by Botha, Talea
"You slept with someone. You mean, like, someone else?"
"Yes. I slept with someone else."
"Someone that's not me."
"Yes Tash! Why are you making me saying it over and over again, this is hard enough for me as it is!"
"I'm just trying to make sense of what you're saying to me. I'm sitting on your couch and you're telling me you slept with someone. Who isn't me? Who isn't your girlfriend. Just help me out with facts here."
Her ears were ringing as she struggled to take in what he was saying to her.
"I'm sorry." he said and tears welled up in his eyes. She sat back, suddenly very confused. She'd never seen men cry before and it was strange.
They sat in silence for a while. She felt numb; It was all too much. He turned to her and took both her hands in his. "I don't know what came over me. I never wanted to hurt you, and I wasn't going to tell you, but I couldn't stand it anymore, you're everything I've ever wanted and I've gone and messed it up."
She squeezed her eyes shut, willing for everything to just be a dream. Could the day get any worse? She opened her eyes, but he was still sitting in front of her, crying, and she squeezed them shut again. Not a dream then.
She breathed in deeply, trying to figure out which part of her just died.
"Who is she?"
"A girl I met at a conference. We were talking outside and I was telling her about you and then she kissed me and before I knew what was--"
"Please don't."
"I'm so sorry Tash. I love you, and you're the only person I've ever wanted, I've never felt this way about anyone. Hurting you was the last thing I wanted to do."
"Well, that blew up in your face."
"Please forgive me."
She turned her head away from him and looked out the window. She didn't know what she was feeling anymore. She didn’t know what to do.
"Are you going to break up with me?"
He looked rather pathetic, sitting there crying like a baby and feeling sorry for himself.
She looked at him, at his eyes, at his hands holding hers. She loved him. She loved him so much. She should just walk away. But she couldn't. He was all she had left now. She'd just lost everything she'd worked for her whole life for him, and if she lost him too she would have nothing, nothing at all.
She sat there in silence, looking at him, looking at what they had, looking at her life with him, looking at her life without him.
"Are you seeing her again?"
"No, never!" He shook his head furiously. "I'll die if I do anything like that to you again."
"You have no idea what I’ve been through the last couple of days. I really don’t need this"
"You have no idea how much it hurt me. I'm so sorry. I’ll do anything, anything to prove to you how much I love you. Everyone makes mistakes, I know I messed up. I’ll work for the rest of my life with you to fix it."
He hugged her tightly and when she finally wrapped her arms around him and hugged him back he planted wet kisses all over her face, mumbling love and apologies through them like he was never going to let her go.
When she left his house she stood in the street, unsure where to go. She didn’t want to go home; she couldn’t cope with her emotions alone. Usually she would turn to Ethan, but seeing that he was the problem this time she didn’t know what to do. She had no one else to turn to, not even Cara. She stood there for a moment longer, hating the indecision. Then she pulled out her phone and dialled the number Martin had given her just the day before.
After that, strangely, their relationship was better than ever. He put so much effort into making her feel like she was his one and only, even when she was distant with him and pushed him away. His actions confused her. She wanted to be upset with him. She felt hurt and betrayed and she wanted him to know what he had done to her. But he still managed to pull her back to him, he loved her more than ever, and even when she was angry at him she loved him back just as fiercely. She didn’t leave him the way Martin encouraged her to do the night she went to him. She’d sat there, crying on his couch like a broken teenager, apologizing over and over again for having emotions, and when she finally calmed down he’d told her that she was worth more than that, that it was good of her to come to him, and that she should be very careful about staying with him. But he didn’t understand; how could he? And she couldn’t explain it all to him.
Being away from Blackwell left her feeling empty and lost. She'd been part of the system for so long, with goals to reach and jobs to finish, and not having anything to do got to her. She didn't have the need for money, Blackwell had taken good care of her over the years, and because of that she didn't go out to find another job. She wanted to orientate herself. She didn't know who she was anymore and some days she felt like Ethan, as much as he'd hurt her, was the only sanity she had left. Other days, when she just couldn’t look at Ethan without picturing his hands all over someone else, she called on Martin instead.
The first few days she lived in absolute fear. She had nightmares of the Hounds breaking down her door in the middle of the night. She kept looking over her shoulder, straining to see someone from the office in every person that passed her, and twice she thought she saw Frank in the back of a coffee shop or restaurant, just staring at her. She went for long walks, wandering around town, trying to think, trying not to think. She couldn't get herself to do anything at all. She didn't have any particular hobbies or pursuits and so she ended up wasting time doing absolutely nothing at all.
A couple of weeks of the same repeating the same process and Natasha was losing her mind. She’d been waiting for Cara to call, silently hoping they would ask her to come back, or just check in and see if she was doing alright, but she heard nothing. They didn’t even follow up on her relationship with Ethan, and she found it strange that she wasn’t a potential threat to them now with everything she knew. But they left her alone, and she found it worse than her initial fear of the Hounds being on her trail. She dialled Ethan’s number. She didn’t want to be alone. She thought about his hands, how he would probably run then over her body and push up against her because he didn’t know how else to comfort her. The picture of him crying on his couch the day he told her about the other woman popped into her mind. She shook her head and phoned Martin instead, asking him to come over after work. He was there within an hour.
They sat on the couch. Natasha had her face buried in her hands.
“I can’t keep doing this,” she mumbled through her fingers. “I’m going crazy.”
“Why don’t you find a job? Just to keep your mind occupied at least?”
She just shrugged. She couldn’t admit to Martin that she was scared. She didn’t know how to do anything else than what she did for Blackwell. Her whole life had been about putting on faces, and cheating reality, and she didn’t know how to explain that when it came down to it, she didn’t know how to deal with reality itself. Martin would think her to be pathetic. She thought herself to be pathetic.
Tears welled up in her eyes, and when it started running down her cheeks he put his arm around her and pulled her closer to him, holding her tight. She was relieved to have someone there that she could talk to. She pushed her face into his neck, trying to control her emotions and fight back the tears. He was rubbing her shoulder with his free hand, sliding up to her neck. He pulled away from her a bit, tipping her face up slightly, and then he kissed her. She kissed him back, but only for a moment before she pulled away.
She pushed him away from her and stood up.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t be inviting you over. I have a boyfriend! Oh my god I’m just as bad as he is!” She started crying again.
“You’re not. I’m sorry for kissing you, I shouldn’t hav
e, but you are not like him.”
Her phone rang and when she looked at the screen she went pale.
“It’s Ethan,” she whispered.
“So answer it.” Martin was calm She didn’t know how he could be so calm.
“I can’t answer it now!”
“Why not?”
“Because I just kissed you!”
“He doesn’t know that, and it’s not going to happen again. It’s not like we’re sleeping together. Answer the damn phone.”
Natasha hesitated. The phone stopped ringing. She’d taken too long. She breathed out, relieved that she didn’t have to deal with it. Then her doorbell rang and she froze.
“Tash!”
It was Ethan. He was shouting her name. She froze, feeling the blood drain from her face.
Martin frowned but when she looked at him questioningly, hoping he would do something, he just shrugged.
“TASH!” Ethan shouted again. There was nothing to be done. She walked over the front door and opened it.
He stumbled through the front door and clumsily tried to kiss her. She smelled of alcohol.
"You're drunk!" she exclaimed.
“I know. I’m not. I just had to talk to you. I couldn’t do it alone.”
“What are you talking about?” She was aware of Martin in the background but it didn’t look like Ethan noticed him. She looked back at Ethan who was squeezing his eyes shut and trying to keep his balance.
“What’s going on Ethan?”
“I might have slept with someone.”
Before Natasha could digest what he just said, Martin shot past her and swung at him, hitting him square in the jaw. Ethan crashed to the floor.
“What are you doing!?” Natasha shouted at Martin and jumped to Ethan’s side. For a few seconds he didn’t move, but then he let out a hoarse moan and held his head with his hands.
“He cheated on you!” Martin bellowed. His face was harder than Natasha had ever seen it and he his eyes were dangerous. “I told you to leave him, look at him, he’s lower than dirt and here you are crying over a silly kiss like it’s the end of the world!”
Tash shot Martin a dirty look.
Ethan sat up and shook his head, grabbing wildly around him. She helped him up.
“I think you need to leave,” she said to Martin, holding Ethan’s face and trying to look into his eyes to see if he was alright.
“Excuse me!?”
“You heard me. Please leave.”
“But I—“
Before he could finish his sentence, Ethan launched at him, tackling him to the ground. He sat on his chest slurring swear words at him and hitting him in the face. Natasha screamed. Ethan was blind with rage. The alcohol in his system interfered with his aim though, and Martin managed to get a blow in that threw him off balance. He got up stepped back, wiping the blood that was running from his nose with the back of his hand. His eye was already starting to swell shut and he had a split lip. Ethan lay on the floor, holding his head again. Tears started streaming from his eyes. Natasha just stood there, unable to speak or think.
Martin leaned against the wall, trying to gauge what damage had been done. Ethan struggled to his feet but didn’t make another attack.
“I think you have to leave now. Both of you.”
Martin turned to her. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said and walked out the door.
Natasha turned to Ethan.
“I can’t believe you did that.”
“You cheated on me,” he said, still holding on to his head like it was going to fall off.
“Get out of my house.”
“I’m your boyfriend!”
“No, you’re not.”
The next morning Natasha woke up feeling dead inside. She rolled over and stared at the ceiling, trying to make sense of how she felt. And then suddenly the day before crashed down on her like an avalanche. She relived everything, playing it over in her head again and again until she felt dizzy. Ethan was a nightmare, Martin was a hero. Martin was a nightmare, Ethan was a nightmare. Ethan was a nightmare… And then she remembered she’d broken up with him – kicked him out of her house like a dog. He was gone now.
Somewhere through the darkness in her mind the shrill ring of her phone found its way through. It kept ringing. She left it, but as soon as is stopped ringing it started again. After the third time she answered.
“Morning sunshine.”
It was Martin. His voice was deep and warm on the other side of the line. She thought back to the kiss on the couch. Ethan was a nightmare, Martin was a hero. And through all the pain and anger, she smiled.
“Hey you.”
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