How is this for a wild Part 2. The protagonist finds out the devastation she brought down on her ex-boyfriend and his wife doesn't cure her of her addiction to him after all. Living in a new place where she knows almost no one during the pandemic, she is completely isolated and lonely. She gives into her sexual/romantic cravings for him and calls.
It's been weeks, and he is understandably surprised to hear from her. His voice sounds completely different from the man she knew. He sounds dead inside. She learns that his wife told everyone in the family (a very big, close, but moralistic and punitive Baptist family) what he had done.
They each cut him off. No calls, no holidays together, no contact. But he feels like he deserves it, too. All he can do is work and leave pleading voicemails for his wife, his kids, his grandkids, his mother, and his siblings. No one ever replies.
There's lots more, but the main points would be:
1. She succeeded in ruining his life, permanently, it appears.
2. He blames her for breaking the cardinal rule of all cheaters.
3. He agrees to come see her and they have sex, but it is completely devoid of emotion from him, which triggers annoyance from her.
4. She tries to work through her guilt; in retrospect, she is sorry she ruined his life.
5. They see each other for empty sex and human contact three times, a few weeks apart. She stops calling him.
6. She notes he is completely obsessed with his misfortune, his broken heart, and himself. She tries to comfort him, but stops after she suffers some big life blows of her own, which don't even register because he is so caught up in his own sorrows.
7. She realizes the depth of his narcissism and self-centeredness, his inability to have empathy for anyone but himself, and how broken he now is.
8. With a mixture of her wanting to escape the guilt she feels at his hopeless condition and her growing resentment at his continuing to blame her for everything while he helps himself to sex, she finally begins to feel indifferent towards him.
9. She hadn't killed her feelings for him when she exposed him as she had hoped she would, but after succeeding at unintentionally destroying all of his closest relationships (not just the one with his wife), she finds that her feelings for him have, at last, died. Anything left is a poor shell of what once was in her heart. He has become nothing more than the remnants of a bad habit.
Terry, I have thought about writing this, but I was afraid it would be way too much of a downer. He's become an empty shell, and she has, too, because she no longer has the intense emotions for him that used to make her feel alive. And she has no "in love" fantasy to hold in her heart.
However, it could be the beginning of her finally becoming an adult, rather than remain an adolescent where relationships are concerned. Due to the blows her life suffered since the expose took place, she has a huge bunch of emotional work cut out for her, not even counting him. She might as well add to that endeavor the work in coming to terms with what she really had had with him--she had never been more than his side chick after his wife was back in the picture.
Of course,, I wouldn't write it as a narrative as I've summarized it here. It would take place in real time, as events, interactions, and realizations actually took place.
What do you think?
Then again, I could make something up that would be much more fun to read!
