I Don't Want to Lose You

  He quickly put the binder down and looked like a deer in headlights. “What are you doing home?”

  “I asked a question first. Why are you reading my poems? Those were my private thoughts and feelings and if I wanted them shared with other people, I would have done so.”

  “What’s the problem? They’re good,” he said.

  Ralph nodded, “They really are.”

  “Thanks, but that’s not the point. This is an invasion of privacy,” I said.

  “I heard your stuff in high school. What’s the big deal about this?” Theo asked.

  “I let you hear what I wanted heard,” I answered. “I didn’t want this to be heard.”

  “I’m sorry. We’ll stop,” he said as he closed my binder.

  My mind raced back to my bedroom and where I kept the things I didn’t want anyone to see. It was never an issue because it was my room and I never had to share it for more than a night with anyone. Then it occurred to me that something else may have been found.

  “Did you read my diary?” I asked him.

  Silence.

  “Did you read my diary?” I asked enunciating each syllable.

  Sensing the tension, Ralph got up and said, “I think I’m going to leave now.” He walked out through the side gate that they had come in.

  Theo got up and started to come over to me.

  “Dead man walking,” I said as I tapped the bat against the ground.

  He stood in front of me. “Nothing I can say or do is going to save me, is it?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, then let me say my last words.” He took an exaggerated deep breath then spoke dramatically. “I love my wife. She’s the love of my life. I’m glad that I had the time that I had to be with her and hope that one day she will forgive me for the sins I have committed against her. It was all done to help me get to know how her better and how she thinks and it made me appreciate her more. Tell my parents that I love them and my little brother that I hope he can grow up and find a woman as wonderful as my wife, even if she’s about to kill me. Being in her omniscient presence has been my privilege.” He put his arms up to cover his face and crouched. “Don’t hurt me too bad.”

  I stopped tapping the bat. “This isn’t funny. That was personal stuff.”

  “Then what was the point of writing it down? When something is written down, it’s normally done with the intent of being read someday at some time by someone. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

  My temper was slowly going down. He did have a logical point and he was a guy without any sisters, so he wasn’t aware of how much of a no-no that was.

  “For your information, I have read some of it to people.” I didn’t bother to mention that it was to my younger cousins when I would babysit them. They used to think that anything that rhymed was a work of literary genius. “You had to really look around to find this stuff. I didn’t know I needed to hide it better from you.”

  “I don’t see why you had to hide it from me in the first place.”

  I dropped the bat to the ground. While I had a leg to stand on, there was no point. There was only one thing that concerned me. “Did you read my diary to anyone?”

  “No, I wouldn’t do that. I just read the poems with Ralph. I didn’t know you had such a dark side. You’re such an anomaly. You love to sing happy songs and love songs, but then you write poetry that’s a bit sinister.”

  “Sinister?” I couldn’t hide the offense that had been taken.

  He nodded. “Don’t believe me? Read your stuff.”

  I chuckled. “I’ve already read it.”

  “Then you should know exactly what I mean. I have to admit I liked the diary more and seeing people from your perspective, including the stuff about me. Even though you’re mad at me for reading it, I’m glad that I did. I learned more about what makes you tick in one book than I could have ever known without it before I die. I was surprised I was in there as much as I was. Sometimes I had doubted if I was as important to you as you always had been to me.” His loving smile turned into a disgusted frown. “I was disturbed to read of how bad things were with Nathaniel. I can see why you would break up with him, but I didn’t get why you would go back.”

  “Me neither,” I agreed.

  He lifted my chin up to prepare to kiss me. “You don’t have to worry about being treated like that with me.”

  As he leaned in, I jumped back and ran to the grass. I still wasn’t feeling well.

  When I was done, he grabbed the water hose to try to clean it up or at least make it not look like a pile of vomit. I took some of the water from the hose and rinsed my mouth out. We went into the house and I laid on the bed and enjoyed a sympathetic, well deserved foot rub.

  Once we were ready for bed that evening, we snuggled up next to each other with my head on his shoulder and his arm around me. Using our free hands, we played with each other’s fingers. We listened to the CDs in my stereo and I was able to use my remote to skip over the songs that didn’t suit the mood. I quietly sang along with some of them as I received the occasional peck on the forehead. Everything was fine until “Always” by Pebbles came on. In the middle of the second chorus, I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I couldn’t get another sound to come out. It was as if my throat had closed up. There I was singing a song to him pleading for him to not leave or desert me, but the truth was that he didn’t have a choice. With or without him, I knew I would always love him.

  My sudden silence made him ask if I was okay to which I falsely replied that I was fine. We continued to listen to the rest of the song while I silently wept as my tear stains dampened his shirt. When the song was over he kissed my hand and said, “Lo siento,” apologizing. He didn’t have to say anything else for me to know why.

  I shook my head and said, “Don’t be. I’m not.” I wiped my face and eventually fell asleep in my husband’s arms.

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  Early one evening we were out taking a walk to my parents’ home to get some exercise. It had been a warm, sunny day and we were being blessed with a slight breeze. My family wasn’t at home and I didn’t know where they went. It was too soon to walk back because he needed a respite so we decided to sit outside. We went to the furthest part of the backyard where there was a hammock and we both laid on it. As soon as I was comfortable, I closed my eyes and tried to let each gentle breeze of the wind wipe away the concerns in my mind one at a time. After I took a deep sigh, I felt his hand grab mine and kiss it. I turned to look at him to see a serious expression on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

  He tilted his head. “Are you happy?”

  I frowned. “Happy about what?”

  “What do you mean ‘about what’?”

  “You asked a generic question and I don’t want to give a generic answer,” I replied. “Am I happy it’s not raining right now? Yes. Am I happy to be off of my feet? Yes. Am I happy that there are kids starving in Africa? No. Am I happy that Puppy ate the last of my pie? No.”

  He thought for a second. “That was two weeks ago.”

  “I know, but I still wanted that last slice and I’m not too pleased that he ate it.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Fine. Are you happy about your decision to be with me?”

  I furrowed my eyebrows. “Have I said or done anything to make you think that I’m not?”

  He shook his head and there went that apple. “This is never what I wanted for you or wanted to give you. You deserve a hundred times more than what you’re getting and I’m not in a position to even give you one time more than this. You left this,” he pointed to my parents’ home, “and school to come live with me in my bedroom at my parents’ house. You work, I don’t. I can’t do much of anything to keep a job to take care of you and now there’s a baby coming.” He took a deep breath. “This was not how I wanted things for us.”

  “So you’re calling me stupid?” I asked.

  “What? I didn’t say that.”
>
  “Yes, you did.”

  “No, I didn’t. Babe, that word didn’t even come out of my mouth.”

  “But you just insinuated that I’m stupid because I must not have thought about what I was leaving behind versus what I was going to. I’m not stupid.”

  “I know, babe, and that’s not what I was trying to imply.” He rubbed my stomach.

  “Didn’t you think about this before you told me you wanted me to marry you right now?” I asked.

  He joined his fingers with mine. “Honestly, I didn’t plan on asking you to marry me. That night I had just planned on hanging out with you and trying to convince you to leave Nathaniel to be with me. I mean really be with me, not like how it was in high school. But I was pouring out my heart and just couldn’t seem to stop and it came out.”

  My countenance fell. With all that I sacrificed to be with him and the sacrifices yet to be made, it felt like suddenly someone was unnecessarily using an ice pick to chip away pieces of my heart.

  I could barely breathe when I asked, “So you didn’t want to marry me?” I bit my lower lip.

  He quickly responded, “I didn’t say that. I said that I didn’t plan on asking you that night. I have nothing to offer but took a chance anyway. You have no idea how I was in shock that you said yes. I wanted to at least be out of my parents’ house and making money before I asked you to marry me so that I could take care of you, not the other way around. It would have been great to have given you an engagement ring.”

  I was able to breathe again. “Theo, I knew what I was getting into when I said yes. I knew what your limitations were most likely going to be and I was okay with that. You made a compelling argument when you asked me and you were right when you said we would both lose if we didn’t do it. The truth is that Nathaniel was somewhat of a stand in for your spot. Knowing the actuality of things, I didn’t want to lose what I didn’t know I had always wanted and should have never denied myself of having. Does that make sense because I’m confusing myself?”

  He chuckled. “It makes sense. Do you want to know about the first time that I realized that I liked you?”

  I turned to face him and said, “Please, do tell,” sounding like a teenage girl about to hear some juicy gossip. Truthfully, I was still a teenage girl.

  His eyes squinted as though he was trying to remember way back in time when we had only known each other for seven years, which wasn’t that far back. “We were in Mrs. Winston’s class in junior high school for American History.”

  It was then my turn to squint my eyes to try to remember way back then because I didn’t recall him being in the same class. “You were in there? I knew we were in Algebra together but I don’t remember you being in there?”

  “I was there,” he said taking no offense. “You sat in the front and I sat in the back because I hated history. I remember you were a defense lawyer for the mock trial that the class was doing. You were so good. I was on the jury and just knew your client was guilty. But you were on top of everything with your line of questioning of the prosecution’s witnesses. And each one of the prosecution’s objections kept getting overruled. I remember everyone was shocked with the stuff you brought out that no one had thought about. You didn’t even have to put your client on the stand and was able to win the case by the way you handled everything. After listening to your closing argument and seeing how everyone got riled up over your supreme awesomeness,” he paused as I giggled, “you were on my radar.”

  I looked confused. “That did it for you? Winning a mock trial?”

  “Did you think I was kidding when I said I wanted a powerful woman that could command a crowd? If you were able to get him off when he was obviously guilty, what else could you do?”

  “Especially for a politician,” I added.

  “Especially,” he said with a big grin. “That’s why I didn’t care that you insisted on calling me Theo when we got grouped together in Algebra.”

  “You wouldn’t have won that battle anyway. You were smart to put up the white flag.”

  “I’m not a complete idiot. Notice, I don’t argue with you now either.”

  That had answered the question for me as to why I had become the exception to calling him Teodoro. “So when did you know you wanted to marry me?” I asked.

  “That’s easy. When we were in geometry class in tenth grade and you made your case about trying out for the football team. You made some pretty valid points. I would have asked you then if I could have.”

  I laughed. “So everything that attracted you to me had to do with me running my mouth and arguing?”

  He nodded. “Pretty much. So when did you figure out that you liked me?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “There was no particular event that made me go, ‘I like him and got to have him.’ I think it was more of a gradual thing because, at first, I couldn’t stand you. I found you to be annoying.”

  “What did I do?” he asked defensively.

  “You were Rasheed’s mouthpiece and I didn’t like that, especially since he went through girls like Kleenex.”

  “Rasheed? I hadn’t hung out with him since elementary school. What did I-” he trailed off as his memory came back to him. “You hated me for asking you for your number for him?”

  “Sure did. If he wanted it, he should have been man enough to come and ask, not that he was going to get it.”

  “Yeah, I know how you feel about other people expressing the feelings of others to you,” he said.

  “What do mean?”

  “I’m talking about the day that you broke my heart,” he answered.

  I frowned. “When did I do that?”

  “You did it twice. The first time was when I was walking you home telling you that Puppy liked you. It was like you knew that I liked you, but I was speaking for him and you were not happy about me telling you that he wanted to ask you to be his girlfriend. You wouldn’t even let me finish walking you home.”

  I remembered and I wasn’t. “So why didn’t you speak up for yourself then?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t think I had a chance. When you said that you would be his girlfriend, I thought maybe in the future I would if you were willing to go for him. But at that time, he had the nerve to ask you, not me.”

  I touched his cheek and smiled. “I think you would have made me happy even then if you had asked.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I snoozed and I lost.”

  “So when was the second time I broke your heart?”

  “When I heard that you were with Nathaniel. I was trying to muster up the courage to let you know how I felt and then I heard that you were with him. I always hated that dude. It wasn’t that I was jealous of him other than him having you. It was that he was so-”

  “Obnoxious?” I filled in.

  “Yeah, that’s it. I couldn’t believe you opted for him over me.”

  “You hadn’t said anything at that point so there was no him over you.”

  “Very true,” he replied. “But I got you now and that’s all that matters to me.” He came closer and gave me an Eskimo kiss. “You’re not off the hook yet. Let’s get past the Rasheed thing and tell me when you started to like me.”

  “It was never any one thing with you. You always made me smile and made me feel good about myself. You were always so sweet to me and accepted the things about me that I knew people talked about behind my back. You were okay with me being me. It was nice because I didn’t have to put on a front with you.” I thought back for a minute. “You know, I think I do know when I realized that I had feelings for you. I remember getting jealous once when you were talking to some chick by my locker.”

  “I remember that, too. When you first saw me talking to her, I wasn’t sure if you were going to cut me or her. You looked ticked off.”

  “I remember thinking that I couldn’t be jealous if I didn’t have some other feeling than friendship for you. I think that’s when I realized that I liked you. Who was
she anyway?” I asked.

  “Babe, I don’t even remember her name,” he answered.

  “Well, anyway, back to us. I remember the first time you put your arm around me in eleventh grade, I think it was. I was standing at my locker getting ready to walk to class with Brenda and you came over and did it.”

  “You know, Ralph had dared me to do it. He was sick of me talking about you all the time and doing nothing about it. He thought you’d punch me. I was so scared.”

  I shook my head. “Had it been someone else, I would have given them a right hook. But it had felt like it should’ve been there. You had a lot of guts because if Nathaniel had seen you, you would have been punched. But then you didn’t do it again and I was like, ‘Oh well.’”

  “A clarification should be made here,” he stated. “I was threatened by a football player to not do it again or Nathaniel would be informed. I was told that I would be watched.”

  My jaw dropped. “For real? I thought for sure you just didn’t like me anymore.”

  “Never. I just liked staying in one piece a little bit more.”

  “Ha! The things you find out after the fact can change your whole perspective,” I said reflectively.

  “So I decided to wait until he graduated to make my move.”

  “You sure did.” I smiled. “I remember a senior assembly we had in the auditorium like within the first week of school. I had Brenda to my right and that annoying boy, Lloyd, was to my left when I sat down. By the time the assembly started, Lloyd was gone and you were there. I still don’t know how that happened.”

  “I had to ask about six people if I could trade seats with them. I had made my way behind Lloyd and promised him something if he’d move. I don’t remember what it was nor if I even did it. I doubt if I did since I didn’t like him.”

  “Of course, you’re a politician,” I inserted.

  He put his hand over his heart. “Ouch, that hurts,” he said smiling.

  “Honesty pricks. Truth hurts.”

  He continued with his story. “I wanted so badly to hold your hand, but I didn’t know how you would respond. Since I knew you were okay with my arm being around you, I thought that would be safer to do. It was like for those thirty minutes, you belonged to me.”