by Ana Balen
I finally do the right thing.
Before going to bed to close myself off and cry, I set up the lunch meeting with Mr. Matthews so we can discuss the details of the job I just took.
Chapter Six
Nick
“Beth, please tell Heather to come into my office,” I release the button of the intercom waiting for Beth to tell me she’s coming in.
I’m anxious, restless. I haven’t seen her for the last three days and nights.
The days, it was my fault since I had meetings all over the town.
The nights, she blew me off saying she either was tired or didn’t feel well or she had somewhere to be.
When she told me she’d tired and didn’t feel well, that she thought she’s getting a cold I was already on my way to the door to go to her, to take care of her. But then, she said I should think of Ben and she didn’t want me to catch whatever she had and have my son in danger of being also sick. So I said okay.
But when she said she had a previous engagement, that, well, that put me on edge.
Who was she seeing?
Was she tired of me and my situation that quickly?
I never made her any promises and she never asked for one, but I was getting tired of this sneaking around thing we had going on. I wanted to be with her out in the open every chance I got.
That day at the Zoo with Ben, all I could think of is, she should have been with us. Having fun with us. She belonged with me.
She was mine.
And that day I started to think of cutting all my ties with Claire and trying to have a real go with Heather.
The way she was in the morning, all confused and sleepily walked around but still in all that got me my coffee, asked how I slept, or when I would make breakfast for us and her eyes would be full of wonder and her soft thank yous she gave me, just because I did something millions of people did all over the world each and every morning. Or her random texts asking how I am, asking if I needed anything or just to simply say she’s thinking of me. Her whispered words while she described her dreams and hopes for her future in the dead of the night, almost scared of how I would react to it. That and so much more simple, little things that made her just the way she is, told me that she’s the woman for me. Only thing that managed to put a cold feeling in my gut, leaving me with this bitter taste in my mouth is that when each and every time she did any of those things there would be fear lurking behind her eyes.
Fear of will I be there with her.
Fear that I won’t share that with her.
Fear that I’ll leave her.
There wasn’t any doubt in my mind that we would make it, that she was the woman for me.
And I desperately wanted to talk to her about it.
I needed her to know I was ready. I was ready to take that first step and any other that came next as long as she was mine.
The fact that Claire cornered me this morning in the kitchen when I came in to give my boy a kiss before I took off for work helped to solidify my decision.
For the last four weeks she greeted me with the same thing, “We need to talk, Nick.” And while I agreed with her, we did, I just didn’t know what exactly I wanted to tell her. So, I pushed it for later.
When she still wouldn’t leave me be, I lost it and in front of Ben, with as much of malice I could muster, I asked her, “How much do you need this time? Huh?”
She just kept looking at me with her mouth open, her eyes open wide. It would be comical if it wasn’t so tiring.
Over and over again, the same tune from her.
She acted all sweet or would try to bullshit me, she’s trying to change and the moment I let my guard down, she struck me with a number. A number of dollars she wanted that time.
“Answer me!” I roared making Ben jump in his seat, his little bottom lip wobbling and tears pooling in his eyes. Immediately, I crouched down and whispered, “I’m so sorry, buddy. I didn’t mean to yell. Daddy’s just tired.”
Giving him one final kiss, I looked to my wife, the cold running through my veins and told her, “When you figure out how much you want, you know how to reach me, or better yet, just call Beth and she’ll give me the message.“ And with that I turned and walked away from them.
I was ready to move on.
And I would do anything humanly possible to keep my son with me.
And I would never stop before I got what I wanted.
There was no way in Hell Claire would take him away from me.
But for the last three days, I didn’t get a chance to talk to Heather and tell her what I wanted.
I didn’t get the chance to even hold her in my arms, or to sleep beside her. From the moment she let me enter her apartment; there was no other place I wanted to be.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” Beth’s tentative voice fills my office through the speaker. “Heather’s not in. She’s on the lunch meeting with Mr. Matthews.”
“What’s she doing with him? We closed that deal months ago.” I ask.
“I don’t know, Sir. Oh..” the startled sound comes from the speaker, but before I can ask if she’s okay, she rushes to tell me. “Sir, your wife...” the last of her words are drowned out by a loud bang of the door against the wall. The woman in question is standing on the threshold with a strange look on her face.
“I got it, Beth,” I sigh not taking my eyes from her. “Thank you.” I don’t know when the last time was I did it, but right now I’m praying. Praying that He would give me the patience so I wouldn’t strangle the woman who made my life a living Hell. “What do you want Claire?” I don’t want her here. I don’t have the patience or the time to deal with her bullshit. I have to find out what the hell is going on with Heather.
She turns and closes the door. “We need to talk, Nick,” she murmurs softly.
Her tone has me on edge momentarily, “Is it Ben?”
“No,” she sighs and starts walking to my desk. Then she sits in the chair in front of it, the one Heather always sits in and that irritates more than anything she’s ever done. She has no right sitting there. She has no right coming into my office on a whim.
But the fact she hasn’t once looked at me after she closed the door or the fact she didn’t start ranting or demanding something right off the bat fills me with dread.
Something’s wrong.
“Claire, tell me. Is it Ben?”
“As I said, no, it’s not Ben,” again with the soft words. Fuck, what the hell is going on?
“Then what?” I’m almost too afraid to ask.
“It’s me,” she says in her soft tone and finally looks at me and, fuck me, there’s tears in her eyes.
When I don’t say anything, just look at her stunned, she goes on and tilts my world filling me with more guilt than I ever thought is possible one man can ever feel.
Goddamnit, Claire.
What the fuck do I do now?
Chapter Seven
Nick
I open the door to my apartment and darkness greets me.
How suitable.
Every time I step foot in it, I feel like I’m stepping into a nightmare.
My nightmare from which I can’t seem to wake up.
The only light that usually shines through is now fast asleep.
Dumping my keys into the extravagant bowl on the round table that sits in front of the door I take my coat off and just throw it over the chair that’s in the corner.
My every move is echoed. It highlights the feeling of solitude that lives in me for over three years now. It went away for a little bit, but since Heather is pulling away from me, I couldn’t get in touch with her and later I didn’t even try and Claire landed her bombshell in my office today, it’s coming back with even more force now.
Sighing I rub my face with my hands and go to my room to lie down and hopefully find some sleep.
*~*~*
I’m seeing a therapist.
The money, it all goes to my parents, they’re broke.
My bro
ther is gambling again, and I have to pay his debts or he would get kill.
Help me, Nick.
I’ve been depressed since I gave birth to Ben.
I have never seen Claire so broken.
So helpless.
She’s been trying to talk to me for some time now, but every time I dangled more money in her face just to leave me alone. And the situation that her family had put her in, demanded that she took it.
She’s been all alone, trying to fix everything.
I sat in my office and listened to every word that she said, but all I could think of is that I failed her.
I failed the woman I married, the one I promised I would protect.
She didn’t even try to wipe her tears away.
For the first time, she wasn’t picture perfect without a hair out of its place.
She was the woman who was drowning, and it showed.
I’ve severed all contact with them.
I’m left all alone.
Each and every word coming out of her mouth lashed at my skin.
Each tear was a salt to my wound.
I need you.
I miss you.
I miss us.
She didn’t give me a chance to hold her.
She didn’t give me a chance to tell her I’m here, that everything will be alright.
She said what she came to say and left me.
Just as she did every day.
Only now I knew I had to go to her.
I had to be there for my wife.
She needed me.
After the door behind Claire clicked softly, echoing around the still silence that was my company, visions of Heather came.
And I was met with an impossible choice.
*~*~*
“What are you doing here?” I whisper knowing she can’t hear me.
She’s fast asleep.
Watching her like this, her hands under the pillow, one leg thrown over the covers, her guard down. The disdain she shows every second of the day cast away. I can almost see the girl who I met and to whom I kept coming back over and over foolishly thinking I had it all in my control and I didn’t have any feelings for her. The woman I married. The mother of my son.
Carefully sitting down on the edge of my bed, I let the memories of who she was, who we were, roll in my head.
“I don’t know what to do anymore, Claire,” extending my hand, I watch the tip of my finger as it glides over her face, brushing her hair away from her face with belated breath.
God, this is the first time I touched my wife in over a year. She wouldn’t let me do it if she was awake, going so far as to flinch away from my touch. What hurts the most, I realize I missed it.
I miss her smell, I miss her skin, I miss her smile, her laugh, her enjoyment of everything I had to give her, her belief in me.
I just miss her.
Not the way she is now, but the woman I fell in love with.
And then just as rapidly that this realization came, comes the vision of Heather.
Heather in my shower in the office, the first time I’d seen her. All of her.
Heather on her knees under my desk.
Heather pressed against the wall of windows in my office, me moving in her.
Heather telling me she loves me for the first time.
Heather saying good morning to me with her eyes still closed and a small smile playing at her lips.
Heather smiling, dancing with me in her living room, laughing at me because of something I did or said, her soft look while she talked on the phone with her friend, her hopeful one while she did the same with her Dad.
And my heart starts beating faster.
“What do I do? How do I find a way to fix everything? How do I find a way out of this mess without hurting anyone?” Even before I finish my questions, I know the answers.
I can’t.
I have to choose.
And we’ll all be hurt.
Only thing I can do is shield Ben as much as possible so he would be spared of this clusterfuck I made. So he wouldn’t feel any consequences of my mess.
If someone asked me twenty-four hours ago to do it, to choose, I would do it in a heartbeat. I would choose Heather, consequences be damned, and prepared myself for the battle of my life to keep Ben. But after this morning, after hearing Claire saying she has been going to therapy for the last six months and that all this started with her postpartum depression and her family putting pressure on her and on top of it all, her anxiety because of the same people, but also because of me pushing her away when she tried to fix things, I don’t know.
I know nothing anymore.
How the fuck is it possible that I didn’t see what was going on with her? It never even crossed my mind that she could be struggling due to depression. She was and is always full of attitude, full of life. Somewhere along the lines it all changed and she started struggling, and I didn’t see it.
I can’t blame Heather for it, since she wasn’t even in my life around that time.
And there was no other woman that ever interested me, beside Claire, so I could put blame on her.
No, it’s all my fault.
I kept feeling sorry for myself for so long because I wasn’t sure in my wife, in my life choices, that I didn’t see that the woman I vowed to love and protect needed just that from me.
To love her.
To protect her.
From her family.
From herself.
From me.
How do I choose between two women I love?
As fucked up as it is, I love both of them.
It’s not all consuming, threatening to devour me if I don’t have her right this second, physically hurting when I’m not with her, like I do Heather. But, she’s Claire.
The one who stood by me when I was paving my way to the top.
The one who always was so full of life, pouring that energy in me when I wanted to call it quits.
The one who made me smile.
The one who made me a husband.
The one who made me a father.
The one who is my wife.
“I miss you too, doll,” I whisper my last confession using a nickname that I almost forgot. Her parting words of how she misses me have been running through me all day. Watching her sleep, finally at peace, I can’t believe I was so blind. I can’t believe how colossally I fucked everything up. I can’t believe I almost gave up on her.
Turning away from her, I put my forehead into my hands and follow the tie Heather bought me with my eyes as it dangles from my neck. “To have something of mine with you at all times,” she whispered in my ear before kissing my neck, turning and walking away from me.
“Fuck,” I sigh.
I guess I made my choice.
As if she heard my decision, as if to try and prove a point, to maybe change my mind, I feel her moving around in my bed. I don’t. I stay in my position waiting for what she’ll do. Will she jump out and run out of my bedroom? Will she start screaming at me for sitting down next to her?
Whatever I thought it would be, it’s not.
Her hand comes to my stomach, her nails scratching a little and her hot breath tickles my neck as she whispers, “Come to bed.”
Never in a million years would I think this would be what happens, but I don’t fight her.
I don’t fight the need that comes to life as soon as I turn my head and look into her eyes.
For once they’re not cold.
No.
After so many years there’s fire burning in their warm, brown depths.
“Claire,” I start but she shuts me up by kissing me, taking advantage of my open mouth, her tongue comes right in. She used to do this. She used to wait for her opportunity and cut me off mid-speaking just so she wouldn’t have to wait that millisecond for me to respond and give her access to my mouth. She went so far as to make it a game. I ended up waiting for it, waiting for the signs she would strike, and the game would be on. But she always m
anaged to get me off guard. And it always ended up spectacular. Goddamnit, the taste of her.
It’s like eating honey straight from the jar. And milk, fresh milk. She had dinner with Ben. As her tongue gently takes advantage of my surprise and plays lightly in my mouth, the fact I can taste her and get a glimpse of the woman I met, the woman I was once married to, fuels my desire. This is not the shallow, cold woman I’ve known for the last three years. No this is the one I had on our wedding night.
Groaning, I tilt my head and push my tongue into her mouth and follow her mouth right into bed, my hips coming momentarily between her legs, my crotch going right at the heart of her.
Her hands, slowly, as if she’s scared of my reaction come to the collar of my shirt, pulling the tie loose. “Are you sure?” Pulling back a little I ask her. I don’t want her to do something, she’ll come to regret in the harsh morning light.
“I’ve waited a long time for this,” hearing her words, I groan, not able to stop myself from grinding against her.
“Then lose the nighty, baby,” I say looking at her silk covered body in the moonlight. “It’s sweet, but it’s kind of in my way.”
Without any words being said, Claire takes of her nighty and panties in two swift movements. She puts her legs on either side of my hips, spreads them, her hand going to her pussy, her two fingers parting them to show me just how much she wants this.
“Damn, doll,” I whisper, my finger going to her clit then I move it down, going through her wet cunt all the way down to her asshole and then back up again. She knows I’m ready to play with her, teasing her, making her beg and that’s why she grips my wrist and shakes it so I’ll look at her.
“No teasing, Nick,” she whispers. “No foreplay. Later, you’ll get my mouth, I’ll sit on your face, you can fuck my tits. Hell, you can even fuck my ass. But right now, I need your cock inside me. I’m ready to come just by watching you watch me. If you even blow a single breath on my pussy, I will come. And I want to milk your cock dry. So, for the love of God, no teasing.” Throughout her little speech I started to get my clothes off, so when she’s done there’s nothing that will delay me.
