Beautiful Potential

by J. Saman

  I feel him pause over me and I risk opening my eyes. His bright-blue ones are inches from mine, but they’re utterly defenseless. Beaten. “I love you,” he says it so calmly I wonder if I imagined everything that just happened between us. “I can’t make sense of anything other than that. But I can’t give you what you need. I can only give you this.”

  His lips crash down on mine and then he kisses me with a force unlike any before it. His tongue invades my mouth and his hands occupy my hair and his soul dominates everything inside of me. But even as he kisses me, I feel how wrong this is to him. How conflicted and ill he is.

  I am not this girl. It’s why I didn’t sleep with him the night of my birthday. I won’t let myself fall victim to that level of hurt.

  I push him back.

  “That’s not enough for me. I want more than this.”

  He shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything else.

  I need to leave him. I need to scour the depths of my ravaged soul, pull myself up and off this floor and never look back. But I can’t do that. Because I feel like there is so much more here. So much more to him and if he walks away now, I’ll never know just how good it can be.

  “Tell me,” I demand. “Tell me what happened to you.”

  His expression is beyond shattered. But he doesn’t answer me.

  I scoot my body out from under his, yanking down the hem of my shirt as I go. I feel way too exposed right now. Clamping my legs shut, I twist them so that my knees are sideways on the floor and I’m sitting up facing him.

  I stare at him. Pleading with him to open up to me.

  More silence.

  “See you around, Finn.”

  Standing up, I turn and walk toward my bedroom door. He doesn’t come after me. He doesn’t say anything to stop me. I pause on the threshold. Count to three.

  Nothing.

  Come after me, Finn.

  He doesn’t. So I open the door, walk through and shut it behind me, pressing my body against the cool wood.

  Still nothing.

  Come on, Finn.

  He doesn’t. He lets me hide away in my bedroom.

  Why did he have to do this?

  The front door to my apartment opens and shuts and I slide down, my head hitting my knees as I let go. I cry. I cry for him and I cry for me and I cry for us. Because I see all the beautiful potential he just let go. And all he sees is ugly pain.

  Chapter 32

  Finn

  Three years ago

  Kelly is eight months pregnant today. And she’s not only still pregnant, but the baby is doing great. Grace. That’s the name I picked out because she’s a girl. Kelly is pregnant with a girl. Part of me is relieved that it’s not another boy, because I wonder if we’d always compare him to what Logan could have been.

  By the time we went to see the OB, she was already twelve weeks along.

  Just goes to show you how busy and preoccupied I had been. I hate that. I hate that she suffered through her fears about being pregnant alone. That’s why it took her so long to take the test. That’s why she hid it from me.

  Today is Christmas. And Logan would have been two years old today.

  It’s so bittersweet. I miss my son. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him. Wonder about him. Would he have had Kelly’s blonde hair and brown eyes or my brown hair and blue eyes? What sorts of things would he like. Elmo? Mickey Mouse? What would be his favorite books? Favorite toys?

  Kelly was upset with me that I had to work today. Last year, I was still in school and I was on break. So we sat together and mourned him. We couldn’t do that today.

  I tried to get the day off, but I’m an intern and it’s practically impossible to take a day off, especially a holiday. But I was able to switch the last of my shift so now I’m on my way home to Kelly.

  I bought her things. So many things. For her. Just for her.

  I can’t stop buying things for Kelly.

  One of the things is a diamond necklace. I remember her eyeing it in a store window we passed on one of our walks a few weeks ago. So I bought it.

  I want to buy things for Grace, but Kelly says no. She says it’s bad luck.

  Fine. I can wait.

  I smile the entire ride up the elevator and once I’m unlocking the front door, I smile even bigger at the Christmas tree I put up. We didn’t do one last year, but this year feels like hope.

  That is until I hear the sound.

  It’s the sort of sound that has you freezing in your place so that you can ensure you heard it correctly. But once I do, I know something is wrong. Kelly is groaning. And screaming.

  Oh God. No!

  My keys slip out of my hands and my bag falls to the floor next to them. I sprint across the apartment until I burst through our bedroom door. And then I freeze again. Because Kelly is in fact screaming. But it’s not in pain. It’s in pleasure.

  She is naked, her head thrown back, her eyes closed and her mouth agape. Her large round belly is slick with a sheen of sweat. Beneath her…well, I haven’t even gotten that far.

  Because my world just stopped.

  My heart is breaking as I stand here watching my pregnant wife fuck another man in our bed on the anniversary of our son’s death.

  “Kelly?”

  Her eyes open and her chin drops and her eyes find mine, wide and unblinking. “Oh no, Finn.”

  The guy beneath her jumps back, covering himself with my four-thousand-thread-count sheets. I can’t look at him, though I’m positive in the brief half second that I did, I recognized him. “What the fuck?” I yell.

  Kelly gets on her knees, covering her large naked body with the blanket and then her head drops. “I’m sorry, Finn, but it’s probably better you find out about this now.”

  “Find out?” I’m baffled. None of this makes sense to me. “How long has this been going on.”

  “A year.” She can’t even meet my eyes. A year? How is that even possible? How is it possible for Kelly to have been fucking another man for a year and I not know about it? “I’m so sorry, Finn.”

  I want to tell her to stop saying she’s sorry because the words are meaningless, but all I can think about right now is Grace. Yet, I can’t bring myself to speak her name, so instead I stammer, “The baby?”

  “Is not yours.”

  I jolt back. Like I’ve been shot. Because that is exactly what this feels like. Searing, agonizing pain right through the center of my chest, spreading throughout my entire body. “How do you know that? How can you possibly know that?” I scream at her.

  “I had a test,” she whispers contrite. “I had that needle test.”

  “A chorionic villus sampling?”

  “Yes,” she says slowly, her eyes finally brave enough to find mine.

  How did I not know about this? How could she have hidden that from me all this time?

  What the fuck is happening right now?

  “So you’ve known about this since you were what? Fourteen weeks?” She nods and my vision sways in and out. Instinctively I reach back, grasping onto the door. I don’t know how to make sense of this moment. All of my moments are with Kelly. “Grace,” I say her name and my heart splinters, shattering into a million tiny pieces. “You let me name her, Kelly. You let me go with you to every doctor’s appointment I could. I sat there for the ultrasound and held your goddamn hand when we found out she’s a girl. I painted her room. I built her crib. You let me fall in love with that baby, with being her father, and you knew she wasn’t mine?”

  Kelly is crying now. And the piece of shit who was fucking my wife in my bed on the day my son died is just sitting there, silently watching us.

  He’s the father of my baby.

  I want to kill him, but he’s not the problem. Kelly is. Because she just took everything I’ve ever loved away from me. Everything I had left. I had nothing before her. She gave me herself and then Logan and Grace. And now they’re all gone a
nd I have nothing again.

  “How could you do that to me?”

  “I’m so sorry,” she says again.

  “Stop fucking saying that!” I bellow at the top of my lungs. “How could you lie to me for eight months? For a year? How could you let me believe she was mine? That you were mine?”

  “I didn’t know how to tell you,” she sobs. “You were so excited about the baby and every time I tried, I just…lost my nerve.”

  Lost her nerve? What the motherfuck?

  “When were you going to tell me? After she was born and I was holding her in my arms? Were you going to wait until the moment you saw just how much I love her and then kill me for good?”

  Kelly had done so much to heal me after my childhood. After my father. Our marriage had been my rock. My one stronghold against it all. The one thing I clung to. Especially after we lost Logan. And now?

  Kelly just cries and cries and the guy actually moves to comfort her. Like she’s the one who needs it right now. He’s one of the lawyers she used to work with, I realize. And this almost makes me want to laugh. Because this piece of shit is the father of my child. He’s getting my wife and my baby and I’m losing everything.

  I lost my son. I’m losing my wife and my daughter.

  Kelly lied to me for a year. She’s been screwing another man for a year. She became pregnant with his baby and allowed me to believe it was mine.

  I have nothing left in me.

  Thank you, Kelly. Thank you for reminding me that love is a fallacy, happiness an illusion and trust a misconception.

  I will never make the mistake of believing in any of them again. Never.

  Chapter 33

  Finn

  Present Day

  I leave Gia’s apartment, hating myself just a little more with each step I take. I have no answer for why I provoked that fight. No reason for why everything in my mind went south the moment she stepped into Ophelia’s bar. She’s right, I invited her there.

  But the second she stepped into that bar, and I felt the familiar ache in my chest at seeing her, it all just became too much. The time of year. The Christmas party dress she bought. The fact she’s with another man who isn’t me. The fact I know she wants to be with me and isn’t because I don’t know how to trust anyone anymore.

  Every little piece of it began to pile up on top of me until I was buried under it. Under the avalanche. All I could think about as she approached me was standing up and pulling her into my arms and kissing her until she had no choice but to belong to me. The need was crushing.

  But it was more than that.

  It was paralyzing.

  I trust Gia. I believe that she cares for me. I believe that she may in fact love me.

  But so did Kelly.

  I never doubted Kelly’s love for me. Even after it all ended. I knew she had loved me at one point. But I also knew she had stopped. Somewhere along the way, after we lost Logan and I started my internship and life generally sucked for us as a couple, I lost her.

  But it’s not like Kelly ripped out my insides in your typical fashion. She did it with flair. With charisma. She made sure the job was done right.

  After I walked out of our apartment, with nowhere to go and a great big vacuous hole in my chest, I promised myself I was done. I mean, what the fuck good had love ever done for me? My father was a world-class bastard. Not just physically abusive, but mentally. Psychologically. He’d find just the perfect way to make you believe that he actually gave a shit before he’d rip the rug out from under you. And my mother? Please. She was just as bad. Sure she didn’t hit me, but she didn’t stop him and she never cared when I was bleeding and crying on the floor.

  In fact, sometimes, she just walked away. Pretended like she never saw me like that.

  So when Kelly came along, I absorbed all the love she was offering me, like a sponge. I needed it. I craved it. I went to tremendous lengths to keep it. Because at the end of the day, it felt like all I had. Like her love was the dividing line between being an actual human with real human emotions and wholly indifferent to that spectrum.

  I never wanted to be the latter.

  The moment I checked myself alone into that hotel room, I felt it. I felt myself becoming something dark. Something cold-blooded and hateful. Sure, I promised I’d never love again. That’s sort of the thing to do when you’re in that situation. When your wife uses your heart as a trampoline.

  But I honestly hoped I wouldn’t keep that promise. I hoped that one day, I’d find someone I was capable of loving. If for no other reason than to keep me alive.

  Then I met Gia.

  The moment I saw her, I knew. I just fucking knew. She was that person. And in that moment, I was grateful for her. It’s why I went outside to talk to her. It’s why I was sweet and sympathetic and even flirty despite the inauspicious circumstances of her father’s death.

  But hell, it was the first time any light had dared to venture into my dark world in such a long time. It’s why after she walked away, I thought about her. Imagined her.

  Then she walked back into my life like a shining star, bright and fiery hot and so goddamn spectacular that there is no other word to describe her. I couldn’t stay away. And shit, did I try. In so many ways and so many times. I fell in love with Gia without even having to try. It was easier than falling.

  Falling in love is a misnomer. When you fall, you hit the ground. Gravity takes over. It’s pure physics. There is no hitting the ground with her. There is no bottom with this. No end. No base.

  I told Gia that I love her. I don’t think she was all that shocked really, but I still said it. And I kissed her. Again. I kissed that sweet, luscious mouth which tastes like home and feels like heaven. Then I lied to her when I told her that’s all I would ever give her. Like we could just have sex and nothing more.

  Fucking asshole!

  I knew that would end it for her. I knew that would be the deciding moment where she finally got rid of me. I did it to force her hand, because there was no way I was ever going to be strong enough to tell her goodbye. She makes me so weak and yet so strong.

  She’s built me back, piece by piece. Even if those pieces still have holes in them, I’m more complete with her than I’ve been in three years. Hell, in my entire life. The love I have for her is blinding.

  But do I want to be blind again?

  I missed so much. All of the warning signs with Kelly.

  All the different ways she deceived me.

  Turning the corner, I run my fingers through my hair, tugging on the end and growling out. People passing by must think I’m crazy, but I could give a shit what anyone thinks of me. Except Gia. What have I done to her? I should go back. I should go back and fix this because she’s never going to speak to me again.

  And then what will I do?

  Could I do this with her? Could I try for her?

  Christ, I want to. I haven’t wanted to try anything with anyone in three years, but I want to with her. She might just be worth the risk.

  Because when I’m with her, I forget the rest. I forget the pain and the past. I forget she has the power to annihilate me. I get swept up in her and nothing else matters.

  What the hell have I done?

  I’m going back. That’s it. Man the fuck up, Finn.

  And suddenly, that thought has me smiling. It fills me with a sense of calm. A sense of…right.

  Spinning back around, I slam directly into someone. The force of the impact knocks them off balance and they begin to teeter back. Instinctively I reach out to grab them, grasping onto their arm and pulling them back up.

  “I’m so sorry,” I apologize quickly, but when I focus in on the person I just smacked into, my hand instantly drops back down to my side. My stomach sinks.

  “Finn?” Kelly says, her brown doe-like eyes wide. Startled. Apprehensive.

  We stare at each other for a moment and I realize the last time I saw Kelly was when she
was naked, fucking another man in our bed on the anniversary of our son’s death. But then I notice the movement by her side and my eyes cascade down to see a little girl. Long white-blonde hair and big brown eyes and red chubby cheeks and a pink dress and I’m choking on my grief.

  “Mommy?” she says, clearly uneasy with who this man is that is now staring at her.

  “It’s okay, Gracie,” Kelly soothes, pulling her in closer to her side.

  Gracie. Grace. Kelly named the daughter that is not mine, Grace.

  The name I picked out.

  I wonder if she’s sleeping in the room I painted. In the crib, I built. In the apartment, I once owned. But I imagine she’s too old for that crib. She’s close to three. And now that I turn my attention back over at Kelly, I notice she’s pregnant. Maybe about six months along. My eyes instantly water, but I can’t look away from them.

  How could you do this to me, Kelly? How could you take this away from me?

  “How are you, Finn?” Kelly asks softly, unable to handle my silent staring anymore. “You look well.”

  Is that a joke? I can’t tell if that’s a joke or not. All I can focus on is the pain.

  I want to run from it. Hide from it. Like I used to do when I was a little boy and my father would come home drunk from the club and beat me because I was there.

  Forcing myself to pry my eyes away from the little girl who is not mine, I look at Kelly. She has tears in her eyes too. She swallows hard and shakes her head. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers and I choke down the tormented spasm strangling me.

  Kelly squeezes Grace’s chubby hand a little tighter like she’s afraid I might try grab her and run off, and then she steps around me and walks away as quickly as Grace’s small legs can go.

  I don’t know how long I stand here, picturing them in my head. Hours maybe, because now it’s very dark out and the streets are thinning out and I’m completely frozen through. Blinking back into focus, I notice I’m two buildings down from Gia’s.

  Gia.