The Last Exhale

by Julia Blues

  Hands on the steering wheel, foot on the accelerator, I give them control to take me where my will won’t lead me. Twenty minutes later, I’m standing in the doorway to my husband’s hospital room.

  There’s been no change. He’s still unconscious to reality.

  My legs carry me to the chair positioned next to his bed. Slowly I sit, my eyes focused on his bandaged face, ears focused on the beating of his damaged heart.

  According to Katrina, from what she was told by Rachel, when Eric got off duty, he noticed he had a flat tire. He was pressed for time, needed to pick Kennedy up from school. Michael offered to give him a ride to get her, then they’d come back and switch to the spare. Michael recognized a familiar face standing next to Kennedy at the school. Seeing them together, he realized it was the man he had caught me with at the park and in my car with a bleeding hand. He had been putting off sharing this info with Eric, but when he saw the man with my child, he knew it was time to break the news. Eric wanted to talk; Kennedy’s teacher didn’t. Said he actually laughed at the accusation. That set things off.

  The police report tells a different story. Said Michael was the aggressor, while Eric was the bystander. Said Michael attacked Mr. Carter. Eric tried to stop him, but Michael wouldn’t let up. Mr. Carter ran off, ran to his car and sped off. Michael jumped back in his car with Eric hopping in the passenger seat; sped off after him.

  Now we’re here.

  Rachel’s not answering my calls, won’t settle this feeling in my stomach that this had nothing to do with my infidelity, but more so Michael trying to score revenge on a man who had nothing to do with the one he caught his woman with years ago. His past came back to get under his skin at a time when it had nothing to do with him. Not only has his inability to control his emotions messed up life for my family and me, he’s also screwed up an innocent man’s life. Even if he had the right twin, he still had no right to get involved.

  I can’t think about that right now, though.

  My husband isn’t able to tell me his side of the story. Only God knows when he will, if he ever will.

  The last words we shared were filled with regret. My heart feels like it’s being sucked deep into the ocean on a sinking ship. I let my thoughts drift to our honeymoon.

  That night, after we’d finished making love as husband and wife, I had locked myself in the suite’s bathroom, climbed in the tub and cried. He was sleeping so peacefully in the bed, skin stained with sweat from making love to his wife. He was satisfied, knowing he made the right decision. His life was working out the way he’d planned in his mind. Meanwhile, I had died inside. I made the wrong decision. I sat in the tub and cried so hard it felt like blood was pouring from my eyes. I cried because there was no turning back. I was his wife. Neither divorce nor death would ever be able to erase the fact that I vowed to love him in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I made that choice. And I had to live with it. Never thought it would lead us here.

  A loud, steady beep on one of the monitors grabs my attention. A nurse walks in, unhooks an empty bag, replaces it with a bag full of clear liquid.

  “What’s that?” I want to know.

  “Just something to help with pain,” she says before walking back out.

  “He can feel pain in a coma?”

  The nurse nods, says, “He can feel and hear, just can’t do anything about it.” A beep across the hall sends her on her way.

  I look back at my bandaged husband. He’s felt and heard a lot in this marriage, and just like now, he didn’t do anything about it. Whether he could or not is up for debate on another day.

  He last told me he didn’t want to marry me just as much as I didn’t want to marry him. Another woman broke his heart before I even had the chance to. He was already damaged. I was just a Band-Aid on his wounds. By the time he realized it, we were walking down an aisle with peach rose petals.

  A warm tear rolls down my face, followed by several others.

  42

  SYDNEY

  Sleep betrays me.

  I’ve been in bed tossing and turning for hours. Thoughts are on my husband, on our failed attempt at marriage. On the kids we created when our passion was fueled by ignorance, ignoring the reason for the existence of us. On the lives torn apart by the wrong decisions made in my need to feel fulfilled.

  The indigo-blue numbers on my nightstand flash at me, tell me it’s eleven minutes past three. It’s an insane hour to run, but I find myself rummaging through the dresser for my sports bra, a tank top, and a pair of leggings. Stagger to the bathroom, empty a beyond full bladder. Rethink the half-bottle of wine I downed when I got in from the hospital a couple of hours ago. I toss off pajamas, throw on running gear. Slip anxious feet into ASICS. Out the door I go.

  Pulling into the parking lot of Pick Your Fit, I realize this is not where I want or need to be. I want to run with a freedom the treadmill could never be able to allow. I need space, need air. Need to feel like I’m going somewhere other than here.

  I drive to Riverfront. It’s still dark out. Any woman with any sense wouldn’t dare run or be out here alone. Any woman other than me, because I haven’t done much to make sense in my life as far back as I can remember. I bend over, give my hamstrings a good stretch as I tie my sneakers. Say a quick prayer asking God to keep me safe. My prayer makes me chuckle. It’s not like someone is holding a gun against my head making me run out here in the dark. I’m out here on my own accord.

  I put my feet to the pavement and do what I need to do.

  As one foot lands in front of the other with a force hard enough to shatter the concrete to ashes, I release a part of the guilt I’ve been holding on to. I couldn’t marry a man who didn’t agree to the vows as well. I couldn’t have had Kennedy and EJ if there wasn’t another willing participant. I wasn’t the only one who kept feelings hidden in the vault of truth. I didn’t tell Eric to get in the car with his crazy partner and run another man off the road. I’m not responsible for my husband’s coma. Yet, I cry for him.

  It is my fault for not being honest, for not telling the truth to a vulnerable man, for keeping the truth from myself. I accept my part in all of this, but I won’t carry the burden alone.

  Thinking about Brandon moves me at a faster pace. I think about how his life has unraveled at the hands of my decisions. I could’ve left things alone at the gym when I mistook him for my daughter’s teacher. I didn’t have to take his offer to train him in running. God knows I didn’t have to dance with him, hop in his car and listen to the stories of his unhappy marriage. I had no right to console him, give him my ear. I was out of line showing up at his front door with an offer to what only my husband should be privy to. But again, I wasn’t acting on my own. It wasn’t all on me. He played just as much a part as I did. He could have as easily backed away as I could have. Two weak people have no business playing tug-of-war against Goliath.

  I cry for Brandon. Had I not been operating out of a place of negligence and regret, I would have seen his pain wasn’t something I could heal. Instead of being his ear, I should’ve encouraged him to go home and talk to his wife. Talking to me wasn’t going to make things better at home and it wasn’t going to make him feel any better about what wasn’t going on at home. His wife was dying, and there I was inviting him in between my legs. He didn’t need me to make matters worse.

  Yes, he was a man and was able to make his own choices, but a man will go as far as a woman will let him. I had no boundaries. He was walking in open territory.

  We always have a choice.

  Hindsight is everything. I heard my intuition tell me to just walk away, heard it from day one. Instead, I stayed and made it Eric’s problem, blamed him for my unhappiness. I tried to make him do something he would never be capable of. Never took responsibility for myself. Something else I’ll be paying for the rest of my life.

  For every wrong decision, another decision has to be made. You keep making decisions until the right one is made. Either way, it
’s up to you. I don’t know if I’ll be able to right my wrongs, but I’m sure as heck going to give it all I’ve got.

  Sweat pours from my pores, drips in my eyes, mixes with the tears running down my face. I raise my soaked tank to wipe my face. Tired of crying, tired of abusing my body to get rid of the stress my actions created. This has got to stop. Got to get control of me.

  I pick the pace up even more. Swear I’m hitting qualifying speed for the Olympics. I run until I feel pounds shedding, feel misery dissipating. Run until I feel my sanity coming back as a fuchsia sun rises above the horizon, tainting a blue sky with shades of purple. I run until night becomes morning.

  A family of ducks waddle a few feet in front of me, make their way to the lake for a morning bath. If only life were that simple for me. Then again, it could be. I’m the one who makes it hard. No more, no more, no more. From this point on, I will not let anyone else control my emotions, nor will I let anyone else define what my heart feels. I will love who I want and how I want. I am a wife and a mother, but most importantly, I am Sydney.

  I run until my declaration becomes freeing. Frees me from the bondage I’ve kept myself in. My feet hit the ground in applause, they slap the pavement as if they’ve been set free as well.

  Finally, I slow my pace to a light jog as I near the entrance to the park. I shake my hands, fling as much moisture from them as possible; wipe my eyes.

  When my vision’s clear, I look up and walk right into Brandon.

  43

  BRANDON

  My eyes reek with disgust. Can tell by the way fear scatters across her face and make her run in the opposite direction. I move forward until her footsteps relent.

  “How’d you know I’d be here?”

  Sydney’s question reminds me of the last time I stalked her here. “Followed you here from the gym.”

  “You’ve been here the whole time?”

  “Pulled up next to you while you were tying your shoes.”

  “You’ve been here the whole time?” She repeats her question enunciating each syllable in disbelief.

  I nod what she already knows to be true.

  “Why?”

  I ask myself the same thing. Don’t know why I’m standing in front of the woman responsible for my twin no longer wanting to be in my presence. We shared the same womb for nine months, now he doesn’t want to be in the same room together. “We need to talk about what happened.”

  She sighs. “I’m still trying to put those pieces together myself.”

  “That’s not good enough. Your husband and his cohort lost their cool and have scarred my brother for life. Cops committing crimes; something’s wrong with that.”

  “Well, my husband’s not able to tell his side of the story, so until then, keep him out of it.”

  Sydney stands in my face and defends the man who bored her to death, the man who led her to my apartment. Led her to open her legs for me. “You brought him into this.” For a second I lose my cool. “Don’t try to subtract him from the equation now.”

  “He’s in a coma, Brandon. Have some compassion.”

  How dare she ask for compassion. “Oh, like the compassion you reserved for my cancer-stricken wife when you came knocking at my door with open legs.”

  She charges at me like a lion in heat. Her hands land on my chest, shoves me and shoves me some more until I lose my balance.

  “So both you and your husband respond to problems with violence, I see.”

  She comes at me again. This time I wrap my hands around her wrists, stop her before she has the chance to make any more impressions in my chest. My hands defy my judgment when they pull her into me. Her feet defy her when they move toward me.

  I don’t kiss her first, nor does she kiss me first. Our lips meet at the same time. Tongues dance to the same tune. Both of us trying to make sense of how we got here, while letting our frustrations dig this hole deeper.

  Sydney slides her tongue from my mouth, but her lips stay on mine. “This is how we got here.”

  I know she’s referring to the first time we were out here and unbeknownst to us, we had been caught at the beginning of an affair. I rub my fingers through her hair, feel the wetness of her scalp. Makes me think of the wetness between her legs from the last time we were in this position. I draw her face closer into mine.

  She kisses me hard, kisses away the consciousness to our sin.

  I kiss her hard, kiss away whatever consequences our sin will create.

  • • •

  Another man’s wife comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around freshly cleansed skin.

  I’m sitting on the edge of a rented bed as naked as I was the day I was born.

  She stands in front of another woman’s husband, lets me remove the towel from her body. My hands linger across her skin, feel her shiver underneath my fingertips. She parts her legs, lets my fingers travel to her warmth. Wetness welcomes me into her cove, makes my nature rise. My finger stirs her deep, makes her moan loud enough to make doves cry. She straddles my thighs. I slip deeper, try to get lost inside.

  “Promise me something,” she whispers in my ears.

  “Hmm?”

  “Don’t leave me hanging like last time.”

  I make no promises as my lips graze her neck, teeth leave impressions on her skin. I do say, “You know you’ll go home a different woman, right?”

  “And you’ll go home a different man,” she says back.

  We kiss hard. Definitely no turning back from here.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I went to the gym because I knew she’d be there. I wanted to confront her, blaspheme her for speaking to me many moons ago on the treadmill. She interrupted my life with a common confusion. But the way she locked eyes with me, showed interest in trying to get me to know who she was…I’ve been stuck ever since.

  Sydney leans against me, chest against chest. I lie back on the bed, she follows. Trails her tongue down my neck, comes back up, sucks my lips.

  I’m still stirring her insides, her juices making a smacking noise as my finger slides in and out of her. She removes my finger from her, places it in her mouth. Watches me watch her. She winds her hips against mine, moves against me like she did on the dance floor. Her swollen lower lips glide up and down my manhood, giving me a hint of what it’d feel like to be inside.

  That gets me.

  I raise her up off me, lie her on the bed in my place, plant myself in between her thighs and let my nature rise inside of her.

  We’ve officially entered the place of no return.

  44

  SYDNEY

  I’m lying in the bed next to another wrong decision.

  My body aches from running it into the ground to clear my mind only to turn around and fill it back up with a hunger for a married man. A man whose wife is on the verge of her last exhale.

  Regret fills the air like carbon monoxide in a closed garage with the car running. It’s always the moments after when your actions hit you with the force of an avalanche.

  “I didn’t think it would be so easy to do this.” Brandon breaks the silence and awakens my ears as if I’m hearing for the first time. He’s lying on his back staring into darkness.

  I swallow. “What?”

  “This.” He rolls over, places his lips on my bare shoulder still damp from our second session of exploring each other.

  Unlike the last few times he’s kissed me, this time I freeze under his touch. Feel a part of me tiptoe out of my body and out of this bed.

  He pulls back causing a draft to blanket over me. His eyes gaze in my direction, penetrate my thoughts. “Wow.”

  This wasn’t how I was expecting to feel. Ecstasy turned to regret in a matter of seconds. A few minutes ago, we brought each other to pleasure beyond words, filled the longing our souls longed for. Now all I want to do is run out of this room. Guess I was expecting him to feel the same way. “I’m sorry,” is all I can find to say. At this moment,
I truly am.

  Brandon tosses the covers back, the comforter grazes my lip.

  Again, I apologize.

  He flicks the switch on the wall lamp, shines the light on our adultery. Stands above me in the buff, his manhood as lifeless as a man on insulin. “You’re no better than Rene.”

  I fling the covers off me, stand up on the bed in front of him. Every hair on my body raises along with the octaves in my voice. “Did you just compare me to your wife?”

  He shifts back a step, but doesn’t back down. “I did. She turned cold toward me when she felt I couldn’t do anything else for her. You’ve turned cold toward your husband, turned to me, got what you wanted. Now you don’t even want me to kiss you anymore.”

  “That’s not true, Brandon. You can’t even compare your situation with your wife to this.”

  “Why did you come here with me?”

  My eyes stay on his as his eyes stay on mine. “The same reason you wanted me to. Let’s not kid ourselves, there’s been chemistry brewing between us for months now. This was inevitable, no matter how much we told ourselves it wasn’t going to happen. But that doesn’t mean I have to be comfortable with the end result.”

  He bites on his top lip. “Do we end here?”

  Feels like someone knees me in the back of my knees. My balance falters. He reaches to catch my fall, places my feet on the floor. I take that as my opportunity to look for my clothes; put some distance between us. Need space to gather my thoughts.

  Brandon speaks up for me. “Take that as a yes.”

  I drop my clothes. “No, that’s not what I said at all. I honestly can’t say what I want right now. I’ve got to get to my kids, make sure they’re doing all right. Need to go to the hospital and check on my husband. You need to see about your wife and your brother. Too much is going on right now for us to make any decisions.”

  “Tell me how you really feel,” he says, his feelings spoiling the good sex we just had.

  An aggravated sigh rumbles between my lips. I pick my sweaty clothes off the floor, take them with me into the bathroom.