She inhaled raggedly. Troy had somehow soured on her. He had given up on her; she could see it in his body language. Resignation was stamped all over him. This had never ever happened before.
"I was meaning to talk to you about the house in Pedro among other things, but that is unimportant now." He cleared his throat.
"The house?" She latched onto that. She had wanted to ask about the other unimportant things but she knew from experience that she was not going to get anything from him if he didn't want to share.
"What's wrong with the house?"
"Nothing." Troy shrugged. "The lease is up this month. Remember, we leased it for six years a week before we got married. It is six years now."
"Yes, it is." Chelsea suddenly felt awkward talking in the open foyer. She wondered if he wasn't going to offer to show her around or at least have them sit down in the open living room area.
He was just standing there, his legs apart, his hands in his pockets like any minute now he was going to say goodbye. He was looking at her almost dispassionately, like she was some unwanted stranger that he needed to tie up loose ends with and then kick her out.
The thought sent Chelsea into a panic. She didn't want to leave. She wanted to talk. She wanted them to work things out with the same intensity with which she had wanted them to part.
The little boy came to the top of the stairs and looked down.
"Excuse me, Dad."
Troy looked up. "Yes, Todd."
"Can I go over to TJ’s with Dahlia now?"
"Yes, sure." Troy nodded. "Faye will take you."
"TJ?" Chelsea asked.
"Neighbors. Joy and Corey Saunders. They have three children, one of them a girl the same age as Dahlia. This evening they are having a tea party. I promised I would send Todd and Dahlia over. Faye is going with them."
"Okay," Chelsea said weakly. A simple statement of facts, which just highlighted that he had a life without her.
They stood staring at each other for a while. She was the first to look away. "This is a lovely place."
He inclined his head and didn't say anything.
"So, I should be going then."
Troy still looked at her.
"What?" She was forced to ask after his long assessment.
"The furniture and other stuff that's at the house—you should do something about them. I cleared out my stuff yesterday."
"You did?" Chelsea's voice trembled a bit. Why did that sound so final?
"Yes. Just left your things." Troy moved from his stiff stance in front of her when the children came downstairs. Faye herded them through the door and then they were alone.
"Can I at least sit down?" Chelsea asked. Her voice had lost its confidence under Troy's nonchalant, baleful stare.
"No," Troy said huskily. "I don't want you sitting in my house, Chelsea. We are not friends. We are barely married. I don't know what we are anymore, really."
"Why are you acting like this?" Chelsea asked, her heart thudding in her throat.
"You’ve found somebody else, haven't you?" Troy said, still in a calm dispassionate voice.
"No!" Chelsea gasped. "Where did you get that from?"
Troy inhaled roughly. "I have never known you to be a liar."
"I am not." Chelsea's voice trembled.
"So what is Kadeem to you then?" Troy's voice was clipped. "What is he Chelsea, a fling to get back at me for something I did when we were in one of your little neurotic phases in college where you blew hot or cold at will? You are something else, you know that?"
He wasn't calm anymore. Chelsea backed toward the door.
"You are immature and selfish and downright confusing. And yet you had the gall to accuse me of being a ‘Scarlett Sinner?’" Troy laughed bitterly. "Well, Chelsea, I should say look in the mirror. And what are you doing here today, anyway? Suddenly acting like you want to talk—you have been avoiding me for the past year. You have been acting as if you hate me and now you want to sit and talk as if you care."
"I do care! Troy, listen to me," Chelsea pleaded. "I am not in a relationship with Kadeem...I was just...I sort of...listen, this is not coming out right. I was..." She hung her head. "Troy, I am not having a fling."
"Just sex in his villa?" Troy said rawly.
"No!" Chelsea shouted.
"You are right; it does hurt to think about the person that you loved being with somebody else."
Loved. Chelsea heard the use of the past tense and her heart sank like a stone.
"Troy, let me explain."
Troy looked at her thunderously. "No. Get out."
"People make mistakes," Chelsea started talking feverishly, "like you made a mistake with Erin, except I didn't go that far. I didn't."
Her lips trembled. "I went to his villa. It was raining. I had my clothes in his dryer. We kissed. I couldn't go through with it, he wasn't you."
Troy held the door open for her. "How does it feel, Chelsea, when somebody is giving you their version of a story and the door gets slammed in your face?"
Chelsea walked over the threshold, her shoulders slumped. She tensed, waiting for the door to be slammed but it didn't.
She looked back.
Troy was hanging there uncertainly. "I loved you, you know." He said it so softly she could barely hear. "But you can't fit into my life now, Chels. I think about it and I can't see how."
Her lips trembled at the use of the diminutive form of her name.
"I have Todd. He is my child. I can't deny him a space in my life, not for you. Maybe I would have a couple of months ago, before I knew him. before he was real to me, but now I can't. And you, you hate him because of Erin. So even though I am torn up by your behavior lately, I know it’s over."
Tears sprang to Chelsea's eyes. "But it doesn't have to be like this."
"Yes, it does." Troy sighed. "Too much has gone on now. What do you expect me to do? Lock Todd in the basement and only let him out when you are not around?"
"No, I didn't say that."
"I come with baggage now, Chels." Troy looked at her with sorrow lighting his eyes. "And unfortunately, so do you now. I can't get those pictures out of my head. You speak of feeling betrayed; imagine what I am going through right now."
He closed the door softly.
Somehow that hurt more than a slam.
Chapter Sixteen
Chelsea spent all weekend in the Pedro house; ironically, the place she had run from a couple of months ago was now her place of refuge. Troy had left all their mutual furniture behind: the writing desk that the two of them had so lovingly restored. The new refrigerator and stove were still there. He had only taken his things, as he had said, except for two boxes of books in the hallway that had his old Master’s degree textbooks.
Chelsea packed up her things as best as she could and then had a good cry in the middle of the living room floor.
You can't fit into my life now, Chels kept ringing in her ears. How did it come to this? She was the one who was all fired up to divorce Troy and to forge a life without him, and now he was the one telling her that they couldn't work.
She didn't dislike the little boy…Todd, she corrected in her head quickly. She didn't hate him. That was ridiculous. She had a right to protest his existence, though. She had done so; now she was over it. Maybe she could love him in the future.
And maybe she couldn't. She couldn't even think of loving him in her own thoughts.
She looked up at the cobwebbed ceiling in the half-light. Maybe Troy was right and she couldn't fit into his life anymore, not with the child.
But she still loved her husband.
It's just that when she thought of that child she felt a cloud of injustice and hurt. She really needed to stop being so erratic with her feelings. Troy had called her neurotic.
And he didn't love her anymore. She cringed at the thought. She had really killed it this time. It was a good thing that she hadn't suggested that he was having an affair with Faye, as she had thought. He would h
ave called her distrustful and paranoid.
She heard a key turning in the door and she jumped up from the rug where she was laying. Her heart was beating fearfully. She looked around for something to defend herself with. She could find nothing but the television remote, so she picked it up and went dashing behind the settee.
"Chelsea, I can see your head top," Troy called from the door. "And your car is outside."
Chelsea looked up. "It's you!"
Troy grunted. "Yes, came for my books."
"Oh." She brushed herself off.
"What are you doing here?" Troy asked. His voice was neither pleasant or unpleasant. Somehow that gave her a little spark of hope. It emboldened her.
"Packing."
Troy nodded. "Don’t let me keep you."
"Wait. Don't leave yet." She straightened up, wishing that she had worn something better-looking than her jeans and yellow t-shirt with the stretched-out neck. She hadn't exactly been thinking about visitors.
"So how is it going?"
"Fine." Troy leaned on the wall. "And you?"
"Hating this conversation like we are strangers," Chelsea said wryly.
"Yeah, it's weird. We probably know each other too well to pretend."
"You are right." Chelsea sat down in the settee and looked at him in the silence, and then a bright idea occurred to her. "Let’s do it, though."
"What?" Troy asked. He had been reluctant to move from where he was. He was content to stand there and drink her in. She looked like the Chelsea of university, with her hair pulled back in a high ponytail and in their house color.
Their house had been the Vanguards, and they had won every year in their time. Chelsea had been queen of tracks, winning every year without fail in the 100 to 400 meters.
The thought brought a smile to his face. He remembered Chelsea preparing for the sports day as if it were life and death, waking up in the still hours of the morning, coming to his house in the still, dark night for him to train with her.
That was the thing with her; she didn't do anything by half measures. She either totally loved or totally hated.
"Let’s pretend that we just met," Chelsea said, hope blossoming in her chest. Maybe they could recover something of what they had.
Troy raised an eyebrow. "I am listening."
"You are the guy who used to live here and you are coming for your books and I am the girl who still lives here packing up to leave."
Troy gave her a half smile. "No baggage?"
"No baggage. Perfect strangers," Chelsea said softly.
Troy straightened up from the wall. "I guess I could do that. I mean, it would be super weird since we are planning to end our marriage."
"No," Chelsea swallowed, "let’s not think about that. Let’s take this one day at a time.
Troy frowned and came closer. He stood looking down at her and then hunkered down to her level. "Who are you and what have you done to Chelsea?"
"I am Chelsea." She inhaled. "Last Saturday night taught me a couple of things."
"Last Saturday night...when you cheated on me with Kadeem Virgo?" Troy said softly.
"Well..." Chelsea bit back the protest, "yes, if you want to call it cheating."
"It is cheating, Chels," Troy said softly. "You are in a commitment to me; you vowed to forsake all others. You were half-naked in a hotel room with a guy who told me when I went to your office the other day that you were good in bed."
Chelsea closed her eyes and swallowed convulsively. "It is not true."
"Actually, it is. " Troy reached out his hand and traced her lips slowly. "You are good in bed. We were good together."
He lowered his hand and inhaled raggedly. "I miss you. I miss us together. I miss having a wife and not just for sex." He smiled at her faintly. "Though I miss that like crazy. You are a handful, but at least I knew you were my handful exclusively."
"Troy..." Chelsea squirmed under his accusing gaze. "It was just a kiss."
"No, it wasn't." Troy shook his head and then he sat down at her feet, facing away from her. "Usually it starts in the head, you know—you become curious, you ask yourself what would being with that person feel like, and then it mushrooms in your head and you entertain it and you cherish it. When the opportunity presents itself you take it, and then you shrug it off as something that just happened. You convince yourself that you lost your mind. The truth is, it was already at the back of your head. What you did was give in to that mind that you claimed you lost.
"It doesn't just happen. It happened already when you thought about it. That's why when we pray we ask God to forgive us for our thoughts. If you subdue those thoughts, you win half the battle. Otherwise..."
"Was that how it was with you and Erin?" Chelsea forced herself to ask.
Troy looked at her unblinkingly for several seconds. "Yes, I thought about it over and over for the three days when we hung out together. I decided that I wasn't with you anymore I could do whatever I wanted with a girl who would probably not say no.
"I had never really been attracted to anybody else since you and I were together, and then you told me that it was over for good. You even gave me back all of my gifts in a box."
Chelsea closed her eyes, the images of that mad day running around in her head. "I remember. I was so mad that day. Erin set me up as usual."
"Because you gave her power," Troy murmured. "You allowed her in your head and she is still in there, isn't she?"
"Yes," Chelsea said. "There are just some people that have messed with you so much that you can't dismiss them as easily as you would want to. They are just there, and nobody else will get it unless it happened to them.
"That girl created scar tissue. She messed with my personality. I started distrusting people and second-guessing the motives of everyone I came into contact with. I was never this paranoid until she came into my life.
"There was a time when she started this rumor that I was sleeping with men for money and I was the one who introduced her to it."
Troy sighed.
"That didn't work out because everybody knew that my father was wealthy enough that I didn’t have to do that, and the rumors were laughed away. She decided to mess with my academic records, and all the time she had no shame in trying to befriend me and feed me breadcrumbs of doubt about my relationship with you. She was a wicked person."
Chelsea was getting worked up again. "And yet you were attracted to her because of her big tits, weren't you?"
Troy shook his head. "Not just her tits. She was completely different with me. I doubted that what you were saying was right at the time. Besides, you were the bad one by then. You kept coming up with creative ways to tell me it was over, while on the other hand Erin was sweet and helpful, and we went to a charity car wash thing together and John Joseph’s after-exam party. I didn't love her, Chels. She was my rebellion girl."
"But you have her son," Chelsea said tiredly. It was as if talking about Erin had sapped her strength. "And you want me to miraculously love him too."
"Could you?" Troy asked softly.
"Maybe. I don't know." Chelsea sniffed. He reached for her hand and held it tightly.
"About you and Kadeem..."
"There is no me and Kadeem," Chelsea said hastily. "I still don't understand how you got pictures of the two of us."
"Yuri thinks Ricky sent them."
"But why? This doesn't make any sense to me." Chelsea spread her hands helplessly. "Sometimes I wonder if it's Yuri who is obsessed with Ricky or the other way around."
"You have to stop working for Ricky." Troy urged. He fit one of her hands into his, interlacing their fingers, and then squeezed them together.
Chelsea shook her head. "I don't think so. It is my first real job. Why should I give it up because of Yuri's theory?"
Troy got up and leaned over her. He looked into her eyes. He was so close.
"Chels," his voice lowered to a hoarse whisper, "you are going to quit that job."
"No," she whimpere
d. A surge of excitement had her feeling quivery from the top of her head to her toes. His lips were coming down to hers rapidly. She tensed up in anticipation.
"Yes, you are." Troy claimed her lips before she could protest.
She wrapped her hands around his neck and held him close to her. She missed this. She missed being so close to him, being in his arms and feeling safe.
He pulled back and she moaned, "No."
"Yes," Troy murmured. "You are going to quit that job tomorrow and then we can pretend that we just met, as you suggested. I am sorry, but I don't date women who work for Ricky Mills."
"Troy, come on," Chelsea moaned. "This is so unfair."
"Those are the terms," Troy said, heading for the door. "Besides, I'd feel much more comfortable if you were not in the same office with the guy you almost had sex with."
"You are not going to let me forget that, are you?" Chelsea moaned.
"Forget what? That you cheated on me?" Troy asked seriously. "No, not anytime soon. It’s my defense whenever you bring up Erin again. You are the one who actually cheated. "
Chapter Seventeen
Chelsea went into work on Monday morning dressed to the hilt in her most professional suit, a black and white pinstripe outfit that made her feel as if she was in charge of her job and her life. The suit fit her as if it was tailored just for her. Her hair was in a high chignon, scraped back from her face in a fierce hairstyle. Anyone looking at her now would think that she was a no-nonsense, independent woman who had a firm handle on the happenings in her life.
Which was not exactly true. She had stayed up all night after packing up her stuff and had thought about it. Troy wanted her to give up her job. Troy wanted her to love and take care of Todd and be his mother. He may not have said it, but it was implied.
She didn't know if she wanted to do that. Why was she the one doing all the sacrificing here?
Her job. Even though some days could be beastly, she enjoyed it. Why should she quit on Troy's say-so. And her prejudice against Erin and by extension Erin's son—she didn't want to screw up the young boy’s life forever by resenting him and making him feel bad because of his mother.
Scarlett Sinner (The Scarletts Page 11
