“THE LAST FUCKING box,” I said to no one. Standing in the middle of my new apartment, I ripped the tape from the bottom of the box, before folding it and stacking it inside a bigger box. “Home sweet home,” I added, feeling oddly at ease with living alone for the first time in my life.
Well, except for Sarge of course.
In the weeks since the accident, so much had changed so quickly, it was almost difficult to keep track of which day it was. Yet, no matter the day, one thing was always certain: I hadn’t heard from Jude.
My fingers weren’t broken, sure. But I’d risked everything to be with him. And he clearly couldn’t find it in his heart to reach out to me. So, call it being stubborn, but I couldn’t bring myself to call and ask him to take me back—again.
The fear that he’d tell me to fuck off yet again made calling him the last possible option for me. So I lied and told myself I was too busy with moving, with the divorce proceedings, with visiting Simon and taking Delilah to her doctor’s appointments, to care about Jude.
The knock at the door jolted me from my thoughts. “Coming,” I called out.
Delilah was waiting on the other side of the door. Her face had healed nicely, even though the yellow edges of her bruises were still visible. And those were only the physical ones. The emotional scars from the damage I’d done weren’t visible. She didn’t share how those were healing, more than an “I’m fine”or an “I’ll be okay” every now and then. But I knew she was hurting, knew she was scared. I knew because I was, too. And though we would no longer be husband and wife in just a few short weeks, we would forever be bound together as parents. So I promised myself that even though we were divorcing, she’d never be fully alone as a parent.
“You’re early,” I said, looking down at my watch. I stepped to the side letting her pass me. A feeling of pride bubbled in my chest when I noticed she was finally gaining some weight and that her baby bump was actually starting to show.
“Have to pee. Have to pee. Have to pee,” she chanted as she waddled past me. I had to bite my tongue to keep my laughter at bay. I knew enough from the first time she was pregnant never to laugh at her.
Five minutes later she walked out of the bathroom, a very relieved look on her face. “The place looks nice. Really homey. In a ‘you have no clue what you’re doing’ kind of way.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling proud of what I’d done. “Ready to go?”
“Yes.” She clapped her hands together in excitement. “Let’s go see this baby.”
She stole a spoonful of my chocolate peanut butter and mixed it with her mint chocolate chip as I stared at the sonogram picture of our son. “He’s perfect, isn’t he?” She cut through my thoughts, a wide smile beaming on her face.
“A miracle,” I whispered, tracing my finger over the little bump of his nose. “And you’re sure you’re feeling okay? Nothing’s wrong. No bleeding,” I badgered, but I needed to know that she and my son were safe—something I knew even her words couldn’t guarantee.
“Micah,” she said, dropping her hand to my forearm. “I promise if anything goes wrong, you’ll be the first person I call.” Her eyes pinned mine in a look so sincere, there was no space to question the truth of her words.
With some of my nerves put at bay, I pushed the last of my ice cream in front of her. “I’m full,” I lied, knowing she wanted to order the five-scoop sundae but went with the three scoop instead.
“I heard from my lawyer.” Licking her spoon, she spoke so casually she may as well have been talking about the weather. “All the papers should be finalized in a week or two. Since we’re dealing with things so amicably”—she used air quotes on the last part, rolling her eyes at her lawyer’s words—“everything should go just as we’d planned.”
“That’s good,” were the only words I could think of as a response. In my head, I was battling between unbridled happiness that I’d no longer be stuck in the lie that used to be my life and paralytic fear for having to live the life I was too afraid to embrace just months ago.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked before shoving a huge chunk of ice cream into her mouth. I nodded, wondering what she had stored up in her head. “Do you love him?”
Everything around me went silent. That was a question I was not expecting, and the one I wasn’t sure how to answer.
Keying into my dead silence, she filled it with her own words. “I know you already explained it all to me, how you two knew each other in high school, and how you needed closure on everything, but you never told me whether you loved him or not.” It wasn’t the easiest of conversations to have—talking to your soon-to-be ex-wife about being gay.
To anyone on the outside, this would be a completely ridiculous conversation to have with her, talking about whether I loved Jude. But ever since the first night we met, Delilah and I were best friends. And even though my choices—my depression, my leaving, my coming out—those should have made her run for the hills, after she was discharged from the hospital and we talked a few times, she promised she’d never stop being my friend.
Shrugging, I answered, “I guess.”How’s that for trying to minimize the awkwardness?
“You guess?” She laughed, rolling her eyes. “You sound like you’re talking about whether you like Brussel sprouts or something.”
“You know I hate those.” Letting her laughter fall away, I took a deep breath and figured I might as well be honest with her. Probably would have helped me out if I would have taken the same approach with Jude. “Yes, I love him.” Figuring it would be super callous of me, I kept it to myself that he was the only one I’d ever loved. She flinched and then turned her head toward the park area behind where we were sitting. “Li,” I begged, lightly touching her shoulder to pull her back to me. “I loved you the best I knew how. And now, I’ll always love you as the mother of my boys. Nothing will ever change that.”
A tear rolled down her cheek as she smiled at me. “Come on.” Her voice wavered with thick emotion. “Let’s go get Simon. His bus will be there soon.”
Spending the afternoon with Delilah, seeing our son kick and punch on the screen, picking Simon up from the bus stop, it all made for a perfect day. But there was a hole in my heart when I had to leave him. We’d agreed on joint custody, so I never went more than a day or two without seeing him. But in those days, I wondered how the hell I’d gone weeks without seeing him while I was with Jude.
And I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t the main reason I hadn’t called him yet. Deep in my soul, I knew if I talked to him, I’d want him. My fingers would itch to grab my keys and drive right back to him as if he lived around the block.
But he didn’t.
He lived hundreds of miles away, and now, so did the piece of my heart belonging to him. The part belonging to my family, to Simon and the son I was eagerly waiting to meet, it would always be right here with them.
