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Not an idiot
(Blakely)
I sat on the worn chair and stared at the humongous pile of stuff on the bed, eating half the Mess o’meat burger, a few of the fries and slurping the Coke, a perfect soda with ice like little snowballs, in a styrofoam cup. I was quiet, staring into space, my chewing too loud, the paper wrapper crumpling, the slurps echoing. As I took that last big noisy slurp of the Coke, a feeling washed up from my feet and over me — anguish. My face pulled into an ugly cry and then I was sobbing.
I stumbled over to the bed, dove onto my gear, and drew it around me, hugging it to me, fetal-position-sobbing. I cried for all that had just happened — was I going to go through a divorce?
We had been together since we were teens. How could we divorce?
How would I carry on without him? Plus we worked together. We had an agency — I had more clients, but he got better deals, what were we going to do?
I imagined myself walking into our offices after I returned from my month-long hike, everywhere glass walls, no privacy, he on one side of the conference room, me on the other. We had just finished a full renovation a few months ago.
I began to sob harder — devastated, anguished, traumatized by the memory of the renovation.
I dug through my bag for the phone and called him. I hung up and called again. Then again. I climbed up from the bed and went outside to sit on the plastic chair in front of the door, looking out across the weed-filled parking lot, the vacant lot beyond, and past that the dumpster and the back of the pub. I sat down, head in hand, and called a fourth time.
He picked up, “Who the fuck...?”
“It’s me.”
“Jeez, where the hell have you been, Blakely? No one could find you, you never checked into the cabin. We’ve been calling everywhere—”
“Who’s we?”
“Me, Jess. I didn’t want to call your mom yet, I didn’t know what you told her.”
“I haven’t talked to my parents about any of this.” I took a deep breath. “My phone died, like really died, out of battery and then run over by a car, dead.”
“You never take care of your stuff, how many phones is that this year?”
“Who is she?”
There was a long pause.
“Darren, who is she?”
“Look, we both know our relationship sucked for a long time...”
“No. We don’t both know that. We were planning a vacation together, running a company together, that is bullshit, we... you know what, stop with the ‘we’ bullshit. I did nothing. You did this. You fucked around on me. You did this to me.”
“I’m just saying it takes two to—”
“You’re the asshole here.”
Liam was walking this way from the pub. I wiped my face on my sleeve.
Darren said, “You know you were more interested in the business than—”
“That is not true. You’re lying and trying to blame it on me.”
I didn’t want Liam to see me crying so I jumped up from my chair and tried to get into my motel room but I forgot to bring the key out with me. I shoved and yanked on the door and then just stood there with my forehead against it.
“It is not fair to have an affair and then accuse me of being the one who caused it. It’s so mean to say that to me, so mean. I didn’t know you could be this mean.”
Liam jogged up and wordlessly put another key in the handle, turned it, pushed the door open, and then strolled away to the office.
I stumbled into the room and fell on the bed.
