Swallowing, I stood to walk out of the room. Before I could, he touched my arm, stopping me. I rolled my eyes and looked over my shoulder at him.
“Thank you for coming I know?—”
“Don’t even worry about it,” I interrupted before walking off.
I said I wanted the hatred and the beef to end—I didn’t say I wanted to be friends. Didn’t say I wanted to ride off into the sunset with him, wearing a big ass smile. Today just made me realize how short life was. I could have lost him.Theycould have lost him. He would have died my husband and only my sisters would have known what he’d done. That… I don’t know… it was kind of an eye opener to me. I’d been ignoring him for days. He called me earlier and every one of his calls went unanswered. What if that would have been the last time he ever called me?
I got the nurse and we walked back into the room. The entire time she talked to Duke, he kept his eyes on me. Looking back at him was uncomfortable as hell. Not because I’d just fucked Crescent neither. I just wasn’t there with Duke anymore,and I hoped he understood that. I hoped he didn’t mistake me showing up for him as anything other than support.
Once the nurse left the room after giving him a run down about everything, it was just the two of us and I was on my way out. Hadn’t even sat back down. Had my purse on my shoulder and everything, ready to skate.
“Okay well… I called the kids. I told them you were alright. I’m about to head out?—”
“You leavin? You can’t stay here with me?”
I drew back with a frown. “What? No.I can’t stay here with you. I’ve been here long enough. Just wanted to make sure you woke up.”
That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. I wasn’t here to do my wifely duties. I didn’t plan on taking care of him or anything like that. I just wanted to make sure he was good and since he was good, I was good and it was time for me to go.
“Well,” he paused and frowned again, the pain he was in written all over his face. “I—I would like for you to stay, Ne. I want to talk and?—”
“You need to rest. We’ll talk later.”
“Later when? Tonight?”
“When you get out.”
“I can come home?”
“Where else you gon’ go?” I snapped, with my top lip curled up. “Get some rest, Ducati.”
“You gon call me later?”
“No, I’m not going to call you. You have other things to worry about.”
“You the only thing I give a fuck about, Ne.”
I didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds before sighing. “Good night, Ducati.”
“I love you, Mahogany,” he said as I walked towards the door.
I paused, looked over my shoulder at him, shook my head and said, “Love you too.”
Because I did. We had history. A ton of it. And a secret baby didn’t just erase that. I didn’t hate Ducati for real. I hated what he’d done to me. I hated what he did to our family. That was it. If things were different… if Diary wasn’t an issue… we probably would have made it this time. We might’ve worked. But the facts were the facts, and a whole baby came out of him cheating. I couldn’t move past that. Never would.
“How comeyou didn’t stay at the hospital?” asked Aubry, sprawled out on the other end of the couch, phone in hand.
“Hmm?” I asked, pretending not to hear her.
She sat the phone on her chest and peered over at me. “Dad. Why didn’t you just stay with him? I could have made dinner.”
I knew exactly what Aubry was doing. She was telling me she knew something without actually telling me she knew something. She was fishing, trying to get me to tell another lie, which I did. I told her I needed to be home. Said I needed to come home to make sure they did what they were supposed to do since they had been slacking so much lately.
Of course, she didn’t buy it.
“You told me to make sure they did their homework and chores. I was going to. You could have stayed, mom. I know he wanted you to.”
I sighed, grabbed my phone and started to doom scroll on TikTok, avoiding eye contact with her. I hated lying. Hated having to lie. I really wanted all of this shit to be over. I’d been hiding for years, and I was tired of that. Still, regardless of how tired I was of lying and hiding, I had to keep at it for only Godknows how much longer. Hopefully not too long. Hopefully this would be over sooner than later. I could have ended it then. Could have told her I didn’t stay at the hospital with her father because I didn’t want to. Could have told her I couldn’t stay with him because despite him being hurt, I couldn’t stand the sight of him.
