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“A maid? A cook?”
“And a trophy, and I know how that sounds,” I blurted, my breathing getting too fast to accommodate words coming slower. “I’m not conceited or anything. I never thought I was all that great, but I got ripped in the army, and I looked much better than now, well, when I came.”
“You’re a beautiful fucking man, and I’m sure you made a great trophy,” he said without a hint of a smile. “But you’re more than that by a long shot, and you needed to be told that.”
I blinked at him, unable to answer or agree. I didn’t know what to say. To have someone voice it for me, I never thought anyone would truly understand.
“Eli, your problems aren’t bigger or smaller than other people. They’re just yours. They matter. You, whatever is inside, churning you around, matter. Don’t keep beating yourself up when the world does that plenty for you.”
I dropped my head because I just couldn’t keep that eye contact as I whispered, “I left him, and when I did… I stole from him.”
I didn’t hear him so much as breathe for a long time. Then, he turned again to move the cubes around the pan, and that’s when he finally asked, “What did you take?”
I felt like my heart was going to come right out of my chest with the way it was beating, and I closed my eyes, to block out some of the pain of having to tell this man, who, in a short time, I’d come to admire and respect, that I was a fucking thief.
“A watch,” I blurted, and on the end of that word came a sob that had my entire body quaking as it continued.
I felt arms around me, and I wasn’t sure if Noah was comforting me or getting ready to throw my ass outside, but when I heard his words, barely, over the sound of my sobbing, I knew then that he wasn’t making me leave.
“Stop that right now. Right now. It was a fucking watch. You didn’t steal his goddamned kidney, for fuck’s sake.”
“You-you… y-you don’t un-understand,” I stammered, feeling his arms tightening around my shoulders. “It was worth a lot, and I-I… I sold i-it!”
“Okay, and? Did you buy hookers and drugs?”
I heard it, and I actually laughed through my tears. “No! Gas… food.”
He laughed then, but in the laugh, I heard his annoyance. I didn’t understand it at first.
Letting go of me, he spun me around and took the other stool. We were facing each other again, though my head had moved to the side. I couldn’t take it to look him in the eye. My shoulders were held, and Noah’s voice was stern, hard. “Did the man ever give you a dime?”
I didn’t want another sobbing fest, so I just shook my head.
“And you did all the fucking work around there, made his meals, all of it?”
I nodded.
“Then why are you so fucking upset? No, you shouldn’t have stolen from the guy. You should have divorced the bastard and took him for half of everything.”
Well, that made me look at Noah, and I saw him well, being my eyes were wide open and so was my mouth.
“Yeah,” he said, letting me go.
“We weren’t married.”
“So? He treated you like a househusband. Do you even realize that househusbands and housewives that don’t go outside the home to work can collect social security from their spouses?”
“What?”
“Yeah. Even the feds know that people who work their asses off but don’t make a paycheck from it should be able to live in their old age. Did you have any bank accounts or anything in the both of your names? I’m guessing not.”
“No. I had a credit card for shopping that was in my name and his.”
“Oh? Well, there you go. Were you on the lease?”
“He owned the apartment.”
“No contract of any kind that you both signed your name to?”
