CHAPTER 2: He Wanted To Know How I Found Out, Not Why I Was Hurting
947 Words
•MARIELLE•
I don’t bother answering his question.
“Then tell me who she is to you,” I say instead.
All I get on the other end is silence. Not even breathing that I can hear. Just plain silence stretching out long enough that I already know what it means before he can even say a single word.
“Marielle, listen to me.” He finally says, his voice coming back fast now, way too fast. “It isn’t what you think.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it. Just let me explain, okay? You have to trust me on this one.”
I almost laugh. I do laugh, actually, it’s short and completely humorless, loud enough that it makes a man stepping out of the elevator to take a glance at me like I’m a problem he doesn’t want to be near. Not like I even care. I have a lot on my plate already to be worrying about what a stranger has to say or think.
“You have to trust me,” I repeat it back to him like it’s a joke I just heard for the first time. “That’s quite funny.”
“Marielle.”
“Do not Marielle me! I’m hanging up now.”
“Wait, just, if you’d let me…”
I hang up on him before he gets the chance to finish the lies I was sure were getting ready to make their way out of his mouth. I don’t even feel my thumb do it. One second his voice is in my ear and the next it’s just me and the hallway and a very awkward silence with a stranger who’s still waiting for the elevator to open up.
I beat him home by twenty minutes.
I don't remember most of the drive. The only thing I remember is pulling into the driveway while my hands kept moving without waiting for permission from my brain. I take out one duffel bag, a new toothbrush, and then a few changes of clothes that I shove directly into the duffel bag without bothering to fold anything, because I came to realize that folding is for the people who have time on their hands. I don’t.
Then the folder.
My lawyer drew up the papers two weeks ago. And all this while I told myself it was just in case. I told myself I was probably wrong, that I was just being paranoid for no damn reason, and that a woman who's been married for three years shouldn't be hiring a divorce lawyer over a feeling she can't seem to explain.
But the thing now is that I wasn't wrong.
I sit at the kitchen table with the folder open wide in front of me, staring at the blank line where my signature is supposed to go.
My hands are steadier now. At least they’re steadier than they were when I was sitting outside that building.
The front door slams open so hard it crashes into the wall, and I’m very sure it’s going to leave a dent.
"Marielle," Desmond calls out my name, his tie hanging loose around his neck, half undone, and his hair looks like he's spent the entire drive dragging both hands through it. He looks like he ran all the way here. Better.
"Marielle, please. Just... okay, I know how this looks, but…"
I don't bother looking up. He isn’t worth it.
"I can explain everything, I swear to God. Just give me a second to…"
I don’t let him finish his sentence this time and then just slide the folder across the table toward him, without saying a word, because if we’re all being honest here, I don’t have to.
He stops talking and picks up the documents as if they might bite him, flipping through the pages with hands that are no longer steady. For a second, his mouth just hangs open as if he's trying to read a language he's never seen before.
"What is this?"
"You know damn well what it is, Desmond."
"Marielle." He calls my name again, but quieter this time, and almost as if he’s pleading. "Just listen to me for one minute. Just one minute, Princess. That's all I'm asking. Before you do anything you can't take back."
I finally look up at him, and when I open my mouth to speak, my voice comes out calmer than anything I've said all night. Colder too.
"You had thirty days, Desmond. I counted every single one of them."
I stand while making sure to grab the bag that’s placed beside my chair, and I'm halfway past him when his hand desperately wraps around my wrist, like he's trying to hold onto something that's already gone, something that the both of us know is really gone.
And that act causes me to stop so suddenly that my feet almost trip over themselves. Not because he's stronger than me, but more because I wasn't expecting him to touch me.
I move my face slightly to the back and come in contact with his eyes. They look wey and completely wrecked, and nothing like the man I married. The man who used to walk into every room looking like he already knew how everything would end.
"You don't understand," he says. "She's my sister."
I freeze with the bag hanging off one of my shoulders and just stare at the man in front of me, and all I can do is think about the fact that if that’s true, then this is the worst possible time in the world for him to tell me.
Instead of three years ago.
- Writer
