Page 100 of I Heard It All Before

Chapter 35

“What sense does it make for you to even go to counseling if you’re gonna sit there and don’t say shit?” Courtney asked her husband, Alton.

They had just come from their fourth marriage counseling session and they were making no progress at all. Alton had taken the day off from work for nothing, and Courtney was happy that she hadn’t done the same.

“I talked. I just didn’t say what you wanted to hear,” he replied.

“All you ever talk about is me cheating on you. If you can’t get over it and forgive me, why are you still with me?” Courtney questioned.

“I have forgiven you, Courtney, but the shit still hurts. I’m a good nigga and I didn’t deserve half the shit that you put me through,” Alton replied.

“And I don’t deserve to be under thirty years old with a husband who acts like he’s sixty. All we do is sit inside and watch movies. We used to go out three to four times a week. Now, I’m lucky if you take me somewhere once a month,” Courtney acknowledged.

“We both work Courtney. Our hours don’t always allow us time to do things,” Alton replied.

“That’s bullshit Alton. You’re off every other weekend,” Courtney noted. Alton worked as a maintenance supervisor at an apartment complex.

“Yeah, but you’re not,” he replied.

“I work mornings on the weekends and I’m always home by three. Miss me with theexcuses Alton,” Courtney said.

“It’s not excuses, it’s the truth,” he replied.

“I gotta go. I can see that this conversation is getting us nowhere,” Courtney said.

She was a few hours early for work, but she needed to get away from her husband before she snapped.Alton wanted to stop her, but Courtney was gone before he could even open his mouth. He loved his wife more than anything, but he had a hard time getting over what she’d done to him. He knew all abouther history with Cam and that only made things worse. Had Courtney would have cheated with anybody else, Alton knew that things would have been different. He would have still been hurt, but the sting wouldn’t have been so bad. He knew that feelings were involved when it came to Camden and that was the hardest part to get over. The fact that his wife kept running back to the same nigga just didn’t sit right with him. He didn’t want to lose her, so he had to make more of an effort to work on saving his marriage.

“Damn man,” Alton sighed as he got up from his chair and headed to the shower.

He had the rest of the day to do nothing, but he felt the need to do something nice for his wife. Courtney loved and collected all kinds of perfumes, so he decided to surprise her with a few things when she came home. She was always fussing about him taking initiative and he was following her advice. It took him almost an hour, but Alton was dressed and out of the house. He decided to go to the bank to get cash because he didn’t want the bank to send notifications to Courtney’s phone like they always did whenever their bank card was used. The line at the bank was long, but the inside was worse. Alton wasn’t in a hurry, so he got behind the last car and three more cars lined up behind him. He was deep in thought about his wife as the line barely inched up every few minutes. He looked around at the businesses that were next to the bank and did a double take when he saw Cam getting out of his truck and walking into the IHOP. Almost a minute after he went in, Alton was pissed to see a police cruiser pulling in and parking on the other side of the lot. His pressure rose when he saw his wife, dressed in her police uniform, walking into the restaurant soon after.

“Lying ass bitch,” Alton fumed angrily.

He was heated and he wanted to go confront Courtney and let her see that he knew what was up. Unless he was willing to leave his car and walk over, that was impossible to do. Alton was boxed into the narrow driveway and there was no way for him to move. He still had four cars in front of him and the person at the window was taking forever.

“Fuck!” Alton yelled after twenty more minutes had passed and he had only moved up once.

He was a little bit closer to seeing Cam’s truck, so he pulled out his phone and decided to take a picture. He was gonna send it to Courtney and let her know that she was busted. When another car pulled up next to Cam’s truck, Alton accidentally snapped a picture of that car as well. He looked on in confusion as the person from that car got out and looked around suspiciously. Alton switched from his camera to his video and recorded the entire scene.

“The fuck?” Alton said as he zoomed in and continued to record.

When the suspicious person got back into their car, Alton recorded until they were gone and out of sight. He didn’t know what had just happened, but he knew that it couldn’t be good. Under different circumstances, he probably would have intervened. Since he was being done wrong, he just didn’t give a fuck.

***

“See, that’s your whole problem now. You be ready to give up too fast,” Cam said as he and Courtney sat at the table and ate their food.

Cam was on his lunch break and Courtney needed to vent for a while. He hadn’t been to IHOP since his visit with Randy, but he agreed to meet her there.

“I’m not giving up, but I’m getting aggravated with the lack of progress that we’re making. I fucked up and I’m not making excuses for that. I just want him to take some responsibility for the problems that we’re having too,” Courtney replied.

“I understand, but you made shit worse when you cheated,” Cam argued.

“Are you serious right now Camden? How can you give me advice when you were the one who I was cheating with?” Courtney asked.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t married. You had somebody to answer to, I didn’t. It was still wrong, no matter how you put it,” Cam admitted.

“I just don’t know what else to do. I love my husband and I’m trying to do right by him. I just need him to let go of the past. Either that or I’m gonna have to let go of him. I’m too young to be so miserable,” Courtney sighed.

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