Page 83 of False Start
There’s nothing to talk about. What’s he going to do? Apologize? No, thank you. Apologies don’t fix something of this magnitude.
I speed walk down the wide hallway to our bedroom and enter the closet before I pull out every bag I can find between us.
Bryant comes into the closet and takes the bags from me. “We’re not divorcing.”
As I pull clothes from hangers and drawers, I scream, “I can’t fucking stand to look at you.” He comes closer, and I jab my finger in his face. “Don’t you dare touch me, not after you touched her.”
His voice cracks, broken and full of emotion. “Zhanna, baby, please don’t go. We can work through things. It’s me and you. We can survive this.”
I shake my head. “No. Not this.”
“How am I supposed to live without you?”
“I guess you should’ve asked yourself that when your dick was in another woman’s mouth.”
“I don’t remember shit except you throwing the vase through the window.”
“And why is that, Bryant? Why do you not remember anything? Because you were drunk?A-fucking-gain?”
He has the decency to look sheepish. “I deserve that.”
I laugh. “You deserve so much more. You’ve fucked everything up.”
I shove clothes into bags and suitcases and start to remove them from the closet. He follows me from the closet, through the bedroom, and out in the hall where I begin a stack of my belongings.
“Z, we’ll go to counseling and work through it. I swear to everything holy, I’ll never put myself in the same predicament again.”
“It’s too late. You can’t ever fix this, Bryant. You can’t take it back. You can’t make it stop hurting. I can’t stop seeing it on repeat in my head.”
And the images from that night assault me and nearly take my breath away. I push through, shaking the thoughts from my head as I head back to the closet for another bag. And then his words,Fuck, suck my cock, baby. Good girl. I’m coming. Drink it up, girl.
Fuck. I can’t breathe. My chest feels tight. I bend at the waist to pick the bag up, but it suddenly weighs a ton.
“Zhanna?”
I feel dizzy as I stand up straight and reach out for the wall to steady me.
“Baby, breathe.” He touches my arm, but I fight against his contact. “Please sit down before you pass out.”
Panic attack. I had one when my father died. Just one. It’s all I needed to have to know I’m having another. I push myself from the room, waging a war against my anxiety, and pull away from him as he continues to try to help me. I have to get away from him. I can’t be here anymore.
I abandon all of my clothing and hold onto the railing of the staircase for support. I can hear Bryant’s pleas to get off the steps before I hurt myself, but he sounds so far away. When the front door is just in reach, I stumble, dizzy from hyperventilating.
Outside at my car, I fumble with my keys as I try to escape the place that has quickly become my personal hell.
Bryant snatches them from my hand. “You can’t drive like this.”
“Give me my keys!” I scream and launch myself at him. I beat and pound against his chest as I reach for my keys, my freedom, my escape from this place and from him. “I hate that you did this! I hate that you let another woman have you!”
Tears roll down his face as his sad green eyes watch me fall apart in our driveway. He reaches for me, hand behind my head, and pulls me to his chest. “Shhh, baby. Come ’ere.”
I fight against his hold, beat against his chest with my closed fists, and scream and sob at the top of my lungs. Nothing coming out of my mouth is coherent anymore. My pain has shut down parts of my brain. He’s talking to me but I can’t hear him over the screams in my head. Grief and anger consume my tormented soul, and I deliver the final blow. “Your touch makes my skin crawl. Your voice makes me want to puke, and seeing you just makes me want to scream. I hope I never see you again.”
“You don’t mean that. You’re mad, and you have every right to be, but we’ll get through this because we love each other.”
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and steel myself. When I open them, I straighten my back and square my shoulders. “If I never see you again, it’ll be too fucking soon.”
The resolve in my eyes and the finality in my voice causes him to stiffen against me. He releases me and stumbles back, eyes unfocused and brows furrowed in disbelief.
