to stand up for himself. After three years of widowhood, he had met and married Janice – may she rot in hell where she belongs.

Janice apparently sized up my dad and saw someone she could exploit for her own sick purposes. She quickly started cheating on him, he'd find out, she'd beg him to take her back and he'd cave in. And it would just be worse the next time, but he always took her back.

I loved my father, but it ate my heart out to see her play him for such a fool, and one day I snapped. Even now, the memory is burned into my memory of that man forcing my father's face into Janice's naked pussy, which was overflowing with the man's cum.

I picked up a stool and whacked the son of a bitch three times before he stayed down. I was arrested for assault, but the charges were dropped when the truth came out.

Dad did finally send Janice away for good after that incident, but he always regretted it. He whined that he still loved her and that he was miserable without her, but that he kept her away for my sake.

It was all a guilt trip he used to excuse his relentless drinking and a general lack of interest in caring for himself. He died nine years later, a broken shell of a man.

Because of what Dad went through – what I went through, as well – I was determined that no woman was going to treat me the way she treated my father.

And that's basically how I saw Jenny's actions. Even though Rob, Diane, even the FBI were convinced that Jenny had not had sex with Jerry Craig, I still wasn't sure.

More to the point, her actions had left everyone with the distinct impression that they were carrying on an affair. She had been seeing him on the sly for three weeks, drinking, dining and dancing with him, while I was trying to get her "dream" cabin built.

Some dream, huh?

Now the place I had intended to be our romantic hideaway had become my refuge, a place where I could go to lick the wounds of my savaged pride, where I could stew in the bitter fruit of what I saw as Jenny's betrayal.

Long after Rob left that night, I sat out on the porch listening to the sounds of the hills, drinking bourbon whiskey, and brooding over how it had come to this.

God, I loved her! Even in my pain, even in the face of her betrayal, I still loved Jenny with a fiery passion. I had been so happy with her; she made my life complete. I ached to have my life revert back to the way it had been before all of this erupted around us.

But I wasn't going to wimp out like my father did, constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for Jenny to screw it up again.

And for my best friend to call ME a wimp was absolutely the most galling thing of all. I understood that she was his sister, and he had to defend her. But to call me a wimp because I refused to even consider taking her back was inexcusable to me.

I was a wimp because I wouldn't show weakness and forgive Jenny? I was a wimp because I couldn't see past her betrayal? I was a wimp because she had everyone convinced of her innocence?

How did I become the bad guy in this picture?

Hoping to get some perspective, or maybe just to hear a sympathetic voice, I called Babs, my Aunt Barbara. She was Dad's older sister, and if anyone could give me good advice, it would be my Aunt Babs.

I told her everything, and I told her what Rob had said about me. I'm not sure what I expected, but I didn't expect her to agree with him.

"Teddy, you're letting your stubborn pride cloud your judgment," she said. "I'm not sure wimp is quite the right word, but I think he's on the right track. It takes a stronger man to forgive someone they love than it is to simply turn tail and run away. And, son, you've run away like a scared puppy."

"But Aunt Babs, I can't, I won't be like Dad," I said forcefully. "I'm not going to set myself up for a lifetime of heartache wondering if Jenny's staying true to me."

"Look, Ted, I can't tell you what to do," she said. "But I think you're making a mistake by not trying to work things out."

"You're just saying that because you're a woman," I said.

"I'm saying it because you're my nephew and I love you and want what's best for you," she said, with a hard tone in her voice. "You think long and hard about what you want to do with your life, but don't be surprised if Jenny decides she wants a man with a heart. Right now, from the looks of it, you aren't that man."

That stung, and I was tempted to ring off with a hearty, "fuck you," to my aunt, but I didn't. She and my cousin Karen are the only family I have left and I didn't want to alienate them.

I was depressed and feeling sorry for myself, so I did the one thing guaranteed to make me feel worse. I got drunk.

I started out drinking Jack Daniels on the rocks, like a civilized person. By the end, I was swilling it from the bottle, the way I'd seen Steven Tyler do once at an Aerosmith concert back before he kicked drugs. It wasn't a pretty sight then, and it wasn't a pretty sight now.

Toward the end, my drunken thoughts were swirling around in a tangled jumble, as I tried to figure out what I was going to do. The divorce was in limbo; Reg, my lawyer, was waiting on me to give him the go-ahead to proceed. Jenny had already been served with the papers, but we hadn't filed yet.

At some point, I got it fixed in my mind that I had to make Jenny understand once and for all exactly how she had betrayed me. I figured that if she could see it from my point of view, she might cease and desist with her continuing campaign to get me back home to fix our marriage.

I must have passed out, because the next thing I knew there was something buzzing around my ear. When I went to slap it away, I became unbalanced, fell out of the rocker I'd been sitting in and hit my forehead on the arm of the chair, causing a nice little bo-bo.

Moreover, the sharp pain, the sudden violent motion and the large amount of whiskey I'd consumed without eating anything the night before sent my stomach into immediate rebellion. I quickly found myself on my knees in the grass in front of the deck puking my guts out.

When I was finished, I managed to stumble inside the cabin, found some ibuprofen and a glass of water, then fell into my bed, where I crashed until I vaguely heard my cell phone ringing,

I had become accustomed to letting voice mail screen my calls, to avoid talking to Jenny, so I didn't immediately respond. But something told me I'd better at least check it, and when I did, I heard Larry Busby's voice. Larry was the FBI agent who was leading the investigation into Jerry Craig's little scam.

"Ted, I need to inform you that it's going down tomorrow," the message said. "We're arresting Craig at 1:30 tomorrow afternoon. I think it would be a good idea if you were here to help with the press. Your company's going to be in the line of fire, and it might look suspicious if you aren't there to defend it. Call me and I'll give you the details."

Now that got my mind focused.

Once I had gotten up, showered and eaten a bite, I felt a little better, so I called Larry and he told me what was going on, where I needed to be and what I needed to do. He was going to try to make it clear that I had cooperated fully in the investigation, but he wasn't sure what the media vultures would seize on as their prey.

I spent part of the afternoon cleaning up the mess I'd made, then I packed a bag for a couple of nights, called ahead for a room at the Marriott and headed back to Atlanta.

I knew, as I got up on the interstate, that my future hung in the balance. My company would be in the public eye – and not in an entirely positive light – and the crisis in my marriage was also coming to a head.

By then, I had determined that I was going to have a final come-to-Jesus meeting with Jenny over what she'd done to me.

JENNY

I got the call from Rob about 10:30 that morning. I knew he'd gone out to see Ted, to beg him to give me a chance to make it right, to restore our marriage to the state it should have been in all along.

I'd been on pins and needles all the next day, and when Diane called to invite me to dinner, I accepted eagerly.

But I knew the moment I saw her face, then saw the look on Rob's face, that he'd failed.

"I'm sorry, Sis, he wouldn't listen," Rob said. "He keeps talking about your betrayal, and I kept telling him you didn't DO anything. But he's a stubborn bastard, and you hurt him in some way I can't put a finger on. His reaction to this is just so extreme; I just don't understand why he's being such a hard ass about it."

"I don't either," I said, tearfully. "I mean we all agree I made a stupid mistake, but is this worth tossing aside a really good marriage over? I don't get it."

I thought I'd cried all the tears I could, but when Diane reached out to me, I lost it again. I was tired, tired of beating my head against the wall of what I saw as Ted's unreasonable intransigence.

But more than that, I was starting to get pissed. And the angrier I got, the more I thought about my marriage, and wondered if it really was worth saving. I thought I'd known Ted, thought I understood him. But this was just so ... so out of whack, I couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep well that night. Hell, I hadn't slept the whole night through since Ted had left me, and it was affecting me in myriad ways.

The company was giving me a lot of leeway to deal with my personal problems, but as a senior vice president I was still expected to perform at a reasonably professional level, and I hadn't been doing that on a consistent basis.

I was losing weight, I was tired all the time and I wasn't taking any joy out of anything. I was just on autopilot. I got up, showered, got dressed, drove to work, put in my eight or nine hours, went home, fixed something for supper – usually in the microwave – watched a little TV and went to bed.

Day after day, that was my routine; the only change was on weekends, when I usually sat around the house and moped. Rob and Diane were doing what they could to get me out of the house, but there was only so much they could do.

So when the phone rang and I heard Rob on the phone, I really didn't expect much. And I didn't get much. He told me that Jerry was being arrested in a few hours, that Ted would be there for the press conference, and that it would probably lead the 7 o'clock news.

To say I was shocked by Ted's appearance when he spoke to the press – after we all got the pleasure of seeing Jerry Craig with his jacket pulled over his head in a vain attempt to hide his face – would be a major understatement.

Ted looked worse than I did, and I knew I looked like hell. He had bags under his eyes, he looked drawn, he didn't smile – not once – and he had a nasty cut on his forehead. And his voice... He just sounded so ... dull, like he didn't care.

I was shaking my head as I listened to the sports report come on when I heard the doorbell ring. I wondered who it could be at this time of the day, but I went to see who it was, and when I opened the door, there stood Ted.

My heart leaped in my chest for a second, but the look on his face did not look like that of a man who was ready to reconcile. He had a determined, tight-lipped look on his face, and I shuddered at what that portended.

"Uh, Ted, why did you feel you had to ring the doorbell?" I said, a little uncertainly. "This is still your home; you're free to come and go here at your pleasure."

"Probably not for much longer," he said, and I think my knees got weak.

But then something broke inside my heart and I suddenly grew a spine. I was tired of being on the defensive, and it was time to either fight for my marriage, or forget about it.

"Well, then why are you here?" I asked.

"I need to get some things off my chest, and I'm tired of dealing with your intermediaries," he said.

"Those are your friends, too, and they're doing it on their own volition," I said. "I haven't sent anyone out to see you since you told me the last time not to bother you. I've given you your space, but ... Anyway, come in and sit down. I'll fix some coffee. Yeah, I do think we need to clear the air a little bit."

TED

Jenny's attitude surprised me. I expected her to be more contrite, more apologetic, but she seemed to be ... not quite angry, but she wasn't exactly backing away from me, and that confused me just a bit.

But I was there for a specific reason, so after Jenny got us coffee and we sat in the den, I began my spiel.

"Jenny, I really don't think you understand fully the impact of your actions," I said. "You make it sound like it was nothing, a harmless little ... flirtation. But to me it was nothing less than a betrayal."

"How?" Jenny said. "How in the hell did I betray you? I didn't do anything with that clown except have dinner and a few drinks a few times. I realize I showed bad judgment, but nothing was EVER going to happen. I wouldn't have fucked Jerry Craig if he had the last dick on the planet. It wasn't going to happen. And I cannot for the life of me understand why you think this is worth ending our marriage over."

I stared at her for a few seconds, not quite understanding what was going on here. This was my meeting, but she wasn't sitting back and letting me explain my side.

"Just listen to me, Jenny," I said finally. "Here's what I have to get you to understand. Perception is nine-tenths of reality, and what people see, what they hear, forms the basis for what they believe to be true. When Rod, when Rob and Diane, when Chuck Sanders and his wife, when they all saw what you were doing with Craig – when they heard what he was saying about you and about me – their perception was that you were having an affair with him. It didn't matter whether you were actually fucking him or not. You were acting in a sleazy manner behind my back, and that's tantamount to cheating to me. You can dress it up any way you like, but it still comes down to the same thing. I can't trust you any more."

I took a deep breath, waiting for Jenny to say something, but she was just gazing into my eyes with a disconcerting look. So I plunged on.

"And there's this, too," I said. "What are my suppliers, my competitors, potential clients thinking when it gets whispered around that Jenny Conden's sleeping around with a slime ball who's fixing to go to prison for a long stretch. What does that perception do to my business, the one I've spent 10 years trying to build? That's why I can't get around what you did. You stuck a knife in my back with the one person that it would hurt the worst do have you do it with, and that's something I just can't forgive or forget."

"Are you done?" Jenny said, almost impassively.

"Just about," I said. "Jenny, I still love you, probably always will. But I don't think we can go on like this. I want you to ... Hell, Jenny maybe we need to go our separate ways, as much as it pains me to say it."

"Well, that gives me an idea of where you are in your mind," Jenny said. "But I have to ask you again. Why is this such a big issue? There is something going on here that doesn't add up, something you're not telling me. You're just being too irrational about all this. Ted, I know I fucked up. I made a stupid mistake, but I did it because I love you and I want us to grow, not wither away. But your extreme reaction to this makes me wonder if I ever really knew you like I thought I did."

I knew then that I had to tell her about Dad and Janice. I owed her at least that much. She needed to know once and for all where I was coming from, why I couldn't let her do to me what Janice had done to Dad.

So I laid it all out there, and when I was done, she had tears in her eyes.

JENNY

I sat down heavily on the chair and contemplated what Ted had just told me. It explained a lot, but then I realized in a flash that it still wasn't sufficient grounds for him to simply walk away from our marriage.

More to the point, it actually gave me the ammunition to maybe get through his thick skull the point I was trying to make. I stood up then and walked to the picture window that looked out to the west, at the last embers of the dying day.

"That does explain some things, but I still have something to say to you, then you can go make up your mind what you want to do with the rest of your life," I said. "You talk about perceptions. Well, let's talk about perceptions, and why they got us to this point. I perceived that you were – for the third time in less than a year – falling back into the workaholic mode that was costing us so much before we went to the cabin the first time. You were lying to me about where you were going, and, sure, your intentions were good, but the fact is, you didn't trust me enough to tell me what was going on."

"But it was supposed to be a surprise!" Ted said.

"So that made it all right for you to lie to me about where you were going?" I said, my voice rising. "Even though you had to know it was fueling my resentment over the amount of time your work was taking from me, from us? It doesn't matter that you weren't really working; what matters is how I perceived it. So I was desperate to find a way to jolt you back to reality, and I did a dumb thing in my desperation, with a slimy asshole. I should have known better, but I was fumbling around for something that would work. Twice before you'd promised me you'd cut back on the workload, and twice before you'd appeared to have fallen right back into the same old pattern."

I was on a roll now, and I was just getting warmed up.

"But here's the kicker, Ted," I went on. "The very night you left me, I made up my mind that I wasn't going to be resentful of your job any more. I decided that a little bit of you was better than a lot of anyone else. I would take and cherish whatever time I could have with you, and if I had to sit alone some nights because of your work, then that was a price I was willing to pay. The point is, I wanted to be with YOU, no one else."