“A friend,” he mumbled as he lowered his head.
“How long have you two been seeing each other?” My anger anchored me, allowing me the strength to question him without breaking down right away. My voice was calm and steady, my gaze direct even though Kurt looked anywhere else but at me. Coward.
“I haven’t slept with her,” he stated as he picked up two candles and walked past me to the kitchen. “She’s a friend.”
Turning, I crossed my arms, my blood pressure rising as each second passed. “So you always hang out with your female friends in candle light?”
Shoving the candles into the cabinet, he shut the door and leaned his head against it for a moment before turning to face me. My stomach flipped when his gaze met mine. I could read his thoughts before he even spoke. He didn’t love me anymore. Not like a husband should love a wife, anyway.
“I haven’t cheated, Clara. I need you to know that. But if I’m being honest . . .” He paused and clenched his eyes closed before opening them again, “I’ve wanted to,” he finished.
I blinked furiously in an attempt to stop the tears, but they fell anyway. “I thought things were better. I thought we were better.”
Running a wide palm down his face, he squeezed his eyes closed and groaned. “I don’t want children, Clara.”
“But you wanted to try too. You agreed. We spent a year trying—”
“I wanted to make you happy,” he interrupted. “You wanted a baby and I thought if it makes you happy, why not? But then when we got into it and it didn’t happen . . . you changed.”
“And I put it off to work on us,” I defended, my voice raspy with hurt.
“Yes, but it feels like you’re only going through the motions. Yeah, we hang out and have sex, but I can feel it in you. You’re biding time until we can get back to trying again.”
“That’s not true,” I cried. “I’ve given it my all.”
He walked around the counter until he stood two feet before me. “And so have I,” he said quietly. “But sometimes,” he sighed with a frown, “that’s just not enough.”
“Kurt,” I whispered his name ever so quietly, the word a plea for him not to do this. And even though I could reach out and touch him, I could hug him, claw him, or tear into his flesh with my teeth . . . it wouldn’t have mattered.
He was already gone.
“I’m going to go stay with my parents for a while. I’d like to keep the apartment, but I know you’ll need some time to make arrangements.”
With that, he walked back to our bedroom and began packing his things. I sat on the couch, crying, holding my face in my hands, wondering if anything could possibly hurt as much as this. Little did I know, many years later, I’d discover what pain really was.
Ashley scoots back in her seat, visually uncomfortable, her mouth in a tight line. She’s so young; only a senior in high school. I doubt she can even comprehend the magnitude of the story I just told her. Or, maybe she can. Maybe she wasn’t expecting this kind of brutal honesty or so much detail.
“Kurt sounds like a dick,” she surmises.
I almost choke on my saliva as I laugh. So she does understand . . . kind of. There was a time when remembering that conversation with Kurt would send me into a fit of tears, but now, it seems like something that happened in another life.
Seeing my reaction, Ashley chuckles, but she’s determined. She wants the story, so she goes on. “So what happened after that? What brought you back to Virginia?”
“I guess I decided I needed a change.” I take a sip of coffee before I continue.
Two days later, on Monday morning, I was back at work, but only in the physical sense. My mind was elsewhere. I worked at a prominent orthodontics office in the Dallas area. I loved it there. It was special to watch someone come in with a smile they hated and get to see them the day they got their braces off. Especially the adults. Those were the people who spent their lives hiding their teeth, hand cupped over their mouth, afraid to smile genuinely, who now left the office feeling like brand-new people. Seeing the kids was great, but adults appreciate it so much more. They knew how much it meant. The work aside, I loved my coworkers. They were nuts and it made each day, even the bad ones, fly by.
“You look like you’re wearing clamdiggers, Vanessa,” Ally noted. Vanessa looked down at her pants where she stood in front of the microwave, heating her soup. Vanessa stood at 5’8, with her legs making up most of her height. She chortled at Ally’s statement, her big, bright, white smile beaming against her mocha skin.
“They shrunk in the dryer,” she argued.
“You sure you’re not wearing one of your kid’s pants?” Ally continued.
“Shut up, Ally,” Vanessa laughed. “They started as pants and now they’re capris. You’re just jealous I don’t have to get a stepladder to reach anything over four feet tall.”