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my life.
    “Uncle Paul? Are you all right?” he asked from the door.
    Hell, I’d probably never be all right again. “Yes. I just need to be alone.”
    He glanced at the bed. “You had a friend over?”
    “Who I did or didn’t have over is none of your damned business, Mark. Just fuck off now and let me sleep.”
    He arched a brow but turned and left the room without speaking again.
    I buried my face in the pillow that still bore a trace of her scent and finally drifted to sleep. When I woke in the middle of the night, I was alone in the house so I had another two beers and stumbled back to bed.
    I woke up with a hangover and in a foul mood the next day. I downed two cups of coffee, showered, and went on a five-mile run. I managed to get through the day without resorting to drinking again and lay sleepless for over an hour before I finally fell asleep that night.
    A busier than usual workweek helped me keep from losing myself in thoughts of Marlena. But my nights were spent in a lonely, sleepless quagmire of regret for having hurt Marlena.
    Mark called twice. I allowed each call to go to voicemail but never responded to them. The combination of guilt and anger I felt ensured I was very unpleasant company. Since I’d already screwed him, snapping at him would have been the final insult.
    That was one of the longest weeks of my life. Driving home from work on Friday, I decided I’d earned a weekend of gambling down at A.C. If I were lucky, I’d pick up a woman to spend the weekend with.
    My thoughts on how soon I could shower and change and drive down to A.C., I was annoyed to find Mark seated in the living room with five empty beer cans beside him as he watched a baseball game.
    Shit. Just what I didn’t need or want. But he clearly needed to talk and I had to listen. Swearing softly, I walked into the room.
    He didn’t look up as I sank down on the sofa across from the loveseat where he sat. “Hey sport, a little early for drinking alone, isn’t it?”
    He shrugged. “Not when a man has to wash away his blues.”
    “What blues?”
    “Marlena is cheating on me, Uncle Paul.”
    The blood rushed up the back of my neck so fast and furiously that it felt as if it were on fire. “Cheating on you? What do you mean?”
    “I mean she’s seeing another man!” Mark opened another can and took several gulps from it. “She told me today that she won’t go out with me again.”
    I raked a hand through my hair. “Did she say why?”
    “She said she’s in love with another man.”
    “In love?” My heart thumped. I swallowed twice before I could trust myself to speak again. “Did she actually say she was in love with this other man?”
    He nodded and finished the beer. “How can she be in love with someone else when we were seeing each other exclusively?”
    “Now, Mark, that’s not exactly how it was. You told me yourself the two of you weren’t actually dating.”
    “I know, but I was going to date her exclusively! Even though she knew how I felt about her, she never gave me the chance. Why didn’t she wait for me?” He crushed the empty can in his hand and tossed it across the room. “And anyway, who is this other man? Where’d she meet him? Why does he have to take the one woman I love?”
    I’d never felt so helpless or so torn in my entire life as I felt then. She loved me too! I felt on top of the world and wanted to shout out for the entire neighborhood to hear that I was the lucky bastard Marlena was in love with. I finally admitted to myself that I was in love with her too. But the father in me was devastated at the pain and anguish Mark clearly felt.
    “I know you’re hurt and angry now, Mark, but you’re young, handsome, and you have excellent prospects. You’ll fall in love again.”
    “No. I won’t.”
    “She’s far from the only woman in the world. You—”
    “She’s the only woman for me, Uncle Paul! Can’t you understand that? I love her—just as you loved Brenda. Look at