By: Alyson Pelayo
Her cell screen lit up and did a little jive across the table. As she reached for it the name on the caller I.D. stopped her. He was calling again, and she could feel her resolve slipping. Her arm hung in the air considering the buzzing object as the pendulum on her grandmother’s grandfather clock swung, tock.
***
She refused to cry when she last saw him. She had sat on the hotel bed trying to blend into the beige bed sheets that could have easily been a UPS uniform in a past life.
I don’t want to hurt you, he said.
I feel sick, she said.
Babe, come on.
She knew that tears were threatening to spill over and bring attention to her agony. She squeezed her eyelids shut to trap them.
He is doing it too, she said.
Yeah and so am I, but that is not the point.
Then what is the fucking point? Huh Adrian? I thought it was love….
I just can’t do this anymore. We have been doing this back and forth bullshit for nearly a decade! It’s time to just move on, he said.
He turned to leave but stopped. His hand circled her wrist to pull her to him. He kissed her with determination. As the kiss deepened and her insides began to bubble with lava she let herself hope he hadn’t meant what he said. The sin felt like heaven and even though they were in the wrong bed they couldn’t promise it would be the last time. At least she couldn’t.
When she woke up he was already gone. She let her tears out as she left the room that held all of their secrets. They had been together again for several months and it was more than just lust. They were in love. The only problem was they each had gained someone else before life’s tide had washed them back together. History was holding them back. Keeping them restrained with links of obligation.
Now he was gone again. She had called, of course, but he never answered. As she grasped the phone she would beg for him to answer. At first, she called several times a day. Then only once a day. The day she didn’t call she thought she would die.
***
Matt grew more distant, more like her every day. She stayed out of some deep-rooted obligation to their marriage even though it was so far past broken. Going down with the ship. Enjoying the way she burned when he was around. This was her penance. They had been together for almost four years, three of them married, but only one had anything resembling love. More than anything they had guilt.
His stories were even growing in flare as he spun them like a spider’s web without ever catching a fly. She waited for him to slip up and miss a loop.
Are you coming home after work? She asked even though she knew the answer.
No. I have a meeting in the city, so I probably won’t be home tonight he said.
Oh, was all she could say.
You will be home? He dangled the line.
Of course, she said. The song and dance.
He smiled at her. She tried not to cringe. When he kissed her goodbye, she couldn’t remember why she was still here.
He must have forgotten that today was their 3-year anniversary. 1,095 days that she had been with a man that didn’t deserve what he had. He didn’t come back until the following evening. Drunk. She kept her head down and didn’t speak much. She didn’t disagree with him when he spoke to her and she cooked dinner even though she hated to. She didn’t do anything wrong, but he was in a mood. Like a sudden storm materializing. He ripped into her for things she couldn’t even understand.
He blamed her as the cause of this tempest..
Blood dripped from her lip. She tried to stand up and her foot caught on a shard of porcelain from the lamp that went down with her. The stabbing pain made her cry out and fall to her knees. The blood from her eyebrow was mixing with her tears to make the room turn pink and she couldn’t see where she was going.
As she crawled across the cold tile floor, she remembered how much she hated the floors here.. She clutched her stomach as another pain stabbed into her. A new determination bloomed from under her cut up hands.This was the last time she would allow anyone to throw her down. She was tired of the pain and she was tired of making herself meek in order to make him feel like a man.
She locked herself in the bedroom they shared. His anger clawing through her veins. Finally, she had collected enough pain to fill her determination to leave. She called the only person that she thought would help her, Adrian. She was desperate, like a girl waiting for her period. But he didn’t answer. And her period didn’t come.
She stayed quiet all through Matt’s apology the next day. Nodding when he asked her for the 50th time if she was okay. Smiling when he told her how much he loved and needed her. Giving nothing back to him but taking nothing away. Surviving.Promising herself that as soon as he was gone she would start to make her escape. She would pack what she could take in a single move and forget the rest. She didn’t have to wait long. Before his apology had dried out he was already making his excuses to leave.
She wore sunglasses and a turtleneck to go out even though it was the middle of August. The sweat left a trail on her thick shirt between her bruised breasts as she walked from one apartment building to the next. She was determined to make it out before the next storm. It took her a week of searching to find a place that she could afford – a place where she felt safe and could start fresh. She signed the lease and before Matt came home from his latest sleepover she was gone.
Matt was angry that she had left, or perhaps it was her scathingly honest email to the woman he had been sleeping with when he should have been sleeping with her. Either way, his venom filled voicemails assured her that if he saw her again she wouldn’t be able to make the same escape.
She thought about calling Adrian again but couldn’t stand the idea of being rejected by him. Not again. She was trying to come to terms with the fact that he couldn’t be her knight on a white horse if he was still with another woman, and he wasn’t going to leave her, the way she always left for him. She had hoped for too long that they would each leave their unhappy relationships and be together. But she was starting to think maybe he didn’t love her. Maybe he never had. Maybe he only loved the thrill of being a secret.
***
Her apartment reflected her minimalist personality. Other than the clock that she inherited when her grandmother passed away years ago, she had very few possessions. The apartment was small enough that it didn’t matter though. The walls were a calming lavender that reminded her of the fields behind her childhood home. And there was a bay window with a bench seat in the second bedroom that she imagined overflowing with pillows and blankets. The perfect spot to cuddle up with a book. The kitchen was warm and snug so that the smells from the oven rolled around the walls and landed around the small table that only had room for two. She knew that one day this little apartment would hold her favorite memories. She picked this apartment with hope for the future. Hope for her child to be happy and fearless. Her love is already fiercely protective.
A single resounding dong from the grandfather clock echoed off the walls. She was getting used to being alone and the purple pools of blood under her skin that were staining her face and arms were finally receding into sea green as if it was being washed away day by day. Her arm was still stretched out, being pulled by some form of gravity, toward her phone as it continued to dance.
After what seemed like a lifetime, she shook off the confusing need to be wanted and found strength in her decision to save herself. She picked up the phone choosing the pulsing red option. It seemed as though Matt would never stop calling, and Adrian never would, which had always been the problem.
Tomorrow she would get a new number on her way to file for divorce.
