“Yeah, I fucked up,” I say to Bianca. I don’t add the rest of it, that I should never have told King, that I should have just sucked it up and lain there and let him fuck me. Not that he would have let that pass. He’s the kind of guy who would notice if something was wrong, if I wasn’t into it, and he’d stop and ask why, and then we’d end up right back where we are. If I’d never told, never let him take part of that weight off me, I’d never have realized it was crushing me. I’d have gone on forever without thinking about any of it too closely.
But then what?
“What’d you do?” Bianca asks. She looks different, though, not as eager and more… Guarded. And this is why I can’t trust her with anything. I never know when she’s a friend and when she’s going to use something against me.
“I said something stupid and hurt his pride,” I say. “We’re just so different. We don’t really get along.”
“You might have more in common than you know,” Bianca says, plopping down on the couch.
That makes me snort. “Like what?”
“For starters, you both have a dead sibling,” she says. Some people might call a comment like that insensitive, but when you’ve grown up the way we have, it’s just the way things are. There’s no point tiptoeing around the truth. We’ve all lost people we cared about, and plenty of us have lost family. Which means it’s hardly something to bond with my new husband over.
Still, jealousy lifts its ugly head when I think about him telling her something painful from his past. When did they talk about this? And why didn’t he talk to me about it?
“Did he tell you that?” I ask.
Bianca shrugs. “You’d be surprised what you can learn by reading the news.”
I don’t want to be interested, but I’m way past that. I want to know everything about my infuriatingly proud, stubborn husband. I just wish he’d tell me. Not that I’ve made it super easy for him to talk to me. I spent our whole honeymoon avoiding him like the messed up coward I am.
“How’d she die?” I ask Bianca, because it’s easier than asking him.
“I guess she drowned in a flood,” Bianca says, popping open her compact and examining her lipstick. “They never found her body.”
“When was that?”
“Like, this year,” she says. “I don’t remember when. I can’t believe he hasn’t told you.”
She snaps her mirror closed, looking smug, as if he’s the one who told her and she wasn’t internet stalkingmyhusband. I want to smack the sloppy lip gloss right off her face, but I’m too preoccupied with thoughts of King. I remember how I felt after my brother died. How numb I was, like I was in shock for months. Which means King is still probably in the grieving period, and instead of being there for him, I’ve been a total brat. And not just a brat, but so hateful that he actually thinks I’m capable of arranging a hit on him.
“Listen, I think I’d better skip lunch,” I say. “I need to get this shit picked up before King comes back, and I need to interview for a maid…”
“Can’t she pick this up?” Bianca asks, making a face and gesturing around.
“I don’t think I want her first impression to be a bunch of broken dishes.”
She sighs. “Seriously? I came all the way to the Bronx to see you.”
“Sorry,” I say, though I’m not. I was getting tired of the parties and gossip anyway, but now it’s lost all appeal. I’m too worried about my husband leaving me to think about the most exclusive new lunch spot we need to hit to stay relevant. I don’t give two shits about being relevant. I want my husband back. The realization shakes me a bit. Am I turning into one of those pathetic women we hate? The ones who serve their husbands like slaves?
The truth is, I don’t even care. I love King. I’d rather spend an evening doing nothing with him than an evening clubbing with anyone else. Hell, I’d rather stay home stitching up his wounds than doing anything else, no matter who it was with. Instead of showing him that, I let him walk out the door thinking he was somehow undeserving of my love. He’s more than deserving of my love, respect, and my time.
“We’ll do it another day, okay?” I say.
“Fine,” Bianca says with a huff. “I need to pick up something for my dad, anyway. But if you turn into one of those boring old housewives who never goes out, I’m telling everyone you’re hiding because you got fat and have stretchmarks all over your ass.”
Best frenemies to the end.
When she’s gone, I clean up, call Sylvia to get some recommendations for discrete maids. Then I just sit there for a few minutes, working on not going to pieces. I want to go in the bedroom to get my bags, but I can’t stop seeing King taking off his ring, laying it so carefully on the dresser, and walking out.
Finally, I give in to the tears. There’s no one to hold me this time. No one but me, and the little monster inside me who says we knew this was coming, I can’t count on anyone to stay. It’s just us, just me and the demons inside.
At last, I get up and wash my face, grab my bags, and walk out. I don’t look over at the dresser the whole time. Maybe King was right. Maybe this is for the best. Not for me—I’m well beyond the point of no return in my feelings for King. But for him it’s best. He deserves more than a broken wife who wastes his youth, his prime, his beauty. His heart.
I call the driver and take the elevator to the lobby. There are no more tears inside me. I’m empty. I think about King coming home, walking into the empty apartment. Will he think for a fraction of a second, before it sinks in, that I’m just out with my friends like usual? I’ve been purposely selfish. I don’t blame him for wanting me gone. But I know how it feels to open a drawer that used to be filled with the clothes of someone who said they loved you, only to find it empty. To stare into it, even knowing they’re gone, and not quite believe it.
I’ve never said I loved King, but maybe I do. He’s made it clear he can’t love me, that he won’t, but that doesn’t mean I can’t. I don’t know how I’d even go about finding out. What do I know about love?