Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Flashbacks of so many fights, so many times when valid accusations were met with equally dismissive expressions or irreverence toward my feelings.
Why would you look through my phone?
Why can’t you believe I love you?
You don’t have the right to feel that way.
Are you okay? I think you might need help, James.
Before I had a chance to collect my thoughts or make sense of her presence or what she was saying, she went on, “I brought over some of your things that you left at the house. Suits, ties, toiletries. I put the Christmas ornaments and lights together too—you know I won’t bother with that. I added them to your stack. If you need help unpacking, by the way…”
I was sweating—why was I fucking sweating?
“I don’t.”
“You’re welcome. I didn’t have to do that since you just decided to leave all that when you left in such a hurry.”
“I think you must be forgetting the reason why I left in such a hurry.”
“Things happen in marriages, James. Everyone has stuff.”
“We had a lot of stuff.”
“Some of those you made into bigger deals than they were.”
“Brent Wilson?”
Her face froze in that familiar expression that at one time I had such difficulty reading. It was one of her many lying faces.
She downed the rest of her wine. I wasn’t sure if she needed it after my accusation or if she figured she wouldn’t be able to stay very long after that.
She set the glass down on the counter behind her. “Since apparently all you want to do is fight, I guess I should go.”
Fight? Me?
I wanted to shout at her that she was the one who had come into my home, uninvited, so she could remind me of all the crap I still didn’t want to deal with, when the only reason I was even still married to her was so that she wouldn’t be “inconvenienced.” However, I bit my tongue, since any amount of time spent dwelling on that would be more time she spent sticking around.
I turned toward the door to usher her out when she said, “What’s that?” As I turned back to her, she added, “Sticking out of your back pocket.”
I reached back, felt the papers Kyle had handed me. “Nothing.”
I’d never been a good liar, especially to her. Detecting the suspicion in her eyes, I said, “That’s not really any of your business, Sheila.”
“You know I hate it when you say that.”
I imagine a liar like you would.
I guided her back to the front door. We exchanged stiff goodbyes before she left me to myself once again.
But I wasn’t really alone.
With whatever she’d left behind with my boxes, she’d also stirred up all those goddamn memories I never seemed to be able to totally push to the back of my mind. Just when I’d been feeling so good, so alive, after seeing Kyle, and eager to read what he’d given me at DJ and Maya’s.
I headed to my office, slipping the papers out of my pocket as I sat behind my desk, same as I had when I’d read some of Kyle’s responses from class.
Unfolding them—he’d divided them in four places, like he might have done if he was the kind of student to pass a note to a friend at school—it was like opening a book, ready to experience this whole other reality, fearing what I might find.
Scribbles and a tear across the top sheet from where he’d clearly either thrown it away or attempted to before deciding to give it to me.
I went to the next and then another before something more than incoherent scribblings were on the page, and soon, between the scratched-out phrases and the repeats, I was starting to catch on to the truth.
I don’t know why this has to be so hard. It should be easy, take up a few paragraphs.
I keep thinking I need to go back and connect it to Claudius and Gertrude, and then maybe you’ll think I’m clever. But then I figure this needs to be straightforward, from my heart, but I don’t want to do that either. It hurts too much when I try to write it down. My hand freezes up. It’s like the muscles stop working, can’t remember how to write.
I’ve tried typing it a few times, thinking that might help. That doesn’t seem personal enough, though. But then I have to look at my crap handwriting.
I chuckled, a tear escaping the corner of my eye.
I could just imagine Kyle being annoyed by his chicken scratch, but even as I enjoyed the lightness of that comment, it pained me to know what he was going through to get this out, and I was also moved that he had gone through the effort to share it with me.
I assessed some more of the jumbled writing, unable to make it out on the badly damaged page—Kyle had scribbled the text to the point where it had torn through the paper.