“Oh, um, hi…”Iz told me how she stammered. She told me how stupid she felt standing in the yard trying to think of a plausible excuse to escape before she broke up a family.
But no…
“Isabelle?”Ben walked up the path behind her and sent her jumping into the air with fright.
“Ben.”
“Come into my office, please.”He was curt, inaccessible. He took her elbow tightly and walked toward the other woman.“Baby, this is Isabelle. She’s a student in one of my classes. She’s here to discuss her term paper. Isabelle, this is my wife, Lindsi. Isabelle, come.”He dragged her along the path without another word. The way Iz told her story, it’s like I could feel his spidery fingers clutching at her arm. Anger roared in my blood. Venom ticked in my heart.
He was touching what was mine. Again.
He led her to his office, and as soon as the door was shut, my fighter best friend came out.“You have a wife?”
Instead of answering, he simply looked her up and down as though he was bored.“What are you doing here?”
“You have a wife and family!”
“Yes. Of course I do.”He looked at her like she was an annoying five-year-old.
“But… We…”She spun as he strolled his office.“We were dating!”
“No, we weren’t.”He stopped by a small table and poured three fingers of whiskey into an expensive glass. “We’re going to stand in here for five minutes. We’re going to pretend we’re actually discussing your paper – which, by the way, was poor. C minus, Isabelle. Pathetic, really. When I open this door, you’ll leave, and you’ll never come back to my home again.”
“I’m pregnant.”Her words were like annoying gnats fluttering about her head. She desperately wished she could take them back. She desperately wished she could rewind a day and not go there.
“That’s none of my business.”He sipped his liquor.“Deal with it. Never bring your drama to my home again.”
“My drama? This is your baby! How is it drama?”
He shrugged oh-so-fucking casually.“How am I supposed to believe whose baby that is? I don’t particularly care. Get an abortion, but if you’re here for the clinic fees, you’re mistaken. I will not give you a cent.”
“No! I’m not getting a damn abortion.”
“Then why?”He sighed dramatically. “Why are you here, Isabelle?”
“Stop calling me Isabelle like I’m a child to be scolded, asshole! I’m here because my family told me it was the right thing to do. That I couldn’t keep this information from you. But they were wrong. It’s rare when that happens, but this time, they were wrong.”
“Okay, well.”With a twinkle in his eyes, he finished the last of his whiskey and plopped the glass on the solid wooden table.“We’ve cleared that up. Excellent. Go away.”When her anger sparked and she took a step forward to beat his ass, he simply flicked his wrist in dismissal.“Abort. Don’t abort. Adopt. Honestly, I just don’t care, but don’t come back here and don’t contact me again. I’ll call a cab for you. Have a nice life.”
She finished her story and leaned into me and wept. For the first time in what felt like forever, I held her while she wept.
I was ready to kick his ass. I was ready to do worse.
And I did. About six hours later while she slept. I never copped any flak from that by the police. When Iz asked, I blamed my split knuckles on training. She was never any the wiser. And I finally got to release some of the tension that had sat in my belly for weeks.
Months, even.
But now, something like five months later, he’s starting to lurk again; that shit doesn’t sit well with me. So, setting the alarm on my phone, and laying back to get comfortable, I close my eyes and prepare for a long ass night of not sleeping.
* * *
The next morning after my alarm bleeped obnoxiously in my ears, I stretched my aching neck, left Iz’s place and drove back to mine, ran inside for a piss and to brush my teeth, then I headed out for my run.
It’s been no more than fifteen minutes since I was in front of her house, and yet, like an addict hanging out for his next hit, anxiety settles low in my belly until I run my security lap past her house.
I usually pass Bobby’s old place on the way home from my run, but today and probably every day for the rest of our lives, I reverse the trip and head there first.
I enter her street at a sprint, slow my steps, and move barely faster than a jog as I pass her house. Calm envelops me and my bunched muscles relax. She brings me calm – even when we’re mad at each other. Even when she doesn’t belong to me. Proximity brings me calm.