“It had been the most selfish choice of my life—and yet if I had to do it all over again, I would choose it just the same. Leaving Rain wasn’t the same as my leaving Paris for Johnny; back then I had finally moved on in a healthy way, a right way, after years of mourning his believed death, long after people thought I already should have stopped grieving and picked back up my life. I wish I could say the love between me and Rain had died too; that we had been on our last legs, that we were breaking up, things were falling to pieces, that we were going to go our separate ways anyway. But we weren’t. I simply had felt I loved Ruin more. And I made the selfish choice—not the choice for us, or for our girls to have their real father, but the choice for my own happiness—I chose the man I felt I knew I’d be happier with. And I was right. But I couldn’t have been crueler to Rain.
“I still see little traits and glimpses of him in the girls everyday, hints others wouldn’t pick up on—hints only I might see, as the one who knew him best in those years. But the girls love Ruin. I’m most vulnerable around him—his five thousand-some years of experience with women bring out some insecurities in me, make me worry how I measure up as a woman and a mother and a wife sometimes. I try to challenge us, make sure we don’t become complacent and take each other for granted. I figure after all that time, he needs something to help keep his head in the relationship and make things fresh.
“And I don’t regret my choice—not in the least. I don’t know what fundamentally bad thing about me must make me feel no doubt in that… what cruel or twisted, selfish trait must make me capable of feeling so right about leaving a man who loved me and I loved to risk a relationship just for a stronger feeling. But I’ve never had the connection I do with Ruin with anyone else—I think I might have been looking for a man like him all along. But no one’s ever been quite like him… I know I love him better than anyone I ever have. And… I don’t know if that exactly answers your questions, Doc, but… it helped me gets some things straight by speaking ‘em. So… thanks.”
