Leftovers With Benefits: An Interracial Contemporary Romance

by C. L. Donley

  Kevin felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. He winced. Thankfully, it subsided quickly. Lindsey kept going, oblivious.

  “I’m sure you understand that all that’s going to have to stop, if this relationship is to continue.”

  Kevin looked her square in the eyes, calmly.

  “Lindsey, you’re off your fucking rocker if you think I’m going to stay with you if there’s no baby.”

  She laughed in a daze of disbelief.

  “So that’s it? You’re just gonna abandon me?”

  After the last, another stomach pain was quick on its heels.

  “I don’t feel well. I’m going home.”

  “Kevin,” Lindsey sobbed, “If you walk out on me, to go find your little ‘friend,’ so help me God…”

  Kevin stopped at the door.

  “No, I don’t think I’m going to do that, because honestly I’m scared to death to face her. After I came crying to her about everything you’d done. She warned me.”

  Lindsey laughed audaciously.

  “That horrible, ungrateful banshee warned you… about me?”

  “Is that what he told you?” he scoffed and shook his head. He tried to recall an unkind word Kenya had spoken about her ex, some bad-mouthing tirade about the way he was, but there was none. Only her broken emotions.

  “Lindsey, you were always a little manipulative. Spoiled, sure. I mean, look how you were raised,” he said in full hearing of her parents. “But this is a new low. I’ve never known you to be diabolical.”

  “Diabolical?” she scoffed, “Look at you, you’re so fucking weak!” Lindsey exclaimed, straying off topic. “'Boo-hoo, my wife can’t stand to be around me!’ Well here’s a news flash, Kevin: self pity is fucking repulsive. God, just being in the same room with you makes my skin crawl!”

  “Wow,” he marveled. Either she really meant that, and was holding it in for awhile, or simply needed to look just as victimized in front of her loser parents. It was probably a mixture.

  “I gave up something… beautiful. To be here. Something real,” he dared to confess.

  “So you were more than friends! Just admit it!”

  “Give up this stupid act!!” Kevin yelled, an action so out of character that the entire room became fearful. “You’ve railroaded my life— twice now— with this… bullshit!”

  “I’m not gonna talk to you when you’re like this. You have got to calm down,” Lindsey warned him sternly, pretending like she had to do that sort of thing all the time. Kevin paid her no mind.

  “I looked her in the face, and told her it was over,” he said with a far off look, like a man who’d just lost it all in a poker game. “I watched her heart break again. And you’ll never know what that’s like, and you’ll never have that effect on me. Because you have no heart.”

  The statement took all the wind out of her sails. She lay there silenced, defeated. Barely breathing.

  “Well then. So much for unconditional love,” she said.

  “You know what she told me once? She said you were like a squawking baby bird that became a human.”

  “What?”

  “She said white girls were like Nagasaki. I told her she was crazy. Paranoid. You’re sick, Linds. You need help. And not from a man, from a professional. I can’t make you my responsibility anymore, but I can at least tell you the truth, if no one else will.”

  Lindsey laughed a bit at the insight.

  “I think this is the worst day of my life,” she deadpanned, looking around as if in shock.

  He stared at her, a black hole of self-pity and attention-seeking toxicity.

  She was clearly hurting— he wasn’t so cynical to think it was all an act. But she was incapable of caring about him.

  Not because he was somehow unworthy, but because caring about herself took up everything she had.

  She didn’t care about coming home. She didn’t even care about him. She cared about him moving on. Without her.

  All that wasted time. He didn’t regret their marriage, but when he thought of the hoops she’d made him jump through for the last the last six months almost— it made him livid. He was only glad of one thing, and that was to be rid of the desire to be with her. Unfortunately his heart, among other things, was officially broken.

  “What else have you lied about? Was there even a baby? Was that even a real doctor’s office?”

  That got Lindsey’s attention. She looked up at him sharply.

  “You moron. You heard the baby’s heartbeat same as I did. How dare you…” she marveled. Tears streaming down her face.

  He’d hit a nerve, he could tell. But unfortunately she’d done so much manipulation he could no longer trust it. He only felt sadness for them both.

  “After you recover, you need to stay away from me,” he said. “For good.”

  “Unbelievable. You’ve completely let her warp your mind. Just like she warped his,” Lindsey remarked stoically, cryptically, the tears falling.

  He didn’t know if he could stay in this room much longer as her words were like the spell of a madwoman, preying on his decent nature. Dull pain gnawed at his middle.

  “Don’t come to my house for any reason. I’m changing the locks. I’ll take legal action if I have to. I’m sure your parents will continue to support you until you find your next target.”

  “Obviously this was a complete waste of my life, trying to fix this,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken, as if he weren’t there. Her parents looked at him with disdain, the entire family a coven of willful denial.

  “You never had plans to get back together. How could you? This was all just a ruse and I’m just a sucker.”

  “Yes, you’re the victim here, Kevin.”

  “Oh God, Lindsey,” he winced, holding his abdomen, “fuck you.”

  “Of course, you would pick now to grow a pair,” Lindsey snapped as Kevin headed toward the door.

  Kevin was feeling so terrible now he was starting get woozy.

  “I gotta get some air,” he said.

  “Where are you going?” Lindsey asked, unable to squelch her curiosity.

  She knew where he was headed. Who he was going to see.

  Kevin didn’t answer. He was out the hospital room door without another word.

  * * *

  “Kenya!” Gwen whisper-yelled as she broke into a gallop to keep up with her.

  “Relax, I’m not going to embarrass myself. I’m getting the hell out of here.”

  “We were just gossiping. It’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened here that didn’t involve someone dying. We got carried away.”

  “I’m not mad at you guys, I just…can’t be here.”

  “He probably doesn’t know what she did.”

  “Of course he doesn’t know. There’s no way he would…”

  “Denise should’ve kept her mouth shut.”

  “I would’ve found out anyway. I’m telling you, it’s fine,” Kenya insisted, mashing the elevator button, irritated.

  “You still got his number right?” Gwen asked, nudging her to remember the rules.

  “I told you, I’m staying out of it and I mean it,” she said, hearing the elevator descend. “He wouldn’t have even known about the pregnancy at all if I hadn’t made a big deal of it in the first place. I’m not going to be the one to break this to him too.”

  “Kenya, if he doesn’t know, then this woman is a fucking sociopath!” Gwen whispered aggressively.

  “He’ll find out soon enough,” Kenya sighed, entering through the open doors of the elevator. “And don’t even think about risking your job,” she added.

  “We just thought you were just blowing off steam after Cecil,” Gwen said, “but if he’s special, Kenya…”

  “Gwen, leave it!” Kenya warned as the elevator doors closed.

  * * *

  Kevin stepped out into the afternoon cold, trying to mentally control his sudden malaise.

  Something was definitely wrong. If it was another panic a
ttack, it was the world’s worst.

  Kenya. He had to get back to her. It was the only way he was going to feel better. Even if she punched him in his infected guts. He just wanted to lay eyes on her. The thought forced a smile to his face, a hopeful feeling, coupled with another ache.

  He thought about all the grovelling he was going to have to do. He cursed himself. She was never going to take him back. But he could explain. She would listen.

  Kevin felt killer pains in his stomach. Whatever was in the stuffing was knifing his insides. Now he was afraid he was going to barf in front of her. Or right now, in fact. The wicked combination of trapped gas and furious nerves was not an ideal one.

  When he stepped back into the building, he had to brace himself for the wave of pain in his stomach that was so long and unrelenting, he was sweating. He was suddenly glad to have a legitimate reason to be at the hospital.

  When he walked through both sets of emergency room double doors, he was garnering looks left and right. Damn, he must’ve looked like shit.

  “I need to see Kenya Hamilton,” he said.

  “Who?” the front desk receptionist grasped for context. A woman he recognized stood next to her behind the desk.

  “Kenya. I know she’s working. I need to see her.”

  “Aren’t you from Exam Room 12?” the other woman said.

  “What?”

  “Perforated uterus? Arrived in the ambulance with bleeding and abdominal pain?”

  “Wha…I…yeah, I guess. I need to see Kenya, please.”

  “Sir, I think you just missed her.”

  “You’ve gotta be shitting me!” he winced, feeling short of breath.

  “We’re under strict orders to keep the two of you separate.”

  “Strict orders by whom?”

  “Your wife, I presume.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. He rolled his eyes.

  “I think I’m gonna just look for her.”

  “Sir, wait, you— I think you may need to check in!”

  Kevin wandered the halls, holding his stomach and taking small steps as a new wave of pain came on. By some miracle, he spotted her coming out of the elevators.

  “Kenya!” he yelled.

  When she turned, she looked horrified and ran to him.

  “Oh my God, Kevin!”

  “You were right. About everything,” he panted. “She’s just a fucking liar. I’ve been sick. Every day since we… talked. I haven’t been able to sleep. I made a mistake. I’m so sorry.”

  Kenya did her best to assess him while he talked.

  “You haven’t slept?”

  “No. She kept making me… fuck her,” he spat. “I don’t know why. She didn’t like it, there’s no way she liked it.”

  He looked like death and talked like he’d been hallucinating.

  “I’m gonna get fired if they see us together,” Kenya replied.

  “Don’t worry about it, I told her it’s over.”

  “All the more reason to worry about it,” she replied, wrapping an arm around his. “Let’s get you into an exam room. You don’t look good. At all.”

  “It’s a panic attack.”

  “Yeah no, I don’t think so.”

  “What’s a perforated uterus mean?”

  “What?”

  “The nurse said she was admitted for a perforated uterus.”

  Fucking loudmouth Gwen.

  “Kevin…”

  “She had a… procedure. Didn’t she?”

  Kenya felt a lump in her throat as she nodded.

  “They botched it? Is that why she’s bleeding?”

  Kenya burst out crying, weeping, and she covered her eyes with her hand. The emotions of the last three months competed for release indiscriminately as the dam continued to break.

  Why was this happening to him? To either of them?

  Kevin just focused on her, stunned at her emotional display that was clearly from pain, from weariness that he’d undoubtedly caused. He suddenly felt two inches tall, the moment far worse than his physical ailments.

  “Why are you crying?” he asked. “God, don’t do that.”

  She ran a smooth dark hand across his clammy face.

  “Holy shit,” she blinked through her sobs. “You’re on fire.”

  “Nurse Hamilton!!”

  Oh, shit.

  She knew that voice and it had never been aimed at her before. Hastily she wiped her eyes.

  It was Denise, and she had two security guards with her.

  “I warned you.”

  “Ma’am, he was wandering the halls looking for help. He needs a doctor.”

  “Then he should’ve checked in the ER like everyone else. His wife is ranting and raving about you. I assured her that you would maintain your distance.”

  “Ma’am it’s not her fault,” Kevin began. “They told me she was off duty already. I—”

  At that he winced.

  “Pain?” Kenya asked.

  He nodded.

  “Jesus, Kevin. Where? Your stomach?”

  He nodded again.

  “How long?” It took him a moment to be able to talk.

  “Since you left. I knew I made a mistake,” he breathed.

  “No, before. You kept getting heartburn, remember?”

  “That was gas or something.”

  “Get me a gurney!” Denise yelled to no one in particular.

  “Kevin, I think your appendix has ruptured. We gotta get you upstairs into surgery. Like, now,” Kenya urged.

  As if the diagnosis put his body on high alert, a pain went through him that nearly made his knees buckle. He started to imagine toxins flooding his body. A strange pressure formed behind his eyes.

  “Get my phone, call my brother Scott,” he winced, the sweat pouring from him. Kenya reached in his pocket, shakily. “Tell him I’m not gonna make dinner. Tell him everything.”

  “I will.”

  “Kenya,” he gritted his teeth, “you have to forgive me. Right now, or I won’t make it.”

  “Of course,” she replied without hesitation. “Jesus, Kevin, I told you. I’m not angry. You shouldn’t say shit like that—”

  “I love you.”

  “Kevin…”

  “You don’t have to say it back. You—”

  Kevin hit the ground.

  The two attendants miraculously appeared, abandoned the gurney and rushed to his side.

  “Fuck. Get him upstairs,” Denise said, “Check for a ruptured appendix. He’s probably already septic. Kenya, sorry honey but you better get outta here. Now.”

  “I—I was never here,” she stammered.

  Kenya sobbed as she walked quickly to her car.

  All she wanted was to sit in a stiff uncomfortable chair and cry and wait outside of Kevin’s room for news.

  But she couldn’t. Not while his wife was here.

  Kenya prayed. God, please don’t take away the only man that’s ever loved me.

  She felt an assurance as she cried. If she hadn’t been working, he might’ve gone straight to wherever she was. And died on the way. But she was here. And it’s where he came.

  She looked at his phone, her eyes blurry with tears. She sniffed, scrolled until she found Scott in the contacts, took a moment to brace herself and then dialed.

  “Hello, Scott Hayes… yes this is Nurse Kenya Hamilton from Murray Regional Medical Center…”

  * * *

  After two hours and a pep talk, she coaxed herself out of her house and over to her mother’s house, armed with her slow cooker full of yams. Dinner always ran later than expected, but 8 pm was a bit late to show up for Thanksgiving. Still, everyone embraced her as she entered the house.

  “Well this is a surprise!” her mother exclaimed.

  “I got off a little early so I figured….”

  Kenya stopped in her tracks.

  There sitting at her mother’s kitchen table was Cecil Hamilton.

  “What’s he doing here?” she asked.

  H
er mother tried not to be horrified by the rude question.

  “Baby, Cecil was in the neighborhood. Said he was missing us. All of us,” her mother added.

  Kenya was more surprised his mother hadn’t talked him out of coming.

  “Your mother know where you are?” Kenya raised an eyebrow.

  “You know my mama retired Thanksgiving when Evie died. She’s in Capri. I’m catching a flight tonight.”

  Kenya nodded, feeling the whole room’s hopeful feelings of reconciliation in their silence. It made Kenya want to throw up.

  Everyone was so eager to move on as though nothing happened, the least affected and the most willing to blindly let abusers back in who swore they would never be back. There was forgiveness, and then there was this.

  Did these cheaters have no remorse? No shame? They expected others to constantly hold them accountable or else they would never stop? Who had the time to devote to that?

  “Capri, huh? She must’ve had that planned that for awhile.”

  “She did. I just found out about it.”

  “Mm. Wonder why she didn’t think to extend you the invite until now.”

  “Settle down, Sherlock,” he ribbed her. “No conspiracies here. She knows you got family here, that’s all.”

  “I’m just sayin’. The invitation woulda been nice.”

  “You not even one of those women that care about that Dear Abby shit.”

  You got no idea what kind of fuckin’ woman I am, she thought, but didn’t say. Man, it’d been awhile since she had to censor herself. She couldn’t believe she ever lived like that.

  “Ma, why you got the person who don’t even like yams, cookin’ the damn yams?” Cecil loud capped her. Her mother laughed, charmed by his affectionate address.

  It was a harmless dig. And true. She pushed yams all over her plate every year.

  Kenya, however, was instantly at ten.

  She tried to search her memory for a time when Cecil could say a simple statement without a dig, or a barb, or a sarcastic remark, or a joke about how lucky she was that he was talking to her.

  There wasn’t one. Not only was there no such memory, but there were no reserves left for more.

  The man that’d shown her more love in two months, than this one had in their whole marriage, was fighting for his life in the hospital. Robbed of a child he would never know on this side of heaven.