4 Pink coloured glasses

Laila had many questions running through her mind. While the soft wind that carried the smell of the ocean tried to relax her, the questions that she could not answer continued to make her restless. Where a strong sense of love for her husband had blinded her from what was missing in her marriage before, Laila's pink coloured glasses had been damaged by their long period silence, by their act of perfection in a far from perfect life and last night managed to remove them completely. With that soft mist gone from in front of her eyes, she began to feel like her life was incomplete. It was like she could finally see that there was still a missing piece in the fragile glued together marriage, a hole where once something important used to be.

After her pink glasses were removed, many things started looking differently. Laila began to see all the ways she and Jake were different from each other, all the ways they were wrong for each other, and she began to wonder if she really still loved Jake or if she loved the idea of him and the life that he symbolized. Looking back, she could see that over the years she had closed her eyes and plugged her ears for the signs and voices that revealed the flaws of her marriage. Because of that she had been able to get up everyday in a shroud of happy memories, hiding any and all doubts she might have. Putting her hidden concerns in a latent state while she remained blissfully ignorant. Simply putting on a big smile and letting life take over. But the voices resurfaced last night and once they came back, the magic was lost. What had been pushed to the back of her mind, could be silenced no more. The questions she didn't want to hear, repeated in her mind over and over again. The words were so loud, so bright, that she could no longer ignore or burry them. Causing her current state of doubt, loss and uncertainty.

This restless feeling and her pondering hadn't come out of nowhere. They were triggered by something she had noticed last night. When she and her husband Jake were in bed together, she smelled a sweet scent on him. One that was unfamiliar to her. It wasn't her own perfume and it certainly wasn't any of the products he used. With the only people currently living in this large mansion being her, Jake and the staff, her mind had no other choice than to assume the worst. With Jake's past track record, the trust in their relationship had taken a blow early on. Though he had insisted that he had never betrayed her and that it was all in her head, she didn't want to take any chances. So, back when they first moved in, she had only hired male staff to work for them inside the home. Making it impossible for their scent to have rubbed off on his clothes. Leaving her with only two options and causing a fear that she hadn't experienced in a long time to return.

Though she had heard of the men in these circles having a life outside of their homes, with their wives either silently accepting the situation or leading a second life of their own, she had never thought that she would be faced with something like that herself. Despite their problems from before, they had been faithful to one another for the past six years. At least she had been and she assumed he had been too. But now she had been forced to overthink that naïve faith she had in his love for her. Asking herself if a tiger could really ever lose its stripes. Just like that, a seed of doubt was planted. And when she started thinking like that, there seemed to be no bridge long enough to overcome that gap that had formed between them so many years ago and that fragile layer that their current relationship was built on, slowly began to crumble.

Once Laila started to entertain the possibility of David cheating on her, her mind turned dark. She had worked hard to keep her marriage intact over the years by sacrificing so much of herself, her happiness and the people she cared about. The idea of that marriage possibly breaking apart due to the actions of the person she had been trying to protect, hurt her more than she could ever imagine. There was a lot she could accept and forgive. She hadn't minded the long nights where she had been all alone in this large house, she hadn't made a big deal of them postponing their family plans and she she didn't give him a hard time for not being as romantic as he used to be. BUT if he had really cheated on her, that betrayal would truly be the final straw. That was one thing she could not forgive. That would not only break her heart but also what little had remained of the trust between them.

Laila quickly wiped away the single tear that had streamed down her face, before she said "Ok, enough of this pity party. There is no use in dwelling on the past. No amount of 'What if's can change the past or what might have happened with Jake." She glanced at her watch and saw that she had been standing out here for way too long. "I should go see Maria and figure out a plan. Above all, I need to get to the bottom of this." With that plan in mind, she headed back inside into her room and got dressed.