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“I love him.” My breathing is staggered.
“He’s not yours to love.” She’s so angry and so offended but worst of all I can see that she feels betrayed. I’m trembling, not from fear but from the shame she condemns me with. “Leave him, give him back to his wife and child, if you love him as you say you do, you’ll understand that is where he belongs.”
“That’s not my choice to make.” I sniff, using the napkin to wipe under my eyes.
“Yes, it is.”
“He won’t go back to her even if I do leave, and I don’t want him to go back,” I admit aloud, sounding stronger now and her hands ball into fists on the table. “He’s my best friend. He’s the love of my life. I couldn’t walk away from him even if I wanted to.”
“And what about Elizabeth? Don’t you care about her in this? And Maria? She wants her daddy home.”
“I’ll never take him away from his daughter. In a few months this will all blow over and she’ll be around our apartment whenever she likes.”
“Apartment?” she screeches, eyes wide, lips parted. “Oh, you foolish girl. That foolish man. Poor Elizabeth.”
“You don’t even like her,” I reply, feeling braver now though I’m still trembling. I don’t want to fall out with Ezra’s mom, but I also want her to see this from my side. I’m feeling defensive despite the fact I’m probably wrong in all this. “She’s rude and obnoxious to everybody who isn’t on her level. She doesn’t want Ezra to have anything to do with you and you know it. Do you think she’d care if your roles were reversed?”
She doesn’t deny it, she just stares at me, chest heaving, nostrils flaring.
“I’m in love with your son, I know how we’ve gone about it is wrong but it’s not changing, and I don’t want to lose the friendship we had. You might hate me now, but I plan on being with him for a really long time—”
“Funnily enough,” she says around a sardonic laugh, “his wife said the same thing.”
I gasp when my warm latte hits me in the face.
She threw my drink at me.
She actually just threw my drink at me.
As I blink in shock she stands and throws a few bills on the table.
“Affairs never last, he’ll be back with Elizabeth before the year ends and you’ll be the disloyal harlot that never was.” She clutches her purse and walks away from me as I wipe my face with a napkin.
Need to shower.
I dig my fingernails into my palms.
“Are you okay?” somebody from a few tables away asks as I gather myself, trying not to sob like a baby.
I nod and scarper back to my car as quickly as my jellified legs can get me there.
Izabella is a fierce Italian woman and is protecting her own. I just can’t help but feel how unfair this is that I’m getting all the blame and losing all the people I love. But then doesn’t that just describe my entire life to date?
“Ezra?” I cry once in the safety of my vehicle. My hands twist the steering wheel, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Your mom knows, she just threw a drink in my face.”
“What?” His tone is deep and dangerous, and I hear his chair squeak in the background. I should really oil that. I keep saying I will.
“And I lied to her, for you, and she hates me. She’ll never forgive me.”
“Where are you?”
“Kennewick’s Café’s parking lot.”
“Okay, I’m coming.”
“No… no… it’s okay, you’ve got a lot to do,” I reply, sniffling unattractively. “I’m just going to go home and shower.”
“I said I’m coming. Stay there.”
Fifteen minutes later, he shows up, abandoning his car across three empty spaces and pulling my coffee-soaked self into his body. He cups my face after a moment which is clean for the most part and kisses every inch of it.
“This will not happen again, I swear it,” he whispers, hugging me tighter than he ever has. “Don’t cry, you’re breaking me.” His lips touch my temple and his hand cradles the back of my head. “I will deal with this.”
I don’t tell him not to because I don’t have the energy to argue with him right now. Instead I climb into his car, trusting him to deal with the other and wait for him to click me in. He kisses my lips as he leans around me and then puts the car in gear.
He takes me home, keeping his hand on me the entire ride. I can see the tension in his jaw and around the soft lines of his eyes.
When we enter our building, he winks at me, his lips not quite making a smile, and when we enter our apartment, he peels me out of my clothing and helps me into the shower.
