by S. P. West
Needless to say, Del and Zara were no more.
By the end of the night after discovering we had similar taste in nearly everything. We had completely different upbringings, we came from completely cultures and yet we clicked. I couldn’t remember my own name by the time we finished drinking, what I did remember was that Del and me had formed a bond. We would be friends for life.
Del hands me the box of delicious goodies that Ben, one of the servers, had just placed on the counter.
“How about Monday?” She suggests, before lowering her voice so that no one will over hear the next bit, “I’ll keep tonight free, just in case you change your mind.” She doesn’t have to say anything else, I know what she really means is ‘When Alex cancels again.’
“Sounds good,” my mouth raised slightly in a pathetic attempt to smile. How do you smile when you are miserable? The sad thing is that know that Del is probably right. I will be seeing her on Friday. “I’ll be at yours for…?”
“Six. Look babe, I got to get back to work. You know what our lord and masters are like.” With that she gives me another hug and returns to behind the counter.
I wave goodbye and head towards home. For the first time the past few months I feel hopeful that Alex and I have turned a corner.
SUMMER
“ASSHOLE! The absolute bastard!”
I watch Del warily from her couch, my hand resting protectively on my non-existent baby bump, as she paces round the living room of her apartment like a caged tiger, flinging her hands in the air, gesticulating wildly. “You can’t leave this, Summer. You just can’t!”.
“No, don’t you dare let this go Sullivan!” Violet chimes in.
The use of my maiden name brings my attention to the tinny voice that comes from the laptop set up on Del’s polished oak coffee table. The face of my best friend, Violet, stares angrily at me from the screen from thousands of miles away. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me what was going on with twat face, Sum?” She looks quite scary sans make-up and her short, blue-dyed hair sticking up on all directions. Her blue eyes are alight with fire. The overall effect reminds me of a very angry pixie which is ruined somewhat by with the fluffy pink dressing gown she is wearing. I’d forgotten that it was so early in the morning back home, when I telephoned her a couple of hours ago asking her to video chat. In the corner of the room my other good friend and colleague, Alyssa, sits in Del’s oversized armchair with her legs tucked under her. Her lovely heart-shaped face looking pale even with her natural tan. She watches me in stony silence, her brown eyes sad, before pushing herself out of the chair and coming to sit next to me on the sofa.
“Did you know?” I whisper while Vi and Del rant on, “Did Becks know?”
“No, Chicca.” She said softly as she pulled me into a hug. “I promise you I didn’t know anything until you told me just now. I don’t think William knew either.” She pulls back and smiles as she uses her husband’s actual name. “That’s really why I was coming to see you. I wanted to talk to you about Alex. Becks is really worried, he said that Alex hasn’t been himself recently.” Alyssa shakes her head sadly. “He used to see him nearly every day. We’ve barely seen Alex over the last couple of weeks, especially after the fight they had.”
“What fight?”
“Alex didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
She looks at me incredulously before shaking her head and pursing her lips. “Honey, I don’t think you want to hear it especially after what happened today.”
“Please just tell me Lyssa.”
“I just wanna say that I didn’t believe it when Becks told me.”
“Please.” I beg, not sure If I do want to hear what she has to say.
“Becks caught Alex snorting a couple of lines of Coke.”
“WHAT?” I yell causing Del and Violet to fall silent. My heart is pounding and I can feel the beginnings of a headache begin to form. All this stress is can’t be good for the baby.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.” I cry, “Jesus, can this get any worse? Why didn’t you say anything to me?”
Lyssa at least has the decency to look ashamed. “Alex told Becks that you knew and that you were okay with it.”
“I would never be okay with that.” I hiss, “ever!”
“I know honey; I didn’t think you would neither did Becks. He called Alex out on it, told him he was lying and that lead to the fight. I was going to talk to you about it but we were not on the same shifts, it wasn’t something I could tell you over the phone.”
“You could have come round to tell me or I don’t know...asked me out to lunch and told me then!” I rub the bridge of my nose trying to ease the tension that I’m feeling. My head is getting worse and at this moment, I just want to close my eyes and never wake up.
“Becks told Alex he thought he was bull-shitting him, that he was going to talk to you about it. Alex admitted that you didn’t know, he told Becks that it was only every now and then. That all the guys were doing it in the office. He begged Becks not to tell you as he wanted to tell you himself.” She shifts so that she can angle herself to take my hands, “Becks gave Alex three weeks to tell you, said after that he would tell you himself. Alex has avoided him ever since. Becks asked me to come over to see if you knew yet. He didn’t want to go charging in” She smiles weakly. “He loves Alex and he loves you. We’ll always be grateful to you.”
Alyssa had married Alex’s best friend, William Becker, two months ago after a whirlwind romance in which I had played a small part by introducing them to each other. The tall, handsome red-haired firefighter and the petite, stunningly beautiful Latina firework were, to me, perfect for one another. It took some persuading but they eventually agreed to go out on a date to shut me up.
One month later Alex and I were attending their wedding at City hall. Alex and Becks were as close as brothers, so that they’d had a fight surprised me. That Alex had been snorting cocaine was an even bigger one. He hadn’t said anything to me, not a single thing. In fact, he’d told on quite a few occasions over the last couple of months when he was going out that he was meeting Becks. Has everything he’s been telling me been lies? I’m left wondering as I think back to the events that lead me here.
After leaving the Ginger Cat Cafe earlier this afternoon. I’d dropped off the cupcakes to Mrs. Fischer and headed to our apartment to make dinner and wait for Alex. A little after I’d started the walk home Alex sent me a text to tell me that the meeting had finished earlier than expected and that he would be home soon. So, I waited. The hours ticked by and soon, it was 6.30pm and there was still no sign of Alex. It seems that I waited in vain. I could feel myself getting angrier and angrier, which I knew wouldn’t do the baby any good. Eventually, I sent him a short message asking him where he was and that I was waiting to eat dinner with him. Not two minutes later my cell vibrated on the counter, I saw Alex’s name emblazoned across the screen. I just knew that he’d be calling to give me some lame arsed excuse why he wasn’t home.
“Hey Sum.” There was no warmth in his greeting, if you were a stranger listening in you would have thought he was talking to his sister not his wife.
“Alex.” I couldn’t even bring myself to fake being nice to him anymore. My voice was colder than the arctic causing him to pause before coming out with his bullshit.
“Look, I know you’re angry.” I stayed silent on the other end of the line knowing that it would un-nerve him. Inside my head I was repeating ‘stay calm, think of the baby, stay calm, think of the baby.’ In an effort to stop myself from becoming hysterical.
“And, I’m sorry. I got caught up in the meeting and then some of the guys asked me for a drink.” In the background, I could hear the sounds of a bar and a woman laughing.
“You said you would be home hours ago.”
‘Stay calm think of the baby.’
“I know. I’m sorry.” He sighed and I would have willing bet you 100 dollars that he was rubbing his hand over
his face at that moment.
“Well are you coming home or should I put your dinner in the trash?”
Silence.
“Alex?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard.”
“Are you coming come or will you be in later?”
“I don’t know”
“You don’t know if you’re coming home or when you’ll be home?”
He pauses before muttering ‘Christ’ under his breath making my blood boil.
“It’s not a hard question Alex. You could at least have the decency to tell me what your plans are!” I snapped.
“I said I don’t know Summer.” He spat just as I heard the vaguely familiar voice of a woman ask, “what the hell does she want?” from somewhere close to him.
Bile rose in my throat and I nearly dropped my cell in surprise. Was he with another woman?
“Who is that?” I managed to choke out.
“No-one. Hang on a minute.” Alex said before he covered up the mouthpiece of his mobile so that I can only hear a faint snippet of conversation.
I swear I heard his muffled voice say, “be right back, baby.”
The thought that Alex was cheating on me, once again, reared its ugly head before I dismissed it. That could have been anyone talking not just Alex; the voice was muffled.
Alex wouldn’t call another woman baby. I’d know if he was seeing someone else. Wouldn’t I? Excuse after excuse flew ran through my mind as I tried to justify what I’d heard to myself.
Then it hit me, why was I making excuses for him?
Because without trust we have nothing.
I could hear a door click behind him as the sounds of the bar quietened down to nothing.
“Sorry about that. There was too much background noise,” he breathed.
There was that word again. Sorry. All he seemed to keep doing was apologize to me.
Keep calm. Think of the baby. I repeated in my head before I asked him, “Who were you talking to?”
“No one.” The defiant inflection of his tone made it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t answer my question no matter how much I probed. So I decided to try and change tack. Remembering my mother’s mantra of ‘Kill them with kindness’.
“Del said she saw you buying flowers today.”
“What?” The surprise in his voice evident. “Where?”
“Pride and Peonies. She said that you bought some beautiful red roses.” I responded brightly, my heart thundering in my chest as I debated internally as to whether I actually wanted to hear his answer.
He didn’t speak.
“So you did buy flowers?” I pushed him.
Again, no answer from him.
“It’s a lovely surprise Alex, thank you,” I continued, “it’s a bit of a waste if you don’t know whether or not you are coming home,” I said, throwing his words from earlier back at him.
“They’re for my mom.” He said quickly. “I dropped them off with her earlier.”
I realized later as sat in Del’s apartment that those were the words that destroyed any trust I had in him, and the strength of our relationship. That those words could possibly be the final nail in the coffin.
They say that sometimes in life you have a moment of pure clarity, when the truth pulls so sharply into focus that it cannot be ignored. That the rock that you were living under promptly crumbles to dust leaving you suddenly exposed to the harsh reality of the given situation and nakedly vulnerable. His simple, kind and loving gesture for his mum outed him, in my eyes, as bare-faced liar. Oh, he was good, very good and if it had been any other week, I would have believed him. However, it seemed that Alex had forgotten that his mother was on vacation in the Bahamas and had been for the past ten days. I knew for a fact that she would be away until Sunday, three days away, as I was the one picking her up from the airport.
My husband was lying to me and although at that moment, I didn’t want to acknowledge it I knew, deep down, the reason why.
All the signs were there; the distance, the anger directed towards me, his cruel words, the late nights, the new passcode on his phone, his constant texting, the fact that he often came in from work and head straight to the shower. He’d even started to do his own washing a few months ago. The reason, he said at the time, was that his clothes were expensive and he didn’t want me ruining them as I had when I accidentally shrunk a $290-dollar sweater that he’d bought when we’d visited Denmark last year. Was it to hide something else? Finally, there were the flowers.
God, I was such an idiot. A stupid, naive, trusting idiot.
These were signs that I had happily been ignoring because I couldn’t...wouldn’t contemplate that my husband would ever fall out of love with me, that he would ever even look at someone else. Of course, I could be wrong and jumping to conclusions yet something told me I wasn’t.
“Did...did she like them?” I choked out, I could feel the burn of tears.
Think of the baby.
“She loved them.”
More lies.
“I’m glad...” Tears track down my face, I’m seconds away from breaking down. I don’t want him to hear me cry so I contemplate just hanging up. “Alex, I’m going to...”
He cuts me off before I can continue, “Why are you crying honey?” The warmth and gentleness that had been missing previously finally makes an appearance. It had not gone un-noticed that during our entire conversation he hadn’t used any term of endearment for me until that moment. Not a single one.
“I...” I start trying desperately to find something that wouldn’t alert him to that fact that I knew he was lying. What can you say?
“Gee Hun - I’m crying because instead of spending your day off with me. You, the man I love, went into work instead; then chose to spend your evening, yet again, drinking with your work colleagues. That their company is far more preferable to mine, your own wife. Oh, guess what! I’m pregnant. Yet the father of my child, are acting like I mean nothing to you. I don’t think you love me anymore. That you’d lied to me and in all probability are fucking someone else behind my back?” That would just about cover it.
“I’m cutting onions.” I blurted out the excuse sounding lame, even to my own ears. “So I’d better go as I’ll be a sobbing mess in a minute.” For the second time I lie to my husband.
“Look, baby.” His voice low and gentle, “I’m sorry about tonight, I’ve got no excuse but if it’s ok with you I’ll crash at friends’ place for the night. I’ve had a bit too much to drink and I don’t think I should drive.”
“Can’t you catch a cab?”
“No, I’ve already said to Ben that I’ll stay at his.”
“You said that you didn’t know if you’d be home or not and who is the hell Ben? Alex why are you...”
He cuts me off before I can continue, the coldness seeping back into his voice. “Jeeze Sum, can’t you give me a fucking break? It’s been a shit time at the office recently and you’ve not been helping with your whining.” The forceful malice in his tone shocked me. In all the years that we had been together, he had never spoken to me like this. “I need a break from all the drama.” Alex was silent for a moment before he said, “Maybe I need a break from us.”
The only sound that I could hear was the rush of blood to my ears, bile rose in in my throat as I rubbed my hand over my stomach in an effort to calm down. I felt like I was going to faint.
“What?” I whispered.
“I think we need time apart. In fact, it may be best if we separate.”
It took me a herculean effort not to drop the phone. Rage like I’d never known built inside me. Before I could stop myself, the words that I hadn’t wanted to say aloud came tumbling out of my mouth. “Are you seeing someone else? Is that it?”
It was his turn to be shocked. “What?”
“I said are you seeing someone else.”
Silence.
“Answer me Alex! Are you or are you not sha
gging some whore behind my back?” I seethed.
“No.”
“Liar! Who is she?”
“There’s no-one.”
“No-one? Really? My husband tells me he wants to separate for no other possible reason that I can see. You honestly expect me to believe you when you’ve lied to me....”
“When have I fucking lied?” He shouted.
“The flowers Alex. The bloody flowers.”
“I told you I gave them to my mom.”
“Yes and I’m sure she’s enjoying them from the Bahamas,” I spit out. “So pull the other one Alex, it has bells on. Who did you give them to?”
The silence was deafening and all I wanted to do was to curl up and pretend that the conversation we had been having over the last twenty minutes hadn’t happened. It was could have been minutes or even hours before he spoke again and when he did there was no emotion, just a flat monotone.
“I’ll be home in the morning and we’ll talk ok? See you tomorrow.” And with that he hung up.
I spent the next fifteen minutes over the toilet retching and sobbing as I purged my body of bile before staggering to the living room and dialing Alyssa for help. Fortunately for me Alyssa had already decided to drop in to see us and was already on her way over as she had some photos of us from their wedding for me, or so she said.
If she had been a day earlier, I would have been overjoyed as I could have added these photos to the scrapbook that I had been making as an anniversary present for Alex. I’d been working in secret on my little project for months. Wanting to do something special for our fourth wedding; not something flashy, not something instantly forgettable. Something that would mean a lot to us. So I’d been painstakingly putting Alex and I’s love story together. Getting photos, ticket stubs, even pieces of material from our wedding clothes and putting it all into a book that we would, hopefully, show our grandkids. Now, after our argument, all I wanted to do was chuck the bloody thing in the bin.