NO SAINTS HERE

CHAPTER TWO

"Hey baby, when am I seeing you again."

The voice was seductive. The kind of voice that knew exactly what it was doing.

I pulled the phone slowly from my ear and stared at it.

This wasn't my phone.

It was Reggie's.

The pain that hit my chest wasn't dramatic. It wasn't the ones you see in movies where someone grabs their heart and collapses. It was quiet. The type that breaks you within seconds.

I could still hear her.

"Baby? Are you there?"

Reggie was cheating on me.

I knew. I always knew. I saw it every single day and chose to walk past it. There's a word for that. Denial. But denial feels too simple for what I was doing. What I was doing was actually building a house on sand and decorating it and calling it home and refusing to look at the foundation.

There were signs. There were always signs.

Like that day at the mall.

We were shopping... or I was shopping, Reggie was just existing beside me the way he usually did... when this woman walked up to us. In Mini skirt. In Heels. She was way sexier than me and I knew it.

I felt Reggie shift beside me before she even reached us.

He introduced me as his colleague.

Not his wife. His f*cking colleague. He looked this woman in the eye and erased two years of marriage in one word while I stood right there holding a shopping basket.

Then he said he wanted to catch up with her real quick. Just five minutes.

I waited thirty f*cking minutes.

He came back with her on his arm and a trolley full of things and a red lipstick stain on his shirt. The same red she was wearing on her mouth.

I pointed at it calmly. Because I loved him and I wanted him to just tell me the truth and let me decide what to do with it.

Instead he looked me dead in the eyes and said he was helping her find a lipstick shade that matched her complexion.

A caramel skinned girl and he just happens to be wearing a brown coloured shirt.

I stood there and listened to that explanation with my whole chest.

I wanted to fall apart. I wanted to scream in the middle of that mall and embarrass all three of us. But I loved him. So I said nothing. I paid for her things because he asked me to and I told myself it meant nothing and I cried about it alone that night and woke up the next morning and made him breakfast.

He never paid me back.

I never asked.

Because that was what love looked like in my world. You swallow things. You keep going. You hope.

I was still hoping.

Even now. Even standing here holding his phone with another woman's voice coming through it. Some part of me was still hoping there was an explanation. Something that would make sense of all of this.

That's what loving Reggie did to me.

I was such a f*cking fooll.

And the worst part is I can't even blame ignorance. My mother raised me like this. Love endures she said. "A good woman overlooks. You don't abandon your man when things get hard."

Now that I think about it my mother was male centered as hell. Her whole concept of love was built around keeping the man comfortable at the expense of everything else. You could be dying, but make sure to keep your man safe.

A loud burp brought me back to reality.

The smell hit me before I even turned around. Rotten food and stale alcohol.

My husband was waking up.

I decided to confront him.

The second his eyes opened I was already in his face.

"Who's she?"

He looked at me like I had just spoken another language. Blinking slow. Taking forever to process basic words.

"Who?"

He sounded terrible. Voice all thick and scratchy like something that needed oil.

"The woman who called your phone." I kept my eyes on his.

He sat up. Slowly. Like his body was fighting him on it.

"Why are you going through my phone?"

A burp came out of him. Loud and disgusting. He didn't even acknowledge it.

"A business client." He waved his hand. "I don't even — it's n-none of your b-business. Snooping around like a d-dog. Always so paranoid."

Half his words weren't even connecting.

"Just answer the question Reggie."

I was getting angry now. Actually angry.

"Answer the damn ques—"

The slap landed.

Loud. So loud that it could wake up the dead.

My face went hot immediately and I felt the sting spread across my cheek like fire. I pressed my hand against it and just stood there as tears rolled down my cheeks.

my phone beeped.

I looked down and I felt my heart stop for a moment.

Why now? This was salt to my injury and it hurt.