Page 18 of Cutthroat

“Yes, Jermaine the fucking truth! After all these years, is that really something that needs to be explained? I thought our love was pure and we could talk about anything. But I was wrong. Calling you was a mistake, because what the fuck do we need to talk about. I know the truth. You fucked my sister and that’s all I need to know. I gotta-”

“Ok Edy. Ok. Just give me a second,” Jermaine interrupted.

He knew that if Eden ended the call that she would not call back. Instead, the next person he’d hear from would be her divorce attorney.

“I know this is going to sound cliché, but I love you and made a simple mistake. The situation with Envy was just a thing that happened. That’s it and that’s all.”

Eden lost it. His response to having an affair with her younger sister nearly made her blow a gasket.

“Are you fucking insane Jermaine? A woman’s menstrual cycle is just a thing that happens. Unexpected rain on a sunny day is just a thing that happens. You fucking my sister was not just a thing that happened. An opportunity was presented, and you made a choice, that’s what happened. Did you think that bullshit line would work?” Eden asked.

“Edy, I-”

“No, Jermaine. I was a damn good woman. And of all the women you could have slept with you chose to go flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. You know what’s funny? You are not the first of my exes to fuck my little sister. I guess Envy is just a better woman than me,” Eden cried.

Jermaine’s stomach lurched. Hearing Eden mentioning her exes did something to his psyche. He knew it shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help the way it made him feel. It was as if she was saying that if Envy hadn’t slept with her exes, she would’ve been with someone else. At least that’s how he interpreted it.

“Focus on her feelings and not yours,”he told himself.

The fact that he was thinking about his own insecurities, and not hers, made him feel low. These were Envy’s scandalous traits rubbing off on him. As he listened to the nonsense that fell from Eden’smouth, he couldn’t believe that his actions had reduced her to this level of insecurity. What was more troubling was the fact that she believed what she was saying.

“Edy, baby stop. Please stop,” Jermaine begged as he dragged his hand over his stubbly beard covered face.

He couldn’t listen to her tearing herself down with false truths anymore. The fact that he made his wife feel as though she was worthless made him feel less of a man. She was never supposed to feel that way. He knew now that it was time to tell her the truth that he tried so hard to keep buried.

“Edy, the day I met you, I knew I didn’t deserve you. You were perfect, and I had too many unresolved issues. There were things about my past that I didn’t know how to share with you,”

“You didn’t know how to share them with me, but you knew how to share them with Envy?” Eden scoffed.

The explanation made no sense. In fact, it sounded as if he was making the story up as he spoke. Because after all, that’s what liars did.

“It wasn’t like that,” Jermaine insisted.

His agitation was through the roof. He was frustrated. Being interrupted when he was speakingdidn’t sit well with him. This loudmouth behavior was out of Eden’s character. He wanted to scream at her, but he couldn’t. Because the non-understanding, impatient and argumentative woman that was now his wife was all his fault.

“Then you have to explain what it’s like Jermaine. I don’t understand. I mean, I tried to be a great wife. I tried to be everything you wanted me to be. I-”

“And that was the problem! You don’t know how to stand up for yourself!” Jermaine snapped and immediately regretted it.

Eden gasped a real gasp. His outburst had caught her off guard.

“I didn’t mean that, Edy. I’m sorry. I’m making you the problem when the problem is me,” Jermaine admitted hoping that if he continued to talk fast that it would soften the blow of what he said. To avoid Eden getting a word in, he continued to speak.

“The truth is you remind me so much of my mother. Growing up she was my everything, and then she was gone. I held onto so much anger towards her that I eventually unleashed it on the wrong person,” Jermaine admitted.

He tried to swallow his emotion before Eden could hear it. The thought of being vulnerable in frontof the woman he vowed to be strong for terrified him. She was never supposed to see him with a chink in his armor.

However, even in anger, Eden’s ears worked well. She could hear a mouse piss on cotton just as loud as she could hear a drunk man stifling a sob. Her eyebrows furrowed as she listened to him trying to hide the breakdown he was experiencing.

She was still very much stunned by his attack on her character, but she knew she couldn’t dwell on it. In the grand scheme of things, his outburst was a small fish in a big pond. But no matter how small, it eventually would be addressed.

“Get out of your feelings. He said what he said. Add that slick comment to the list of shit you’re about to make him regret. Let him clear his so-called conscience. His somber ass is about to give you some news you can use.” Eden thought.

“Jermaine what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. How can you be mad at your mom? I know you were just a boy when it happened, but baby, it’s not like she left you for another man. She died. We can’t control the day we leave this Earth,” Eden said soothingly.

She spoke with the tenderness of a mother telling her young child the bandage would fix theirboo-boo before placing the call on mute and biting into her cheesy Gordita crunch. She was starving. Pretending to be a concerned wife and acting as if she gave a fuck about his feelings or his dead mother, had her as hungry as a 1000-lb Sister. Making a mental note, Eden jotted stress eating and weight gain on the list of things she planned to hold Jermaine responsible for when the time was right.

The act of revenge was so sweet she could taste it. The punishment for his betrayal would not be swift. No, Eden planned to drag it out and prolong his suffering for as long as humanly possible. His pain was pleasing to her. She relished the moment when she could stop with the games and break her foot off in his backstabbing ass.

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