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Not this time.
I say, “Then it will have to wait. I’m having lunch with Ella right now as you can see.”
“You don’t think our marriage is more important than your lunch?” he asks.
The nerve…
I don’t let him rattle me. I respond, “You spent a week avoiding me and it’s only now—during my personal time—that you realize how important our marriage is?”
“Tessie. I—”
“I will talk to you later,” I say, not looking at him. I resume eating while he just stands there confounded, then decides to walk away.
Ella says, “Bravo! Good for you, girl. I thought for sure you would cave.”
“Gosh, you don’t realize how hard it was for me not to.” I close my eyes and allow the feeling of his closeness to fill me completely and then say, “It’s scary—to love someone so much that I don’t care what he does to me—I would still love him. Love is dangerous.”
I turn around to see that he’s gone now and while I feel a little relief, I still feel a nagging urge to call him and tell him to come back so we can talk, work through this hiccup, and get our relationship back on track.
Ella goes backhome to work. I’m not feeling like being home right now. It sucks not having a job, so I spend time in and out of stores, looking at baby clothes – cute little dresses and baseball caps, amazed that people can make clothes so small. I touch my stomach. What if I am pregnant? How would Essex react to it?
After spending these contemplative hours alone, I return to my apartment. I jog upstairs, open the door and there’s Essex, sitting on the sofa in the living room. He has the remote in his hand and a cup of water on the table – looks like he’s made himself comfortable. His suit jacket is folded neatly across the armrest. He left his shoes next to the door.
“How long have you been here?” I inquire, staying by the door just to keep distance between us.
“Since I saw you at the restaurant earlier. I came back here to wait for you…wasn’t sure if you’d even come here since you haven’t been here all week.”
So, he’s noticed…
“Essex, before you say whatever it is you want to say, I have something to say.”
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“You don’t get to dismiss me from your life and write me off like some business expense, simply because you’re upset with me about something. We’re supposed to talk. If you love me like you claim—”
“Don’t do that,” he interrupts.
“Don’t do what?”
“Insinuate that I don’t love you. It’s not aclaim.”
“You told me straight out that I didn’t love you, but you take offense to the word claim. How do you think it made me feel, for the man I love more than myself to tell me I don’t love him?” I rub a tear away from my face.
“I know you love me, Quintessa. I—”
“Then why would you say that? Of all the things you said to me, that’s what hurt me the most.”
“It was said out of anger and it doesn’t reflect the feelings I have toward you.”
“But it does. You were mad at me all this time…thinking I didn’t choose you all those years ago when I had. I didn’t go to college with you, but it wasn’t because I wanted to get away from you or that I thought I’d meet someone better. I wanted to be with you, but I also wanted to make my mother happy. I was conflicted. I cried about it constantly. You didn’t see how proud my mother was when I got in at Florida State. I couldn’t let her down, but in doing that, I knew I’d let you down.”
“I know.”
“I’ve always accepted you for the way that you were, so if I accidentally call you Stewart, there’s no maliciousness behind it. I love you—past, present and anything in between.”
“I know,” he says, standing, walking over to me. “I’m the one with the issues and I’m working on correcting them.
He stands directly in front of me and says, “You don’t need to explain anything further. I’m the one who owes you an apology. They say, hurt people hurt people and I’m hurt. I’ve been suffering through that for a while and I’m working on it, Tessie. I am, but while I get myself together, just know that I love you and I never meant to hurt you. I’m sorry.”
