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She’d done that a lot in our marriage. She’d always waited for me to speak my mind and shared hers accordingly, if she shared it at all. Some days she would refuse to respond. I’d tell her everything that was bothering me about our relationship and ask for her help to try and change the course our marriage was taking. If she didn’t like what I was talking about, or if she didn’t like where the conversation was going, she’d just get up in the middle of my speech and walk away – leaving me sitting on our couch alone. And sometimes she would shake her head and apologize, not now, William. I can’t do this right now.
Charlie crossed my mind and I couldn’t help but compare them. Charlie, who was big on honesty and letting me know everything that was on her mind – good or bad. And Lindsey, who wanted to be left alone to the point where we were just roommates who spoke a few words to each other in passing. At the end, I didn’t even think we liked each other, let alone cared for each other.
And whereas you could read Charlie’s heart just by looking into her face and eyes, with Lindsey you never knew what she was thinking.
I tried to hide my surprise at seeing her in front of me and pregnant as best as I could, but I wasn’t sure if I succeeded or not. For a split second I thought about how that made me feel – her being pregnant – but nothing came to me. Not anger, not frustration, not disappointment and definitely not sadness.
She studied me in silence. If I had to guess, she was waiting for me to react to this new development I had no clue about.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘You didn’t return my text messages. Or phone calls for that matter. I told you I was in New York.’
My eyebrows rose. ‘Something wrong with the house? Escrow didn’t go through?’
She shook her head. ‘No, everything is fine with the house.’
‘Then I don’t know what we’d need to talk about. I’m in contact with the real estate agent.’
She shifted on her feet, sighed and glanced inside my office.
‘Any way you can invite me inside instead of having a conversation in front of everybody?’
My gaze went to Charlie’s office by instinct, but she wasn’t in there. She had barely spent any time in her office today – making it hard for me to put right what had gone wrong earlier.
I sighed and stood to the side so Lindsey could walk in. She wrapped her arm around her stomach in a protective gesture and stopped near my desk. I’d invite her to sit, but I didn’t want to encourage her to spend more time here.
‘How can I help you?’ I asked, standing a little away from her.
‘There are things I wanted to talk to you about. About the divorce and everything else that happened. You weren’t accepting my phone calls so I thought it’d be better if we did this face to face.’
‘You should’ve taken it as a sign that I didn’t have anything I wanted to discuss with you.’
She huffed a little with annoyance and took a deep breath. ‘I’m pregnant, William.’
My gaze fell to her stomach. ‘I can see that.’
‘That’s all you have to say?’
‘What else would you like to hear? You don’t think I would fall for I’m pregnant with your baby, right?’
‘That was harsh, William. Even for you.’ She paused, taking in my distant stance and expressionless face. ‘This isn’t you. Holding things in. You always say whatever is on your mind.’
‘I just told you what was on my mind.’
My office phone started ringing.
I let out a breath and rubbed my temples. No painkiller would come to my aid today, and I needed air. And to get Lindsey to leave.
‘It’s lunch hour. If this is gonna take you long, I don’t want to do this at my workplace. We’ll sit somewhere so you can say what you came all the way here to share.’
Her mouth was set in a straight line when she nodded. I guided her outside my office and walked right next to her towards the elevators.
Charlie still hadn’t return to her office. I felt a tinge of regret for our argument this morning, but confused and overwhelmed by Lindsey appearing at my office unannounced, I kept my eyes to the ground to avoid any unnecessary interaction with anyone and tried to focus on the situation.
The elevator doors opened and Lindsey stepped in, waiting for me.
I left.
30 Charlie
An hour and a half had passed since William had walked out with his ex-wife and still they hadn’t returned. I wasn’t obsessing. I had by chance checked the time once or twice and simply noticed it. Not because of curiosity whatsoever. What did I even have to be worried about? Not much.
