The Wrong Husband

by B. M. Hardin

  “Eddie!” Polo continued to scream, but Eddie couldn’t hear him.

  I cried and called out to my husband too but he didn’t answer either of us.

  I walked towards him.

  “Come any closer to me and I’ll blow your damn brains out,” Eddie snarled.

  I’d never heard him sound so cold before, I’d never seen him so angry.

  But I knew not to take his threat lightly.

  Always listen to the man holding the gun.

  Hell, I didn’t even know that he had a gun.

  Sirens wailed in the distance and I was sure that Polo had made his way to the phone to call the ambulance for help.

  “Eddie please. It’s not what you think.”

  “I think my wife and my best friend have been having an affair and you tell me that it’s not what I think? Really? Bitch please explain. Please tell me what to think then Sassi!”

  Eddie was yelling and waiting for a response, but I couldn’t give him one.

  Shaking his head, Eddie dropped the gun to the ground, got into his car and drove away.

  After he was out of sight, I ran to the gun and put it in my purse.

  What was he thinking?

  Polo still screamed for Eddie and I didn’t bother to turn around.

  I just stood there until help arrived and pointed in the direction of the house.

  What in the world have I done?

  ~***~

  “My best friend Sassi! My fucking best friend! It could have been anyone else. Anyone other than Polo. Why Polo? Why Polo?”

  Eddie was screaming at the top of his lungs and I was almost scared to answer him.

  I’d walked all the way home the day before and when I got there Eddie and the kids were gone.

  I called the daycare to see if they had been picked up.

  They had.

  I called Eddie over and over but he never answered the phone.

  I stayed up all night long, calling, crying and texting him but he never said a word.

  Polo called looking for him too but he was the last person that I wanted to talk to.

  I wasn’t sure what he’d said happened to him, but I was sure that he hadn’t said that Eddie did it.

  Finally, the next morning, Eddie walked in, ready for war.

  “Why Sassi?”

  “It happened so fast. I don’t know why. I’m sorry. I was feeling a little unhappy. And it just happened. Our relationship was kind of boring, you didn’t believe in my writing like I wanted you to, and the sex had been an issue before the pills, and it just happened. Polo was there and it just happened.”

  “It just happened? It happened because you wanted it to happen! And right under my nose. You were screwing my best friend right under my fucking nose! And here lately I had been giving you everything you asked me for so stop giving me excuses! Just say it out loud for me one time. Eddie, I fucked your best friend because I wanted to. Just say it!” Eddie just sounded so angry and distraught and I tried to plead with him but he wouldn’t listen.

  “Where are the kids?”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean why Eddie? They are my kids too.”

  “Were you thinking about them when you were bouncing on their god father’s dick? Huh? Were you thinking about them then?”

  I cried harder and harder with every word that he said but he didn’t stop.

  He kept talking and calling me names and insulting my character.

  Finally, he twisted off his wedding band and threw it in my face.

  “No Eddie. No. Don’t leave me. I love you.”

  “You love me? No. You don’t love me.”

  “Yes I do. Yes I do. I’m sorry.”

  “If I could kill you and get away with it, I swear that I would. I swear I would make you maggot food, right here, right now! But our boys need at least one of their parents. They’ve already lost their loose booty mother. They can’t lose their father too,” Eddie said.

  “Eddie, you are not taking my kids away from me.”

  “Watch me.”

  “You can’t do that. They are my kids.”

  “They were your kids.”

  “No, please Eddie. Please, I’m sorry,” I held on to him as he tried to leave.

  “Don’t leave me please.”

  “Get off of me Sassi! I hate you. I swear on everything that I love that I hate you!”

  And with that, he pulled away from me and left me crying my eyes out as though I was some clingy one night stand or delusional side chick or something.

  The next few minutes and even the next few days after that were an absolute blur.

  I hadn’t been to work.

  I had barely eaten.

  All I did was cry and the worst part of all was that I hadn’t seen my kids.

  Eddie wasn’t even taking our oldest son to school and neither of them had been to daycare.

  He couldn’t do this.

  He couldn’t take my babies from me.

  He hadn’t come back to the house since that day or answered any of my calls.

  I felt like I was going insane.

  I ruined my life.

  I ruined my marriage and my family.

  What were Polo and I thinking?

  I was the one that had everything to lose and I had lost it all.

  And it was all his fault.

  Depression was setting in and I had started to think a few things that I never thought would cross my mind.

  I had been going through all of this on my own, and it was time that I told someone.

  I needed someone to tell me that life was still worth living.

  I needed someone to tell me that everything was going to be okay.

  I headed to my phone and called my best friends.

  I needed them.

  Patrice was out of town as always, but Micki was there in less than five minutes.

  “What happened to the one time Sassi?”

  “I don’t know. It was supposed to be but I couldn’t help it. He’d shown up to dinner with Patrice and I guess it triggered something inside of me.”

  “What? Patrice?”

  “Yeah and I think that I was really starting to fall for him too.”

  “Like what Sassi?”

  “Like love. But it all went away once Eddie found out. I just want Eddie back. I just want my kids back.”

  “I told you to be careful. I told you. I knew something bad was going to come from this. I knew it. I could feel it. It was just too close to home Sassi. But he will forgive you. Eddie is a good guy and I believe that he will forgive you.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Trust me. He will. He loves you so much Sassi. Everything is going to be fine.”

  I laid my head on her shoulder and I waited for her to say something else encouraging but she didn’t.

  Instead, she said something that took me by surprise.

  “Besides, he has to forgive you; he isn’t Mr. Innocent himself.”

  I lifted my head to look at her.

  That’s the second comment I’ve heard in regards to Eddie’s faithfulness.

  Or maybe I should say the lack there of.

  “What?”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “You’re just saying what?”

  “Maybe you should ask him if he has ever been unfaithful to you.”

  “Has he? How would you know that?”

  Micki took a deep breath.

  “I don’t want to get in the middle of this.”

  “The middle of what? You knew that Eddie cheated on me and didn’t say anything?”

  “What was I supposed to say? You and Patrice are both of my friends,” Micki said and covered her mouth.

  What did she just say?

  Patrice?

  Patrice had been with Eddie and was trying to get with Polo too?

  Maybe we were more like sister’s than I’d thought.

  But she’d been with Eddie?

  Oh God…I�
�m going to kill her!

  ~***~

  I had been calling Patrice’s phone over and over again but she wasn’t answering the phone.

  Last we’d heard was that she was in Brazil, but her ass was mine as soon as she was back in the states.

  Micki told me what she knew; at least what she’d wanted me to know that she knew.

  I was sure that she was leaving out a few details.

  According to what she’d said, Patrice and Eddie had fooled around a few times before I’d even met him.

  And they continued to screw from time to time, after Eddie and I were an item, and possibly after we were married.

  Maybe that’s why Eddie always acted like he had some kind of problem with Patrice.

  Maybe that’s why he didn’t want her around.

  Oh, and there was more.

  According to Micki, Patrice had gotten pregnant and Eddie made her get rid of the baby.

  That bitch had gotten pregnant by my husband?

  I couldn’t even begin to explain what I was going to do to her.

  After the abortion, they officially broke it off and hadn’t dealt with each other since.

  But that’s only as far as Micki knew of.

  But I was going to get to the bottom of it all.

  I was going to get the truth even if I had to beat it out of one of them.

  How could Patrice do that to me?

  And Eddie?

  Never would I have even guessed that he would step out on our marriage.

  I had never had to question his loyalty.

  Now I knew first-hand how Eddie felt after finding out about me and Polo.

  And it wasn’t a good feeling.

  It was the worst feeling that I’d ever felt and somebody deserved to pay for my pain.

  Eddie had no right to be mad at me for what I’d done because apparently he had done the same thing.

  The only difference was that he hadn’t gotten caught.

  And I was the only one that didn’t know about it.

  Of course Polo knew; which he’d slipped up and mentioned it too.

  And to find out that Micki knew and had been keeping it from me was more than disturbing and I didn’t know whether to be mad at her or not.

  She should have told me.

  Damn it somebody should have told me!

  She only said that she didn’t want to be in the middle but at the end of the day that was a bunch of bull.

  Eddie is my husband.

  Not my boyfriend.

  Not just my baby daddy.

  But my damn husband!

  Micki also said that Patrice said that it wasn’t worth mentioning since it wasn’t a big deal and just sex, but once they continued to fool around after we were married, Micki said that she’d warned her that one day it was all was going to blow up in her face and it finally did.

  Patrice got pregnant and from what Micki said, she’d actually wanted to keep the baby.

  But Eddie wouldn’t let her.

  He told her to get rid of it.

  Her whole “I don’t want a husband or kids” attitude was apparently a result of what Eddie had taken her through.

  She’d even said that Patrice told Eddie that she would make up a baby daddy and raise the baby on her own but Micki said that Eddie told her that he would make her life a living hell if she went through with it.

  Micki said that Patrice was so stressed out that she finally gave in, had the abortion and never looked back.

  At least this was all of the things that Patrice had told her.

  Had Patrice told me that they had sex before things got serious between us, I would have never even dated him.

  Let alone married him.

  Patrice and I had been friends for forever and I would never overstep a boundary like that, but she had.

  She had done the unthinkable, the unforgiveable.

  And I was going to catch a case!

  She didn’t answer my call, again, so I called Eddie for the thousandth time.

  It had been a week and two days without seeing the kids and a week since I’d even talked to or seen Eddie.

  This was ridiculous!

  He still wasn’t answering my calls.

  I still didn’t know where they were.

  I’d gone to the police but since Eddie was their father and on their birth certificates, they instructed me to go in more of a domestic, courtroom battle direction.

  I didn’t want to hear that.

  I just wanted to see my babies.

  I just wanted my family back.

  After a few more calls, finally, surprisingly, he picked up.

  “You bastard! You had sex with Patrice!”

  Eddie was quiet.

  It took a minute but he finally spoke.

  “What?”

  “You had sex with Patrice! And you had the nerve to come at me about Polo? How dare you!”

  “Who told you that?”

  “What? All you have to say is who told me that?”

  “Yes. Who told you that?”

  “Micki. What does that matter?”

  Surprisingly Eddie chuckled.

  “Hmm, well did she tell you what she did?”

  Oh hell.

  What the hell did Micki do?

  “What did she do?”

  Eddie didn’t answer my question.

  “What did she do Eddie? So you did sleep with Patrice?”

  “Only before you and I were married. It was never after you were my wife. It wasn’t a big deal. Only a few times, and we agreed that it wasn’t worth mentioning.”

  “Liar! You got her pregnant Eddie!”

  “No I didn’t Sassi. And as I said, I never, not once, broke our vows.”

  I didn’t believe him.

  He was lying.

  And thinking back to Polo’s small comment, I knew that Eddie had to be lying.

  “You are the married slut, not me. You slept with my best friend Sassi. You broke our vows.”

  “And you slept with mine too Eddie!”

  “We had a thing before you. Sex. Nothing more. Nothing less. And truth be told, Patrice isn’t a friend to anyone. Hell, the only person she really cares about is herself and you know that. And despite what Micki may think that she knows, I never slept with Patrice once we were married Sassi.”

  He could save his lies.

  I was heated!

  But he sounded calm which pissed me off even more!

  “What happened with Polo was you karma bitch!” I screamed at him.

  Eddie didn’t say anything.

  I wanted him to feel how I felt at that moment, so I kept going.

  “Did you cum in two minutes when you had sex with her too?” I growled.

  Maybe that was a low blow but I no longer felt like shit.

  He was just as bad as I was, and in my opinion, he had done worse.

  Instead of answering my question, Eddie hung up.

  I was so angry that I started to scream.

  I screamed so loud and for so long that my throat felt as though it was being ripped into two.

  My life was falling apart right in front of my eyes.

  My husband was gone and had taken my kids.

  Eddie and Patrice had sex before me and while I was with Eddie.

  Not to mention that it had been said that he had gotten her pregnant.

  And what was it that Micki hadn’t told me?

  This was all a bad dream.

  I was about to lose my mind.

  Just as I was about to fall out crying, Mama called.

  She was the last person that I wanted to talk to, but I answered the phone anyway.

  “What Mama?”

  “I told you so.”

  “Yeah, let me guess, Eddie called you?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did he tell you were he is with my kids?”

  “Yep.”

  “Where are they?”

  Mama didn’t answer me.

  “Why didn’t
you listen to me Sassi? You let Polo ruin your marriage. Was it worth it? Really was it worth it?”

  “Mama, where is Eddie with my kids?”

  “They were staying with me but they are gone now.”

  “Gone where?”

  “I don’t know Sassi.”

  “Why didn’t you call and tell me Mama? Why didn’t you tell me that they were there?”

  “I been calling you for days but you always ignore my calls, even before you got caught. But you made this bed Sassi, and now you have to lay in it.”

  Mama hung up on me.

  Why the hell was my Mama on his side?

  She was my Mama!

  Damn!

  I immediately called Eddie’s parents but his mother screamed in my ear and hung up.

  He’d told everybody what I’d done.

  But I bet none of them knew that he was guilty of the same damn crime.

  I needed someone in my corner and since Micki’s loyalty was up for question that only left one person.

  Polo.

  Polo was there in a matter of minutes.

  “He slept with Patrice.”

  “I know.”

  “And no one thought to tell me that?”

  “It wasn’t my place Sassi.”

  Yeah, I bet it wasn’t.

  I found it crazy that Polo wouldn’t have tried to tell me years ago being that he said that he’d always wanted me from Eddie.

  “Was it before we were married Polo? Or while we were married?”

  “I don’t know Sassi.”

  “Yes you do! Your friendship with him is just as much as over as our marriage is so why not tell me?”

  “Our friendship isn’t over Sassi.”

  I stared at him.

  “You talked to him?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then how can you say that?”

  “I just know.”

  They were close and all, but Polo was crazy if he thought that there wasn’t going to be any consequences to what we’d done to Eddie.

  He hated me.

  And I was sure that he hated Polo just as much.

  Hell, he’d already shot him, what more proof did Polo need?

  “What are you going to do?”

  I shook my head.

  What kind of question was that?

  Of course I had no idea what to do now.

  I didn’t know how to feel.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  I didn’t know whether to kill Patrice and Eddie, or accept it all because I had done the same.

  The betrayal that I felt was unexplainable but I could only imagine that Eddie felt the same way too.