AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That was your last chance, Brian, she thought, and you blew it.
“Guys,” said April. “I’m going to head home. I think I have a difficult conversation with Brian ahead of me and I’d like to get it over with.”
“Wait,” said Tracey. “Don’t go. He’ll still be drunk and you don’t know how he’ll react. Why don’t you crash on my couch tonight and face him tomorrow morning?”
“I don’t want you guys to call ladies night over early on my account,” said April.
“Girl, my buzz died the moment Brian showed up. Come on, let’s end this ladies night with a good old fashioned slumber party at Tracey’s place.”
They left Club Veil in time to see a somewhat subdued Brian being bundled into a taxi by a bouncer with forearms the size of Brian’s neck. Brian seemed to be done resisting. Instead, he wore the petulant expression of a scolded child and April caught a glimpse of his sulky face as the taxi pulled away and drove off into the night.
“Come on,” said Tracey. “Forget about him for the time being. We can watch Glee on Netflix. And by the way, there’s nothing wrong with how you’re dressed, you look amazing.”
April looked down at her dress. It ended barely above her knees. Even the cut was modest.
“I just don’t get it,” said April.
Marisa put her hand on her shoulder. “There’s nothing to get, girl. The guy is nuts. Forget about him.”
An hour later they were back at Tracey’s place with a fresh bowl of popcorn in front of them, wearing comfy clothes that Tracey had lent them. April remembered a time when ladies’ nights had ended at three in the morning after dancing for hours like the world was ending. Now it was barely eleven and she felt as if the world had ended and she was trapped in some limbo twilight version of the life she once had.
She tried to let go of these feelings while Tracey and Marisa added their commentary over the show they were watching. She even managed a smile or two, but looming in the back of her mind was the conversation she was going to have to have with Brian, and tried to compose it as best she could. She’d begin with, Why don’t you tell me what really happened that weekend you were away?
3
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Brian. He was clutching his head in his hands, sitting on the edge of the couch where she had found him sleeping when she came home. He must’ve had just enough presence of mind the night before to stumble through the door and crash land there before passing out. While he remained motionless, she went upstairs and packed her things. They were renting the house and with her gone, he’d have to either cover the rent by himself or find a smaller place. Either way, she knew she would not be spending another night there. She didn’t know where she would go just yet, but she’d work it out. What she couldn’t fit in her suitcase, she’d fetch sometime when he was at work.
She loaded her suitcase into the trunk of her car before waking him up to talk.
“Brian,” said April, “I know something happened that weekend, because ever since then you haven’t been yourself, and quite frankly, I don’t like the person you’ve become. Last night was the last straw, Brian. I’m ready to leave. So you can either tell me the truth or lie to me again while you watch me walk out the door.”
Brian’s red-rimmed eyes focused and April saw them transition from guarded, to panicked when he realized he could no longer defend his actions, and finally to resignation.
If before there had been a time when he would have put up a fight, that time was over. He looked tired, hungover and utterly worn out by the big ugly jealousy monster that had been crawling around inside him.
“Look,” he said eventually. “There is something I need to tell you. The way I have been behaving is because I love you. Because I don’t want to lose you. Because I feel terrible for what I did and I know that if you knew the truth you would leave me. Now it looks like that’s going to happen anyway. I’m sorry.”
“Brian,” she said, more gently this time, “What did you do?”
“That weekend,” said Brian, “I didn’t go fishing in Maine.”
That came as no surprise to April. She simply nodded, urging him on.
“I met up with an old friend,” he said. He let out a shaky breathe and shut his eyes as if wincing at his own stupidity. “An old girlfriend.”
April’s heart slammed into the pit of her stomach with the force of a sledgehammer.
“Who?” she said, voice cold and blank: just the way she felt.
“Melany. From college.”
A picture of the woman floated into her mind though she had never met her in person, nor had she ever seen a photograph of the woman as far as she could remember, yet she had built up a picture of her in her mind based on Brian’s descriptions of her over the past two years: tight lips pulled down at the corners in an expression of perpetual dissatisfaction, her hair the color of greased stone and her nose sharp and upturned.
“Well?” asked April. “What happened?”
“She wanted to see me. I told her I was engaged, but I don’t know, I went anyway. We stayed at a motel outside of town and…well, she’s pregnant.”
The sledgehammer lifted and slammed into the pit of her stomach again.
