Regaining Trust Page 2

  “You love me.” He sounds as though he hasn’t expected me to say it ever again.

  I nod, back still turned to him. “But I don’t know if that’s enough. Sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Chapter 2

  I wake up early after sleeping fitfully for a few hours. It takes a second before the memory of yesterday’s event comes rushing back to me and assaults my senses. The smell of cum lingering in the air. My fiancé disheveled, used. The weird stretch-and-tuck someone does when putting his dick back into his pants.

  The memories of Frankie’s noises when he sucks me off superseding themselves on yesterday’s scene, making it far too easy for me to imagine what he would sound like with that guy’s dick down his throat. How his eyes would be turned up, begging for more. How his drool would have run down his face and neck.

  Did he wipe off his mouth with his sleeve after he was done or did the guy take care of him as I do? Did the guy kiss Frankie afterward, to taste himself on Frankie’s tongue? Did he whisper, “You’re so good at that, I love you?”

  No. That last part is me. All me.

  I fling my arm across my face and press the other hand to my belly, where a million angry mosquitoes are buzzing around, making me nauseous.

  Fuck. What am I supposed to do now?

  The instinct is to get up, pack my bags, and leave. He cheated on me. He had someone else’s dick in his mouth. But even so, the thought of leaving him makes the nausea even worse.

  I still love him. His actions didn’t magically change that from one moment to the next. My feelings for him are still there, as huge as ever, only banged up. Hurt. Betrayed. But the thought of living without him makes everything inside me seize up, drives a thorn through my heart, leaving me to bleed out on the floor. I guess that’s out of the question then.

  Forcing myself out of bed, I stumble into the kitchen, already knowing I’ll find Frankie awake; the scent of his tea—jasmine today, if I’m not mistaken—is wafting through the apartment like every morning.

  But it’s nothing like a regular morning. My bubbly fiancé, who always wakes up at the butt crack of dawn with a wide smile on his face and more energy than a toddler, sits quietly at the table. His gaze is locked on a spot on the wall and the circles around his eyes are so dark they look like he’s been punched.

  “Did you even sleep?” I mumble.

  My voice pulls him out of his stare. “No.” He doesn’t look at me. Instead, he gets to his feet and starts preparing my breakfast like he does every morning. On any other day before today, my yogurt and homemade granola would be served with a side of sunny smiles and honey-flavored kisses, but today, he moves slowly, as though his entire body is hurting.

  “I can make my own breakfast,” I say like I used to when we first moved in together and he started fixing my morning meal, in an attempt to break me out of my “morning zombie mode” a bit quicker. I didn’t want him to think I expected him to serve me like some fifties’ housewife, so I told him I could fend for myself. He waved my concerns away then, and he does the same now, even if the shake of his head is not much and his voice is no better.

  “Let me do this for you, Lawrence.”

  So I sit in my usual spot, next to his. The familiar scent of his still-steaming tea wraps itself around me, lulls me into a false sense of normalcy. As long as I keep my eyes on the table, on the things he sets out for me, I can still fool myself into thinking that this is a morning like any other.

  Until I lift my gaze and look at him.

  He’s hunched over, making himself smaller, keeping his eyes averted. All his colors are missing, his sounds are muted, his sparkle is snuffed out. It hurts me to look at him, to see him this miserable.

  When he’s about to retake his seat, he hesitates, as though he’s doubting he’s allowed to sit next to me. It’s just for a fraction of a second, but I notice, and set my foot on his chair so he won’t move it away. He sits, wrapping his long, strong fingers around his most cherished cup—his grandmother’s favorite that he inherited when she passed away—but he doesn’t drink from it. He just holds it up by his face, as though he, too, is clinging to the normalcy the scent of tea offers.

  I gobble the breakfast like a starved animal—I haven’t eaten since lunch yesterday—then I clean up after myself and put a pod in the coffee machine. The silence between us is so heavy, I’m convinced I could actually feel it underneath my fingers if I tried touching it. It’s pressing down on me, making it difficult to breathe.

  I miss the relaxed atmosphere of our mornings, I miss Frankie humming along to whatever’s playing on the radio, and I miss him fiddling around with the meal he’s preparing in the slow cooker for us to eat that day. I miss him teasing me about being dead and unresponsive in the mornings, and the way he always flings his arms around me and begs me for kisses before I head out for my pre-work run.

  At the same time, I can’t touch him. I can’t risk laying my hand on him, only to find out he feels different. Only to find out the spark between us has died because of this.

  So we sit stiffly next to each other, barely daring to breathe in fear of blowing up the volatile situation. For all my beliefs about open and honest communication, I suddenly have no words, no idea what to say to him. “Why?” seems so inadequate. And scary. What if the answer is, “because I don’t love you anymore”?

  What then?

  So I finish my coffee in silence, and when I put down my cup, he takes the initiative. He looks at me, brown eyes misty, mouth downturned, lower lips wobbly. “What happens now?” Voice shaky.

  “I don’t know, Franklin.”

  “Don’t!”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t call me Franklin. You never call me that. I’m Frankie. Your Frankie. Don’t…don’t push me away.”

  I rest my elbows on the table, hiding my face in my hands. “You pushed me away,” I mutter and press the heels of my hands hard against my eyes.

  “I didn’t push you away!”

  His denial hits me in the chest like a baseball bat, and I rear to my feet, fluttering my hands at my sides, trying to get rid of the rising agitation. “You sucked off some guy who wasn’t me. What do you call that if not pushing me away?”

  He shrinks under my gaze. “I swear to you it wasn’t.”

  “Then what the hell was it?” I run my fingers through my hair, grab handfuls and pull, wincing when it hurts. The iron band is back around my chest, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing until I’m afraid it’ll snap me in two.

  I barely hear Frankie’s reply. “Loneliness.”

  “What do you mean, loneliness?”

  Finally, he looks at me. “I’m lonely. You’re always working, always busy with a huge project or a new client. And I spend almost every night and most weekends without you. Sure, I have friends and a life, but I chose you for a reason. I love being with you and I miss you. Yesterday you were supposed to be here and you weren’t and someone touched me and…I’m not making excuses, really I’m not, but you asked what it was and it was loneliness. I was an idiot and it was wrong and I’m sorry, but I’m so lonely, Lawrence.” He taps a palm over his heart as though punctuating his point, and the taps grow harder and harder until it’s almost a slap.

  The huff fizzles out of me and I sit down. “I know I work a lot, but I do it for us. So that we can have a good life, a nice home.” I make a sweeping movement with my arm around the kitchen to prove my point. Yes, it’s small and our apartment is a bit cramped, but it’s in a good neighborhood, in a safe building, and it’s clean and well maintained. It’s a palace for me. My safe haven.

  “I don’t care about this!” He mimics my gesture. “I care about you. I care about us.”

  “I know you do. But having a nice, safe home is important.”

  “Not as important as having a meaningful relationship. Not as important as spending time with the one you love. I’d rather live in a shithole with you than be alone in this fancy apartment.”

  My spine snaps straight. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Don’t say that to me. Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot.”

  “I don’t. But you don’t know what it’s like.”

  “I know what it’s like to live with the love of my life and be so lonely it hurts. To lie awake at night and wonder if the reason you’re never home is that you don’t love me anymore.”

  He might as well have punched me. “What have I ever done to make you think that?”

  “I didn’t mean that. Really I didn’t. But you’re not here.” His voice is too loud in the kitchen, too loud for the early hour, too loud for my fractured heart.

  I jump to my feet, put another pod in the coffee machine, but I can’t stand still as I wait for it to brew. I pace the few steps back and forth in our tiny—but modern and gleaming—kitchen, the noise of the coffee maker too loud, my heartbeat too loud. I run my fingers through my hair and pull, pull, pull, a habit I’ve worked hard to break, but clearly haven’t succeeded.

  The noise in my head doesn’t quiet down after the coffee is done, so I continue to walk the short distance of our kitchen, my sight narrowed into a tiny pinprick, and I breathe and breathe and breathe until I’m stopped by someone standing in my way.

  No. Not someone.

  Frankie.

  I have to lock the muscles in my arms so they won’t reach out on their own accord and pull him into an embrace.

  “Hey,” he whispers as he slowly raises his arms as not to frighten me, wraps gentle fingers around my wrists and pulls carefully until I let go of my hair. When I’ve lowered my arms, he lets go. “Don’t shut me out. Don’t hurt yourself. Talk to me.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like.”

  “Please explain what you mean.”

  “To live in a shithole.”

  His hands twitch and his eyes burn a hole into me. I can feel him wanting to reach out, wanting to wrap his arms around me and coax me into talking. But the weary expression on his face tells me he doesn’t know if he has the right.

  I don’t know either.

  In the end, he hooks his index finger in mine and tugs. “Come with me, please.”

  I follow without resistance as he leads us to the couch. He sits in his usual spot and pats the cushion next to him. I plop my ass down at the far end and rest my elbows on my knees, hanging my head, staring a hole into the carpet.

  When I close my eyes, I see my mother’s disillusionment before me. The tired lines spreading around her eyes like cracks in broken glass, as though she would shatter any second. My first memory of her is a beaming smile, but it started to fade almost immediately until it disappeared completely, never to come back. I remember her crying at night, how she got thinner until she almost wasted away before our eyes because she ate so little while my dad was out drinking away what little money we had.

  I remember how the stars that used to twinkle in her eyes whenever she looked at Dad slowly lost their shine only to be replaced by weariness, resignation, and resentment.

  “Love dies in a shithole,” I finally mutter. “Not even the greatest romance can survive constantly worrying about having enough money to feed your kids, or that the utilities will be turned off. Love dies and all that’s left is yelling and throwing things and bitterness. You have no energy left to love someone when you haven’t eaten in days. Not your kids, definitely not your husband. All you can muster up the energy for is the necessities. Nothing as frivolous and unnecessary as love.”

  Frankie gasps. “Love isn’t unnecessary.”

  I look at him then. His eyes are wide and shiny, and his hand covers his mouth. He looks as though someone ripped his world apart and stomped on the pieces, and his bobbing Adam’s apple makes it impossible for me to stop myself from taking his free hand, caressing it with my thumb.

  His warm, long-fingered hand, always so eager to please. Strong. Loving.

  “That’s what we’re taught to believe,” I tell his hand. “Love conquers all. But it doesn’t.” The bitterness in my voice threatens to take over everything, threatens to consume Frankie. My ray of sunshine who’s never for a second had to doubt that love always wins.

  “It does, Lawrence.”

  I shake my head. “Not when you have no drive and no skills and the only jobs you can get are minimum wage ones. Not when you don’t believe in contraception and can’t stop fucking your wife, or other women, for that matter. When you have seven kids and no money to pay for anything, love is a luxury you can’t afford. Under those circumstances, love dies a painful death even if your love story started great and on the premise that all you needed to be happy was each other. It’s not fucking enough. And I didn’t want that for us. I didn’t want our love story to be suffocated under the weight of poverty.”

  A drop of wetness falls on my thumb, and I look up. His beautiful brown eyes are overflowing, drowning his face in sadness. “You never told me any of that.”

  “I did. I’ve told you everything. I’ve told you I grew up poor. I told you my parents were really shitty people and had problems but got divorced only when I had saved up enough money to pay for a lawyer. I haven’t hidden anything from you.”

  “But you haven’t told me any details.”

  “I…try not to think too much about it. It’s…painful.” I squeeze his hand before letting go.

  “We were poor, too.”

  “No, Frankie. Your family wasn’t well off, but you ate three meals every day and never had to huddle with your siblings under a threadbare blanket in the middle of winter because your parents didn’t have the money to pay the electric bill. Having to abstain from food so you can feed your kids changes you on a fundamental level, and if you ever get out of a shitty situation like that, you’re willing to do anything to avoid getting there again. Including working too much.”

  He makes a strangled sound, like he’s a small animal caught in a toothy trap, and his mouth opens and closes as though he’s trying to say something but can’t force out the words. His gaze skitters away from me and his shoulders slump.

  “You never told me you were lonely,” I say.

  “I did!” His protest is loud and takes some of the defeat from his body. “I’ve told you a thousand times. How I miss you when you’re always working late and wish we could do more stuff together.”

  I knit my eyebrows together, trying to think back and remember. He’s right. He always hugs me tightly and tells me how much he’ll miss me when he knows I’ll work late. Or how he wishes we could do something together, even if it’s only watching a show while cuddling on the couch.

  “I thought that was your way of showing me how you feel about me. You being sweet and caring. Not once did I think it meant ‘I’m so fucking lonely I’ll suck someone else’s dick.’ Was it even your first time?” The question is a pained scream, hurting my throat, my head, my soul. I don’t like yelling, so I take a deep breath and start counting to ten in my head to calm down, but I’m interrupted before even reaching three.

  “Of course, it was the first time,” he roars. “I’m not a cheater.”

  His words are a thundercrack in an otherwise dead silent apartment, and I rear back, scramble off the couch, and turn to leave.

  “No. Please.” He’s pleading now, voice cracked and bleeding out on the floor. “Please don’t leave me, Lawrence. I’ll do anything. I love you so much, don’t leave me.”

  I’m frozen on the spot. Undecided. The hurt, overly dramatic part of me wants to storm off in a huff, throw some stuff in a bag, and retreat somewhere to lick my wounds, and rage and scream and curse the treachery, while wailing out my broken heart. But the other, more rational part of me won’t let me move, the part that still remembers how much I love him, still remembers his loving kisses, his devotion. His passion.

  So I sink back down on the couch. Rub my palms over my face and swallow. “I don’t know what to do here, Frankie. I’m hurt and betrayed, but at the same time I just can’t turn off my feelings for you. But how can I be with you if I can’t trust you?”

  “You can trust me. You can.” He’s so sincere, so heartfelt, leaning forward—hands twitching so he shoves them between his knees—begging, willing me to believe him. And I want to. I really do.

  “How?”

  “I’ve never done anything like this before, never kissed anyone, hardly ever looked at anyone like that. It was a huge mistake and I regret it. So, so much. I know I can’t prove it, but I was going to tell you. That’s what I was worried about when you walked in. How I would tell you. How you’d react. If you’d hate me.”

  I must look skeptical because he hurries to continue. “I know. It’s easy to say when there’s no way of proving intent. But I’m not a liar. You know I’m not.”

  “Do I?” I push out the question around the lump in my throat.

  He slides to his knees on the floor in front of me, sits back on his heels, and tries to catch my gaze. I give in to his silent pleas and meet his eyes.

  “You know me, Lawrence. You know you do. You know what kind of person I am. I’m only human and make mistakes like everyone. This one was huge and more stupid than most, I know that. I’m not perfect, but I’m not a liar. I’m not disloyal. And I own my mistakes.” His face is open. He blinks away tears, but his gaze never falters. His hands rest on his knees, palms open and turned up, and everything about him invites me to see the honesty in his heart.

  And maybe I can see it. The slight tremble of his hand and the pulse fluttering visibly in his neck betrays his anxiousness, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t squirm or fidget, doesn’t look away from me. Nothing indicates that he’s lying.

  There’s no way he’s that skilled a liar. He’s always been open and honest and prone to blurting his emotions as soon as he experiences them. That thought deflates me and I fall back against the couch.

  “Yeah, I know. I believe you.” And I do. At least my head knows. I’m not sure about my heart. Or my gut, rather.

  His eyes well up and a tremble wracks his body, but it’s the sight of his wobbly chin that finally cracks me. I hold out my hand, unable to not touch him anymore. “Come here.”