Page 115 of Quasim III: King Inferno

When he was satisfied with my answer, he turned his music back up and continued to zone out the rest of the ride.

After I dropped Elijah to school, I pulled my phone out and tracked my wife. Thankfully, her ankles weren’t swollen and she still had it on. She was at a coffee shop, a place she had been frequenting for a little minute now.

Every time I checked her location, she was there. The time wasn’t always consistent, but the location was. What the fuck was so special about this coffee shop that had her there often? Blair liked to make her own coffee at home, and it was rare she got coffee from a local shop.

She always went on about how she could control the sugar content better at home. I sped around the circular driveway of the private school and headed toward where she was. We had an hour to kill before our appointment.

It took me fifteen minutes to make it into town, and I cruised, looking for my car. When I saw it parked, I pulled up a few spots down and got out. Ashbourne was a nice city and wasn’t like the small town I had envisioned when Capone was trying to sell it to me.

There was a city, suburbs, and hoods. It was smaller than New York City, but I would compare it to the size of Atlanta, if I had to pick. It had the city, and then the suburbs. Bet there were people ready to scream out which parts weren't Ashbourne like Atlanta people.

When I made it to the coffee shop, I pushed through the door, and the women all turned to look at me. Anjo looked up and her eyes widened when she noticed me standing there.

“I’m sorry, ladies… give me a second,” she stood up, and exited the table that had women with coffee and pastries sitting around it.

I allowed her little hand to push me out the door, taking any physical contact with her. Now, I knew how she must have felt. Being shut out and begging to be let back in wasn’t fucking fun. I hated myself for even doing that shit to my wife in the first place.

Forcing her to become this person she never wanted to be with me.

“Why are you here?” she asked calmly, almost too damn calm.

Her arms were folded and rested on her stomach. “I wanna talk to you, Anjo.”

“Now you want to talk? When it’s convenient for you… you wanna talk?”

Shit.

She had me there.

All she had been asking was to talk, and I kept telling her that I was good. Now that I wanted to talk, it was on my terms, which wasn’t fair to her.

“I fucked up, Blair… I shouldn’t have?—”

She unfolded her fucking arms and balled my lips up. “Save your sorry because I don’t want to hear it. You follow me here and then expect me to put my shit on hold to cater to you. I’m done catering to you, Quasim. Done chasing you and forcing you to see what I keep telling you.”

“What the fuck you doing here anyway, and why they looking at me like I’m a fucking monster… the fuck you in there telling those bitches, Anjo.”

She shoved me away from the window. “If you don’t…” She looked behind her. “Knock it off, Quasim!”

“Tell me why I gotta follow behind my wife and find out she having secret meetings at a coffee shop… the fuck going on?”

“You didn’t fucking care!” she screamed. “You’ve been in your own head for months, as if nothing else exists. The only reason you care now is because I did something you never thought I would do…. Leave.” Her voice cracked.

I touched her stomach, something she would never deny me touching. “I’m sorry, Anjo… I don’t have any excuse… I fucked up.”

She wiped the tears before they could fall and stepped back. “It’s a therapy group for women that survived domestic violence. One of our group members died this morning by the hands of her abuser, and we were having coffee in her honor this morning.”

“Fuck.”

She sighed a shaky sigh. “Yeah.”

“Come here, my love.” She allowed me to hug and kiss her head, as I felt her take a breath, after learning some news like that. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

She removed herself from my arms. “Thanks.”

“I’ll cook tonight… we can watch your favorite movie, and I’ll rub your feet, and you can tell me about this support group.”

I felt like the biggest fucking cornball not knowing my wife was in a fucking support group. How the fuck did I miss that? “While I appreciate the hug, I am not coming home. It doesn’t get to be that easy for you…. I’m not that easy.”

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