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“Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Jesus Christ,” he hisses. “Didn’t he use a condom?”
“We kind of got carried away. It was the last thought on either of our minds.”
He looks at me with utter bafflement and a heavy dose of shock. It’s easy to see that this bit of news has hit him hard. Good, I laugh to myself. He should be affected.
“So, you don’t know if you are or not yet?”
“I had a positive test a couple weeks ago and I have a lot of symptoms telling me I am. I’m just waiting for blood test to confirm it.”
This sends him into another bout of reflection in which I silently cheer. Call me a bitch, but it feels good to see him hurting. And he is hurting. He might deny it later, but he’s barely holding it together right now. I can see the pain in his eyes, and when he gets up and walks off toward the bathroom again and doesn’t return for nearly ten minutes, I know he’s been crying again.
It’s hard not to wonder what his little mistress would think if she knew how utterly affected he is by my involvement with another man, that he runs off to cry it out. To me it says that he’s not nearly done with me, but the problem is, I am beyond finished with him. It becomes clearer every day, through odd behavior like this, that Mark will come crawling back someday, but my door is now forever closed to him. When someone you pledged to love the rest of your life inflicts soul-deep pain like he has, the wounds cut deep and never truly heal. After coming as far as I have, going back to him would be a death sentence.
When the woman calls us back to sort out the support order, Mark is still pulling himself together, but knowing him as well as I do, I’m the only one who sees how broken he really is.
We drove here together, since Mark was too nervous to try to find the place by himself, and we drive back to my house afterward so he can see the kids for a brief visit before returning to his cramped apartment to play the dutiful boyfriend.
The talks between us are friendly, amicable, and he attempts to pry more private information out of me. As usual, I only give him the bits and pieces I’m willing to share, things that leave him wanting more and are designed to drive him crazy later. I can tell by the way he presses for information that I’m doing a fine job of it, which pleases me. I hope he loses tons of sleep tonight.
Thankfully, we arrive back at the house, offering the perfect distraction, and I can break away. I let Alejandro know that the hearing went well and ask how his day is going. He asks for a picture and I’m thankful I put in some practice earlier so I have one on standby. I send it and then I get started on dinner. Mark lingers long enough to eat before running off to make dinner for the tramp who doesn’t cook at all because “it’s not her thing.”
The peace that settles over the house once he’s gone is like a warm blanket on a cold winter’s night—soft and cozy. In fact, everything is calmer since Mark has been gone, making me realize what a negative presence he was all these years. I’ve heard distance makes the heart grow fonder, but sometimes, it serves as an eye-opening experience instead.
