I stared into his eyes and tried to imagine him in the role of husband and father to two strangers currently residing in Boston. Thinking about it, I looked away and shook my head.
“Sam…baby…I know I’ve said it a thousand times in text messages and on your voicemail, but I’m sorry. I really am. You have no idea how stupid I feel for keeping this all from you.”
I heard him pleading, but I found it hard to have sympathy.
“You know what hurts the worst?” I asked. “The fact that I told you things about me that I’ve never told anyone, Jason.” I thought back to the night I told him about Antonio. After talking about it, I lay awake crying in Jason’s arms half the night because it was so painful to relive that incident. But I did that for him, because I thought he deserved to know everything there was to know about me. Next I thought about when I revealed to him that AJ and I had lost a child right before starting college. Still, knowing all these things about me, he didn’t feel obligated to tell me about his past too?
Jason hung his head. “I know you’re disappointed –“
“Disappointed? Jason, I’m beyond disappointed!” I realized that I was being loud and lowered my tone. “You’re a father? And technically you’re still someone’s husband! How do you think that makes me feel?” I sat back in my seat and crossed my arms over my chest. “What’s that make me? Your mistress?”
It looked like hearing me refer to myself in this way hurt Jason as much as it hurt me to say it. “What? No! Sam, I love you!” he tightened his grip on my hand.
When I didn’t respond, he realized that we weren’t getting anywhere.
“These twelve days without you have been hell, Sam” he admitted softly.
Hearing this made me feel guilty because my last couple days with AJ had prevented me from missing Jason as much as I should have. I cleared my throat and looked into his eyes again.
“I’m willing to do whatever I have to do to keep you,” he added.
I met Jason’s gaze but didn’t say anything. He looked down at our hands intertwined in the center of the table. “How about this; I’ll tell you everything and you can ask whatever questions you have.”
Reluctantly, I nodded, trying to ignore the fact that this conversation should’ve taken place two years ago.
With a sigh, Jason began. “Her name’s Camille. We met in college – freshman year. By junior year, she was pregnant and neither one of us really knew what to do next. It was one of those things - I loved her, she loved me, but….we weren’t ready for marriage. Finding out that she was about to have my son kind of made that null and void, though.” Jason paused to sip his drink. “We barely made it a year with all the arguing and carrying on. Ryan was only a few months old when we finally decided to call it quits.”
I stared at him in shock. “How old is he again?”
“Six,” Jason admitted, already knowing where I was going.
“So you two have been separated all that time? Why not make things final and file for divorce?”
Jason fidgeted with his glass. “Financially, it’s just better if we keep things like they are.”
I leaned back and folded my arms over my chest. “Wait a minute. Hold up. So…you have no intentions on divorcing her anytime soon?”
He scrambled for the right words to say, the words that would keep me in my seat instead of heading toward the exit like I was currently contemplating. “Well…I…if I do that right now, I’d have to pay a ton in child support and alimony, Sam. Leaving things like they are, I’m only taking care of my son. Clothes, money for field trips, Christmas, birthdays, whatever he needs for the sports he plays…I take care of all of that, Sam,” Jason bragged. “Trust me, I make sure he has everything he needs.”
“Except you,” slipped out by accident.
Jason stared at me across the table, speechless.
I lowered my head. “I didn’t mean to say it like that, but I won’t bother taking it back.”