“Nope. I’m good. I just…” I blow out a long breath through my mouth and blink my stinging eyes. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep my voice steady and my eyes dry. “I just gotta go, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Look, Yas, about—”
“Sorry, Si. I really gotta go.”
Instead of waiting for him to speak again, I hang up. The sign for the interstate looms up ahead, and I know I’d be a mess in Atlanta traffic right now. Do I take a moment to absorb this new development? Or do I do what I’ve always done? Just keep going, ignore the pain slicing through my middle, and force myself to drive the few miles home. Dr. Abrams often talks about the danger of pushing through my emotions, but I think if I don’t push through, don’t ignore this, it could get really ugly.
And then God gives me a sign.
It’s big, red and white, and shaped like a bull’s-eye.
Instead of merging onto the interstate, I pull into the parking lot of Target, turn off the car, press my forehead to the steering wheel, and cry.
I haven’t sobbed like this in a long time. Sometimes it’s good to cry. It makes us feel better to cleanse our system. This isn’t one of those times. Every tear feels like it’s being wrung from my body. My heartbeat is thetick-tickof a bomb, counting down to the moment when the pressure proves too much and I detonate. I can’t pretend that him giving his body to someone else doesn’t hurt. It’s to be expected, right? It doesn’t mean I still love him. This feels like not the end, but the beginning of something. Not for me, but for him. The newness of someone else’s head on his pillow. Of her forgetting her toothbrush and using his, not knowing how much he would hate that. Some other woman discovering his coffee is perfect with one andabouta quarter spoons of sugar. Her fingers, not mine, finding the knots in his neck when he stresses out. Him yielding all the secrets it took me years to discover.
Yes, it hurts that Josiah is sleeping with someone else.
No, I don’t want to fully examine why it feels like a betrayal, even though there’s nothing stopping him from having someone different in his bed every night should he so choose.
I told myself leaving him would make the hurt stop, so why does this hurt so bad? The pain and the implications of it are too much to process, so I reach for an easier emotion. Anger. He’s getting his? I’m getting mine.
I take the cell phone out of my purse, pulling up the text Mark sent me last week.
Me:Hey! You still want to do dinner Thursday night?
I stare at the phone and hold my breath for a few seconds before the bubbles appear.
Mark:I’d love to. What time should I pick you up?
Me:Seven. I’ll see you then.
Chapter Fifteen
Josiah
Dammit.”
I stare at my phone and resist the urge to punch the locker. That’s not how I wanted Yasmen to find out Vashti and I took our relationship to the next level. If I’m being honest, I didn’t ever want to discuss it with her. It’s not her business what I do. I did want to avoid awkwardness like what just happened at my house. And maybe on some level, I didn’t want to hurt her. Not that Yasmen still wants me, but if the shoe were on the other foot…I wouldn’t have wanted to be blindsided like this.
I’d be fucked up.
“Why you mad?” Charles “Preach” Hollister, my friend of nearly twenty years, asks. “Your team won, but only because Kevin was sick. He’ll be back next Monday and we—”
“It’s not the game.” I zip my duffle bag and slam the locker door. “It’s…never mind.”
“The kids?” Preach frowns, leaning against the neighboring locker. “Seem? Day?”
“Nah. The kids are fine. Everything’s cool.”
Preach, so nicknamed after he went through an intense, albeit short-lived religious phase second semester freshman year, studies my face. I’m not sure the mask I’ve pulled in place hides anything from him, not after all we’ve been through.
“I hope this therapist of yours can get you to open up,” Preach says, grabbing his own duffel and closing the locker.
I sigh and hoist the bag to my shoulder, still shocked at how much I revealed to Dr. Musa in our first session. There was just something…liberating? Freeing?Rightabout telling this stranger everything. Nothing changed, but somehow I felt better. I don’t completely understand it, but after all the shit of the last few years, feeling better is worth something.
“I have another session in a few days,” I tell Preach.
“Long overdue, you ask me.”