Page 2 of And It’s Still You

“Love you too.”

The call ended just as Moya heard the garage door open. Closing her eyes, she took a few deep breaths before putting her phone down and continued packing Ocean’s bag. The lump resting in the middle of her throat was almost impossible to swallow. She didn’t want to cry, but knowing her life wouldn’t be the same after her exit hurt more than she could ever imagine.

O’Shea had been a part of her life since she was a teenager. They met when she and her sister, Albany, were in high school. She’d heard about O’Shea through the grapevine but had never seen him before. For the most part, he was low-key and out the way. It wasn’t until Albany and Terrance started messing around that Moya met O’Shea, and she swore it was love at first sight.

“Moya? Where you at, Love?” O’Shea called out as he hung his keys and set the mail on the table. He waited for a response but didn’t receive one, which was unusual. Moya’s car was parked in the garage, and he hadn’t received any word on her leaving the house, so he assumed she didn’t hear him.

With his feet dragging across the floor, O’Shea climbed the stairs to see where his wife was. He wanted to share some good news with her, so he’d ended his day a little early. After looking in their room and Moya’s office, O’Shea figured she was in Ocean’s room.

“Love? You in . . .” O’Shea’s voice trailed off upon seeing his wife standing in the middle of their son’s room with suitcases in her hands and tears streaming down her cheeks.

O’Shea’s heart dropped. The sickening feeling forming in the pit of his stomach was almost unbearable. He raced his hands through his overgrown beard and shook his head. Moya sensed he knew what was coming, but she didn’t expect him to try to snatch the bags from her hands. She jerked back with force, almost falling back onto Ocean’s bed.

For a moment, the couple glared at one another. The silence around them was suffocating them by the second, but neither of them knew what to say first. Neither of them wanted to address the elephant in the room. Once again, O’Shea tried to take the bags from Moya, and she snapped.

“No, Shea! No! It’s too late.” She stepped back and wagged her head before repeating barely above a whisper, “It’s too late.”

O’Shea refused to believe the words leaving his wife’s lips, but deep down, he had a feeling it was coming. The signs had been there. He’d noticed them, which was why he’d booked them a solo trip out of the country. It was what they needed to reconnect and realign with one another, but once again, he was too late.

To Moya, he always was.

“Don’t do this, Moya. Don’t break up our family,” O’Shea pleaded, taking a step closer to her, but Moya shot him a look that made him stop in his tracks.

“You already did that. You’re the reason we’re leaving, Shea. Do you truly expect me to sit around and compete with JMG? Do you truly expect me to be okay with being second in your life? Fuck no. I’ve done it for far too long, and I’m done. Over and over, you show me that things will never change. You show me that no matter how much I ask or beg, you’re going to continue doing what you want.” Moya’s voice cracked, and she was on the verge of a breakdown. She refused to do so in front of O’Shea, so she tried to move around him, but he stood in front of her.

When O’Shea gently caressed her face, Moya instinctively melted into it. It was something she’d grown accustomed to for the last eighteen years, and she would miss it something serious. Who was she kidding? The way her soul craved O’Shea, it would be hell for her to recover from the addiction she had of him, but cutting herself off cold turkey was the only way to rid herself of him. She knew if she didn’t, she’d never kick the addiction. She’d continue dealing with the same cycle she’d been begging him to get out of for the last two years since Ocean had been born.

Moya’s head snapped back when O’Shea tried resting his forehead on hers. His shoulders dropped, and the way his eyes glossed over with pain almost made Moya second-guess her decision.

Almost.

She’d fallen for it many times before, and she refused to stay on the merry-go-round. No matter how thrilling it was at the top, the bottom always came back around.

“I love you, Shea. I do, but I’m done.”

O’Shea allowed his tears to soak into his beard. Never in his life had he felt such an agonizing pain to the point he felt he couldn’t breathe. In the back of his mind, he thought dying would be better than living without Moya. She was the true definition of being his rib. When people spoke about marriage making two become one, O’Shea believed it with everything in him. He believed that from the moment he met her. Moya was all that and more to him, so losing her was the hardest loss of his life.

“We can work through this, Love. Whatever I need to do, I’ll do it,” O’Shea expressed, ready to get down on his knees and beg.

“That’s the thing. We can’t work through it. I’ve told you over and over what I need from you, but I never receive it. It’s time we keep it real with one another. I know I’ll never be number one in your life, and I’m not fine with it. I won’t accept it, so it’s best for me to put myself first.”

“The life I live, the life I was born into, it’s not that easy. You know that, Moya. I’ve kept it real with you about it from day one.”

“You did, but you also said you’d eventually leave JMG. You said once we had a child, you’d step away. Ocean is about to be two in three weeks, and you’re still in the same spot you were since you were a teenager.”

O’Shea’s frustration was rising. He’d never allow Moya to see inside the operation of JMG, so she wouldn’t understand he meant it when he said it wasn’t something easy for him to walk away from. His blood was tied into it. If he could’ve walked away the second she asked him to, he would have. With him holding the torch, things took longer than he wanted them to, and it was costing him his family.

With his head hanging low, O’Shea admitted, “I can’t live without you. My life will be empty without you.”

“Well, I guess you better learn how to fill it on your own because it’s no more of us. You made your choice. Now, I’m making mine.”

The finality in Moya’s tone had O’Shea stuck in place. All he could was stand there and silently cry as she softly kissed his cheek and left, taking every part of him with her.

1

MOYA COLLIER

Present day . . .