“No, I trust you. I just didn’t expect that. I had no idea that you liked…..well,” she didn’t finish her sentence. Now I understood where the look of shock had come from. She wasn’t suspicious about AJ and I being alone together last night, but she was surprised because the new object of my affection wasn’t black.
I smiled at her.
She stared a moment longer in disbelief before asking, “So, you really like this AJ?” I hesitated and then answered her question with a question of my own.
“Mom, is it possible to love two people at the same time?”
The surprised expression returned, but she composed herself quickly and then responded. “Well, I do think it’s possible. But the thing is it’s never an equal love.” She paused to organize her thoughts. “That’s the difficult part, determining where the imbalance is. Although you may love them both, one of them has more of your heart than the other, and only you can figure out which one that is.” Both of us fell silent while I took her words into consideration.
Back at home, I sat in the middle of my bed and continued to let what my mother said sink in. How do I figure out which one of them has more of my heart? I figured that wouldn’t matter if Antonio wasn’t speaking to me, so I needed to find out where we stood. I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and dialed his number. It rang about three times, but then he picked up. “Hello?”
I honestly didn’t expect him to answer when he saw it was me calling, so I hadn’t even really thought about what to say to him.
“Hey,” was the best I could come up with. He was silent on the other end, so I continued. “I know you hate me right now, but I needed to apologize for hurting you. That was never my intention, but this whole thing came out of nowhere, Antonio. And I meant it when I told you that I loved you the other day.”
“I don’t even think that matters anymore,“ he replied emphatically.
“How can that not matter? I really do love you. I just messed things up and I’m sorry for that. All I’m asking is that you think about forgiving me?”
“It’s too soon for all that right now. You’ve been lying to me about this kid the whole time, making me think I was imagining things. I bet you two enjoyed that.”
“No, it was nothing like that. I told you, I never meant to hurt you. The whole thing just…..happened.” I winced at the words as they left my mouth. That phrase is grossly overused, but it was the truth. I’d been strung along by my own feelings as they lead me to and fro. In a sense, I never really had a choice in the matter.
“It just happened,” he repeated. “And I guess you expect me to just accept that and act like I never heard you say that you loved him last night.” The words cut me like a knife hearing them come from his mouth. I closed my eyes and tried to hold my composure as I sat there holding the phone thunderstruck. “Sam, I don’t even think you understand how much you mean to me. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. Just try to imagine for a second what a lonely feeling it is to consider that the one person in the world that you stepped out on a limb for and decided to love did what you did to me last night.”
I’d done more damage than I could’ve ever imagined and there didn’t seem to be anyway to rectify the situation. “What do you want me to do, Antonio? I can’t help the way I feel. Believe me if I could, I would. I tried very hard to stop it, but I…..” My words trailed off and a tear slipped down my cheek.
“But…..you love him too.” He added, finishing my sentence.
There was nothing left to say. We sat there for a long time not uttering a single word. The next instant, there was no one on the other end of the phone anymore. I turned it back off for the night, collapsed on my bed and cried. It was really over.
Chapter Seven