"There's another man I'm seeing. I want a divorce," she told Derek.
Although Derek, too, had felt trapped in his unhappy marriage with his wife that he had been married to for nine years, those words were incredibly unpleasant to hear for a husband and a father. The prospect that his wife he had been married to for so many years had another lover was a depressing one, if not infuriating.
"Who is it?" he demanded. "Who is this other man?"
He knew it didn't matter who it was, but that didn't change his resolve to learn who it was that had stolen her heart, who was replacing him.
"He's a coworker at the bank," she explained, avoiding his gaze.
"How long has this gone on for?"
Again, she reluctantly answered his question: "A few months."
It had gone on under Derek's nose for that long. Really, he should have expected something like this. It was only natural with how much he prioritized his work over his own family. But it still hurt. A lot. He wanted to hit her, but he also wanted to fall to the floor and cry. He did neither; rather, he remained calm and composed, even as the divorce proceedings went underway and his children were given to the custody of his now-divorced wife.
With pain he remembered the day when they met. It was at a coffee shop near where they both went to college. He started seeing there during his second year. At the time, he couldn't get over how attractive she was. Although he was too reluctant to approach her at first, after seeing her in the same spot on subsequent visits, he knew that he had to ask her out. Her name was Tabitha. She was majoring in journalism. After sitting down and talking with her for some time, he worked up the courage to ask her out on a date.
The period that followed was nothing short of being magical. On every date they went on, they had no shortage of things to talk about, and, after a while, they became regular lovers. It was after they were both finished with college when he finally proposed to her. It was just after they had finished having sex, and they were both still naked in bed. And when she said, "Yes, I will! Yes!" tears in her eyes while she said so, it was the happiest moment he could recall in his recent life. She pulled his face down into her bosom and kissed his head. Eventually, after they were married, they had two kids, and their marriage seemed like it would remain happy forever.
But that was over now. She had grown bored with him and his preference of work over her. He had become dissatisfied as well. Maybe it was the best, he thought; but either way, he was incredibly depressed for a long period of time after the divorce. He was able to eventually continue living as he had before, but even his colleagues noticed that he was much sadder than he had been previously. This, of course, was before he met her, the girl that would change his life.
The meeting between Derek and his lover-to-be occured by chance. It had been a year and a half since the divorce, and, besides the times where he was allowed to see his children whom he still loved, he had had little contact with his wife. She had now married the man that she had started the affair with, making Derek all the more unhappy. It was winter, and the city was covered in snow and ice. It just so happened that when Derek was walking out of the away from his office at a truck company he owned (for he was a businessman after all), that he, by pure coincidence, slipped on the ice, sending his head plummeting to the icy concrete sidewalk.
When one of his coworkers, who was leaving just a few minutes after him, found Derek on the cement sidewalk, blood from a cut above his eye staining the ice and snow red, an ambulance was promptly called. After being rushed to the hospital, Derek, after receiving X-rays for his head, discovered that he would need stitches to allow the wound to heal.
"You should be glad," one of the doctors told him. "It could have been much worse."
Nonetheless, it was a pain for Derek. Being injured was never fun, and he'd never had to get so many stitches before. But it was at this hospital that he would have an encounter that he would never forget. He was in a hospital room after receiving the stiches, which still burned with sharp pain when a nurse entered the room bearing a tray of food. This was the woman that would prove quintessential in the change that would occur in his life.
Derek was immediately enraptured by the nurse. She was about the same age as his (early to mid thirties) but looked incredibly young. Her face was impeccably sculpted; her hair was dark amber; freckles dotted her face like constellations. She was plump, but far from fat. And although Derek knew that it wasn't right, he couldn't stop staring at the nurse's breasts, for they were vast and ample. Her hips were curvy, and, in general, she was sexy. Real sexy.
"Are you doing alright, Mr. Beckett?" she asked upon entering the room. "I brought some food for you.
At first, Derek found himself unable to answer the woman's question. She was so encaptivating that he was practically dazed by her appearance. Eventually, he mumbled, "Yes."
"Is something wrong?" she asked. "Well, other than your head?"
Desperately, Derek searched for a name tag on her, but couldn't find one, leaving him rather disappointed.
"No, everything's quite alright," he responded.
She set down the tray on a table next to his bed.
"You'll be able to leave here soon," she said.
"Ah, yes. Thank you. That's great."
"Is there anything else I can do for you?"
It's now or never, he thought; let's talk to her now. He stammered:
"Do you mind in I ask for your name?"
"Why it's right here on myβwait, where's my name tag? Oh, I don't see it"They both laughed after that. "Oh, sorry. It's Emma. That's my name."
She was kind of ditsy, but Derek didn't mind one bit. He had to ask her out. But how could he?
"Um, excuse me?" he eventually said just as she was about to walk out the door.
"Yes?"
It was now or never, he thought. But, in the end, he couldn't do it. "Never mind. Thank you for bringing me my food." After that, she left, presumably, or so he thought, to never be seen again.
When he checked out of the hospital, Derek was incredibly disappointed in himself. He didn't see Emma for another six weeks. By then, he had nearly moved on accepting the fact that even if he did see her again, there'd be no way that she was single. But, as luck would have it, six weeks later, when he went to get his stitches taken out of his forehead, he saw Emma once again.
"Hello, Mr. Beckett," she said, entering the room. "Let's get those stitches out of there. Then, we'll have the doctor come look at you, and you'll be good to go."
For Derek, getting stitches taken out of his head was incredibly painful, but, in the end, it was worth it, for he, while Emma was leaning over him, looked at her massive breasts that strained against her uniform. Derek wasn't an expert of cup sizes, but he knew that Emma's breasts were at least DD cup if Tabatha's had been B. After the stitches were out, she said:
"All better. Anything else you need from me before I go get the doctor."
It was now or never, Derek thought. He had to have her. Never in his whole life, even with Tabatha, had he felt the way he felt then about a woman.
"Yes, there is something," he said, working up the courage to ask. "Would you like to go get coffee with me sometime this week?"
Derek wasn't sure what surprised him more: the fact that he had worked up the courage to say it, or that she had said yes. They met on Saturday of that week. She came dressed in casual clothes, but she was just as attractive out of uniform as she was in one. What the two had planned to be a short, casual meet up turned into a five hour long deliberation. During this conversation, they didn't once run out of things to talk about. In a way, it was much like an interview between the two.
On subsequent dates, they went out to dinner together, stopped at coffee shops, or went to the movies. There was no shortage of fun and merriment during these dates, and they found many interests they shared in common. On top of this, Derek learned a lot about Emma's personality, and, eventually, knew that he had found the right one. She was sweet, witty, and accepting of him. She was shy and a little ditsy, but he didn't mind. She was interested in him; he was interested in her. It seemed like the perfect match. Of course, they were each attracted to each other. Derek had never considered himself attractive, yet he found himself in a situation where someone found him undeniably attractive. It was only natural that this would culminate in the greatest way possible for the two.