by J. J. Sorel
She sniffed. “Oh Bonnie, why are you so cynical? Life’s great.” She held my focus with that big punch-the-air smile.
Noticing my sad expression, she touched my hand. “I’m sorry, Bon. I should be more sensitive. Have you seen him?”
I sighed. “Uh-huh.”
Bella waited for the waiter to place my coffee down.
“So how is the asshole?”
I exhaled a sharp breath. “The asshole is not Brendan.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I walked into his room, I discovered a guy there by his bedside stroking his arm,” I said. My unaffected tone hid the shock that I’d initially experienced.
It wasn’t so much the shock of discovering my husband was gay, but that finally I understood why our marriage had been so heart-breakingly loveless.
Bella had just taken a sip when an exclamation issued out of her lips and coffee spilled onto her red-stained lips. “What?”
“Just that.” I sighed. “He’s gay.”
“Gay? But how do you know? That could have been a close friend.”
“When Brendan returned home from the hospital, I left him alone while I went out.”
Her head shook. “I can’t believe you even let him back into the apartment.”
“It’s his apartment. He paid for it,” I said, picking up my cup of coffee. “Anyway, to cut a long story short, I caught Brendan on the sofa, his arm around the same guy who’d visited him at hospital.”
“Shit. What did Brendan do?”
“He introduced me to Rick, and then told me that they’d been together for a year. It was like he’d admitted to buying the wrong loaf of bread. That’s how cool he was about it.”
“That’s about right. Brendan was always selfish and uncaring,” said Bella.
I knitted my fingers. “Unlike before, with that deep, aggressive tone he always used on me, his voice was soft and gentle. He actually apologized for everything.”
“That doesn’t wipe the slate clean, though. He fucking attacked you. All those months of abuse. The bruises. The control. He’s an asshole. You shouldn’t have let him in.”
“He had nowhere to go,” I said.
“What about his parents? Why isn’t he there? Or, more specifically, why the fuck isn’t he locked up for trying to strangle you?”
For twins, we were counter opposite. While Bella was outspoken and boisterous, I hid in the background. Growing up, I was the awkward one. The kid that got bullied, the kid that wore her jumper inside out, the kid that spent more time with an imaginary friend than a real one.
Instead of owning my individuality, I married Brendan so that I could be ‘normal’. Something I craved, given that my family life was anything but.
I shook my head. “It’s complicated, Bel. It’s been odd in general. We haven’t really spoken much, except that Brendan keeps apologizing for attacking me, even though he insists he had no recollection of what happened.”
“Yeah, right. Good excuse, strangle the wife, then plead memory loss.”
Suddenly the older couple at the next table stopped eating and looked up at us.
I leaned in. “Keep it down.”
“But, shit, Bon, I mean. . .” She paused to reflect. “Oh, my God. That explains everything.”
Studying the swirls in my coffee, I nodded slowly.
“That’s why he hasn’t fucked you. Properly, I mean.”
“Keep it down, will you. You’re embarrassing me.”
Bella shook her head in disbelief. “And to think, you hit him over the head with Oscar Wilde’s brick of a book in order to save yourself.” Her shocked expression soon melted away into a smile which grew as she erupted into laughter.
She cackled in that uninhibited, contagious way, taking me with her. We couldn’t stop. The more her face contorted with little screechy comments trying to poke through, the more I laughed. Convulsing, I had to hold onto my tummy, while my twin wiped away her tears.
Despite the dramatic turn of events, I needed a good release— the type that only a good laugh or cry delivered, and hell, I’d done lots of the latter.
“That’s so fucking surreal,” she said in a high-pitched voice.
“Isn’t it?” I said.
“All that fucking bullshit about not wanting to have sex before marriage and then when you married... Ick.” She scrunched her face.
“The ass is one place I won’t let anyone into. I’ve had a few clients try.”
“Too much information.” I shifted uncomfortably thinking of the horrible way my marriage was consummated, which meant that I was still a virgin at the age of twenty-two.
“Are you going to move out? You can’t keep living with him. I’ll get you a nice little apartment, Bon.” She tapped my hand and nodded her head reassuringly. “You should still take what’s yours though, and that’s half of everything. I’ll pay for the lawyer.”
“No need.” I replayed the nail-biting moment Brendan sat down after I picked him up from the hospital. And with his dark eyes glistening with sincere regret— an emotion I’d never seen in the former, hard-faced version— Brendan offered to move out that same day.
“We spoke about that. He’s arranging the divorce papers as we speak. I’m getting the apartment. He insisted.”
“Shit. That doesn’t sound like the tight-assed, control-freak.”
“I know. I’m telling you, he’s changed. From the moment he opened his eyes in hospital he spoke with a gentle, considerate voice. He’s been really nice to me and keeps apologizing all the time. The police just wanted me as a formality since Brendan’s not pressing charges.”
Bella sat up. “They saw those bruises around your neck, where he tried to strangle you, I hope? Did you tell them it was self-defense?”
“Yes, I made a full statement. They know everything. It’s over. I don’t want to dredge up the past and Brendan’s drunken violence. Thanks for the offer of the apartment. But I like the idea of staying. It’s close to the bar.”
“But what about bad memories?”
I shrugged and a faint smile filled my face.
Bella stared at me for a moment. Her lips curled into a cheeky smile. “The only thing that saddens me about the breakup, you’ll no longer be Bonita Wild-Childe.”
I laughed. “Oh, Bel, that was never going to happen. That was your idea.”
“You can’t blame me. Fancy a Wild marrying a Childe. Anyway, I’m just over the moon that you’re leaving that prick. Even if he has turned into a generous fag.”
“Don’t be rude. They’re not fags, they’re gays, or homosexuals.”
“Yeah, all right. Anyway, I hate him, even if he’s now joined the ranks of a protected minority.” Her voice rang with irony. “And he’s fucked you around. He should have owned his homosexuality, and not wasted your time.”
“I’m not surprised. His parents are seriously religious in that ‘thou shalt have sex with a woman, and only a woman, once you’re married’ way. And hell, can you imagine if they ever discovered he was gay?”
Bella exploded into a giggle. “Then we’ll have to tell them, somehow. I know, I’ll have him followed and when he’s at a toilet block or under a bridge having his cock sucked, I’ll get a snap and send it to them.”
I winced at Bella’s coarseness. “You better not.”
“Why are you defending that asshole? I mean you’re still a virgin. Not to mention the violence.”
Again, the couple next to us stopped talking and gaped over at us.
“Bella, keep it down will you,” I whispered. “And in any case, I’m still young. And when it comes down to it, you’ve had enough sex for the two us. No, actually,”— I gulped— “not the two of us, but the whole of Brooklyn.”
Bella laughed. “Tell me, are you still going to that counseling group?”
I shook my head. “I feel better, really.” I slowly stood up. “Anyway, I’ve got to go.”
“Call me,” said Bella.
“I
will.”
Bella got up and hugged me. She kissed me on the cheek. “I love you, sis.”
My lips trembled into a smile.
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