mouth distorted in pain. I was begging her with my eyes. No. Please no, say it isn’t so.
“I’m pregnant. We’re happy. He’s so happy, or haven’t you noticed? Have you really not noticed how fucking happy he is?” Then she fiddled with the necklace at her throat and smirked.
And I lunged at her and yanked it off and she wasn’t smirking anymore.
I gulp cold water from the bathroom tap, gallons and gallons of it. Then I wipe my chin with the back of my hand and lean with both hands on the vanity, staring at myself in the reflection. My eyes are bloodshot and the skin below them is bruised and papery. I glance at my hands and I don’t understand why they look this way, why there are purple welts slashed across the soft pads of my palms. I open and close them into fists and wince with pain. My heart is hammering. I feel horribly sad, like someone has died.
I let the shower get as hot as possible and turn my face up to it, letting the water sting my skin. I stand there for a long time, crying, not crying, remembering, not remembering.
I see myself running, I’m bumping into people as I run past them. It’s late, it’s dark, it’s raining. I’m out of breath and that’s when I sit at the bus stop, breathless, and hug myself. I am standing in my kitchen in my wet clothes, in the dark. I look out to the backyard and the light is on in Luis’s shed and I think it’s late and he’s in there. But he’s not because I remember going into my bedroom and staring at Luis who was sleeping peacefully. I remember my whole body shaking and I couldn’t make it stop. I took my clothes off and left them on the floor. I slipped between the sheets and pressed myself against his back, every square inch of our bodies skin to skin. I could feel the beat of his heart and wondered if it matched mine. If our hearts were beating in unison. Then I felt like I’d dropped down an inky black abyss and suddenly I am dreaming, and in my dream he has his lips close to my cheek, just next to my ear, and I could feel his breath, like a feather. And he whispered, I would do anything to keep you. And I was wishing so hard that it wasn’t a dream, even though I knew it was.
As I turn the shower off, I remember something else, a vague memory of Isabelle leaving the room and I wonder if she went to call Luis. I can only imagine what she might have said if she did. She knows. And by the way, she’s certifiably crazy, she’s insane, you don’t know what she did to me. You need to come and muzzle your wife, Luis.
I didn’t go straight home after, I know that much. I went from bar to bar to bar, or maybe just the one bar. And I walked a long way. I remember that.
I enter the kitchen with a heavy heart. I am so not ready for what is about to happen and I’m already feeling the sting of tears behind my eyes.
“Well, hello you!” Luis says, laughing, and the first thing that pops into my head is not, Hey, how strange, why isn’t he upset? It’s, How could you not notice how happy he is lately?
Oh, but I did notice. I just thought it was because of me.
He stands there, one hand on the kitchen sink, the other on his waist, checking me out, trying not to laugh. Why is he amused? “That was quite a bender, babe! And what exactly did you two get up to last night?”
So he really doesn’t know. She didn’t call him after all. He didn’t go running to save her from crazy old me.
I pull out a chair, sit down, rub both hands down my face. “Sorry I came home so late, I hope you weren’t too worried.”
He grabs the pot of coffee and pours a mug full. He hands it to me. “There you go. You don’t look so good, if you don’t mind me saying.”
I try to smile, take a sip of the hot drink.
“You could have called you know? Didn’t you get my texts?”
Texts? I try to remember the last time I looked at my cell but I can’t. “Sorry. I didn’t check my phone.”