Chapter Four

Lisa

 

The next day, I was operating on autopilot. My head was in a fog as I ran through a dozen different scenarios that allowed me to stay with Jeremiah without him dying. Since I couldn’t fathom how he would die, all I was doing was torturing myself. When the bell rang, signaling lunchtime for my students, I breathed a sigh of relief. I grabbed my lunch bag and ushered my students to the cafeteria before heading toward the front of the school where Candice’s office was located. After a light knock, I waited for her to call out for me to enter before I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. She smiled up at me from behind her desk and stood to give me a hug.

Candice and I met three years ago when she transferred from a sister location of our private school in Louisiana. She was a sweet and thoughtful person, which were excellent characteristics to have as the guidance counselor and licensed therapist for an elementary school.

“Hey, friend.”

“Hey, girl.” I scooted my chair up to her desk and began to pull containers of food out of my bag. As I spread cream cheese on a bagel, I noticed that Candice hadn’t even touched her food yet. I glanced up at her to see her chewing on her pale pink painted bottom lip.

“What’s wrong, Candy?”

She sighed and turned remorseful eyes on me. “Lisa, I just want to apologize again for my cousin’s behavior this weekend.”

I nodded. Although she’d apologized profusely on the plane ride back, I couldn’t say that I didn’t appreciate her saying it again. Her cousin had been awful, and if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be out of my mind with worry about Jeremiah’s impending demise.

“I appreciate you saying that.” I bit into my bagel and waited. Candice’s demeanor gave the impression that she had more to say.

“I wish I could say that I didn’t know why she acted that way, but that would be a lie. She’s always been…difficult.”

My brows met. “Wait a minute. If she’s always been difficult, why would you even invite her to go with us? Why set us up that way?”

Candice shook her head, and her auburn hair flew from side to side. “No, it wasn’t like that! And, for the record, I didn’t invite her. I told her about our trip because I wanted her to watch Jingles for me. That’s when she started begging to go with us. She swore up and down that she wouldn’t be a problem, but I know now that she just can’t help herself. When we got back, she cried and told me that she tried to hold her negativity back but she just couldn’t.”

My lip curled in disgust. I was unimpressed with this story. Fallon was full of crap, and I couldn’t believe Candice was falling for it. Although, if she was quick to give up on someone with obvious issues, then she wouldn’t be a great counselor so I suppose her…understanding and tolerance made sense. I swallowed the last bite of my bagel and cracked open a container of olives and thinly sliced salami.

“Well, as long as you agree to never bring her on another of our trips, we can let this go and move on.”

“I can do that.”

“Then we’re good.”

She giggled and opened the container that had been sitting on her desk when I walked in. The smell of meatloaf filled the room.

“Oh my word, that smells so good, Candy.”

Covering her mouth as she chewed, she smiled with her eyes. “Thanks, I made this last night. Do you want to try it?”

I cocked my neck back in disbelief. “Last night? We landed at seven. How did you have the time—or energy—to cook anything?”

She waved me off. “Girl, meatloaf is easy. Mixing the ingredients takes five minutes, and then it goes in the oven. I was able to take a bath and unpack my suitcase all before it was finished.”

Eyes on my food, I shrugged. That was entirely too productive for me, but Candice lived alone and enjoyed staying busy. That reminded me…

“Hey, you never told me you were in the market looking for love.”

One of her perfectly arched eyebrows rose delicately at my change of subject.

“That’s because I’m not.”

“Then what was your reading about then? Two opportunities for love…”

The corner of her mouth lifted, but the smile felt patronizing or even amusing. I pursed my lips as my hackles raised.

“I’ve never gone ‘looking for love’, Lisa, because I know that when it’s my time, it will find me. Mama Sari said the opportunities would present themselves. That means they will appear without me needing to search for them.”

I sat back in my seat, unsure how to feel about the condescending tone she had just used on me. The reading had been for her, not for me, so there was no need for me to do an in-depth analysis of it.

“It was a simple question, Candice. No need to speak to me like I’m a child.”

How she managed to look genuinely confused, baffled and impressed me. “That wasn’t my intention at all, and I apologize if that’s what you took from me answering the question that you asked.”

I shook my head.

“Candice—”

“Lisa, please” She reached a hand across her desk and grabbed my wrist. “Let’s not argue. Is that okay?”

I sighed. Maybe I was tripping. I hadn’t been thinking straight sense we left out of the candy shop, and with last night’s revelation about Jeremiah, I was feeling more than a little on edge. It was perfectly reasonable that I was seeing something that wasn’t there. In three years, Candice had never been anything but kind and understanding; if there even one sinister or malicious bone existed in her body, I would have picked up on it by now.

“You’re right. It’s fine.” I shoved a piece of salami into my mouth to keep from saying anything more.

Her bright smile of relief further drove home the notion that I had been imagining her attitude.

“Well, now I can tell you that I have a date tonight.”

Surprised, I inhaled sharply and the sliver of salami that I had yet to swallow lodged in my throat. I started coughing, and Candice ran around the desk and placed her linked hands under my diaphragm in preparation to begin the Heimlich.

One good cough and I spit the meat into my hand.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!”

She peered down at me with worried eyes. “Are you sure?”

I nodded emphatically and wiped the chewed food onto a napkin. Candice pulled a bottle of water from the case she kept under her desk and unscrewed the cap before placing it in my hand. Gratefully, I downed half the bottle before coming up for air.

“Gah-lee, Candice, I wasn’t expecting that at all!”

“I’m so sorry! I wasn’t trying to shock you; I just wanted to share the news.”

I nodded and finished the bottle of water before packing it and the remaining salami into the plastic sack I’d brought for my trash.

“I know, I know. I just…wasn’t expecting that.” I repeated lamely. I honestly hadn’t been expecting to hear that, but the idea of Candice going on a date, for the first time in at least three years, wasn’t so jarring that I would choke from hearing about it. I was happy for my friend. Genuinely.

On the other hand, Candice having a date—out of the blue like this—immediately brought those moments in that room with Mama Sari to the forefront of my mind. If Candice had a date, then her reading was coming true. And if her reading was coming true…that meant mine was more likely to come true as well. Which meant Jeremiah was honest-to-God in danger of dying if I didn’t leave him.

And that was jarring enough to cause me to choke.

And cry.

And kick something.

Clearing my throat, I shifted in my seat. “Candice, do you think this has anything to do with the palm reading?”

I expected her to laugh, but the joke was on me when she nodded emphatically. “Oh, absolutely.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “Really?”

“Of course.”

“You sound so sure. So, you honestly believe in that stuff?”

I was watching her intently and saw the moment she hesitated before speaking. Ah ha! She probably didn’t really believe in it but was going along with it for the sake of her cousin and her desire for love. A desire that I had no idea existed until now, but still.

Finally, she sighed and placed her palms flat on her desk. “Yes, Lisa, I honestly believe in that stuff. The parish in Louisiana that I’m from believes in it. My family believes in it. It’s nothing new or uncommon to me.”

Instead of reassuring me, her firm insistence increased the level of dread I felt. Apparently, I was the only one who was holding on to the hope that the palm reading had been a silly hoax. Ever observant, Candice’s amber eyes studied me.

“You’re worried about your reading.”

It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway.

She tilted her head. “She told you something you didn’t want to hear.”

Once again, she didn’t ask me, and at her astuteness, I dropped my eyes to my lunch on her desk. Her hand came across the desk and covered mine.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Did I? I chewed on my lip as I thought about that. Did I want to sit here and lament how the love of my life would die if I didn’t break things off with him? Not if I wanted to be able to finish out the school day. I shook my head.

Candice nodded her acceptance of my answer and squeezed my hand before leaning back against her seat. We sat in silence for a moment while my thoughts raced through my mind. Even if Trisha, Fallon, Candice, and Candice’s whole hometown believed in palm reading, I was finding it hard to wrap my brain around it. One part, in particular, kept coming up and just didn’t make sense to me. I lifted my head and was startled to see Candice’s intent gaze already on me. The therapist in her was hard at work even though we were two friends enjoying lunch together.

I gave voice to the question that plagued me. “How is it possible to tell us our future? That’s crazy!”

To Candice’s credit, she didn’t even hesitate to answer me. “It wasn’t so much a telling of our future as it was informing us of the possibilities that were ahead of us. There is no true way to know the future because every day, we make choices that change the courses of our lives. All Mama Sari did was inform us of what to expect. If we choose to listen to her—to believe her—we can alter the course and, in turn, change the outcome.”

I nodded, trying to grasp an understanding. “And if we don’t listen to her?”

Candice shrugged. “Then we don’t really have any control over what may happen next. Take my date, for example. If I hadn’t had that palm reading, then I probably would have turned this guy down, but because I did, I realized that his offer might have been one of my two opportunities, so I said yes.”

What she said made sense, to a point. “Oh, okay. Well, tell me about your date. How did that happen? When did that happen?”

“Well,” Candice was giddy, and internally, I screamed at the unfairness of it all. Outwardly, I mirrored her expression. “Fallon’s blow-up on the airplane yesterday lasted so long that the flight attendants were due to exit the plane so that it could be cleaned. I was extremely embarrassed by her behavior and ended up walking out with them and constantly apologizing to everyone. Apparently, the pilot had been listening to the whole exchange and by the time we reached the shuttle station, he came to me and said that I could make it up to everyone by joining them for dinner. Then, I said that unless I was paying for everyone, I didn’t see how my presence would equate as a make-up. That’s when he responded that getting to see my beautiful face for an extended period of time could cure any ill feelings.”

I swooned, despite the ill feeling settling in the pit of my stomach. “Aww, Candice that is so sweet.” And a little corny, but I was the last person to talk down on corny after Jeremiah’s first words to me were capital “C” corny with extra cheese. Only one thing gave me pause, and I couldn’t hold my concerns in. “But you know what they say about those pilots and flight attendants.”

She gave me a curious look and shook her head.

I leaned forward, cupping a hand around my mouth to project my whisper. “Hoes in different area codes.”

She let out a peel of laughter. “That’s funny! Yes, I understand quite well the stigma of loose men using their nomadic careers as excuses to be unfaithful. I haven’t had an opportunity to find out if Henry is one of those men. I’d need more than a five-minute conversation.”

“Hmm. Well, five minutes was enough to decide to go to dinner with him.”

“That’s true; however, I didn’t see the harm in joining a group dinner. All of the attendants will be there, as well as the co-pilot.”

“A group dinner? That’s good. Just be careful.”

Candice giggled. “Yes, Mommy.”

I laughed at that. “You sound like Ja’mya.”

“I bet I feel like her right now, too.”

“Ha! I’m just looking out for you.”

She smiled. “And I appreciate your concern. Truly. It is a wonderful feeling to know that someone cares about your safety and whereabouts.”

Shrugging, I zipped up my now empty lunch bag and tied the plastic sack of trash. “What can I say? I’m a nurturer.”

“That you are, friend. It’s one of the things that attracts people to you. Your loving nature. Like I said, it’s appreciated.” She came around the desk and pulled me into a hug. “Thank you.”

I returned her hug and stepped back. “Just send the location of your dinner in our group text and let me know when you get there and when you leave, whether you’re going home or back to his hotel.”

She laughed again and walked with me to the hallway of the front office. “Are you sure you don’t want me to just turn on my GPS tracking?”

I smirked. “You’re laughing as if that’s not a good idea.”

With a playful shove to my shoulder, she continued laughing. “Bye, Lisa.”

“Bye, heffa!” I smiled the entire trip to the cafeteria to collect my students and lead them back to my classroom. I was glad to have met Candice. Her bright and honest personality was so soothing and refreshing. Without even knowing what I was going through, she managed to help me clear my head of dread and simultaneously give me an idea of how to execute my unfortunate plan.

Let the lying commence.

♥♥♥♥

When I got off of work, I drove Ja’mya right over to Jeremiah’s parent’s house. They didn’t live far from us, and Ja’mya spent so much time at the home that Jeremiah had grown up in that I didn’t even have to stop at home first. Everything she needed was already there. Spare toothbrush, change of clothes, extra school uniform, and shoes. Besides, I didn’t want to stop at home first and have her start to settle in and get comfortable. Then I would have to fight just to get her back into some clothes so I could drop her off, and I already had too much on my mind to have to worry about that as well.

The sight of Jeremiah’s shiny, red truck parked under the shed filled me with dread. I drove up the driveway and passed the vehicle slowly to park my sedan in the garage. Inside the house, the scent of spices hit my nostrils, and I felt like an even bigger pile of crap. Jeremiah was cooking dinner. I’d been so preoccupied that I had failed to plan anything and being the fantastic man that he was, Jeremiah had apparently taken the matter into his own hands and pulled a meal together for our family. My sigh threatened to become a sob, and I had to choke it back.

Instead of going into the kitchen to greet him as I usually would, I took the stairs up to our bedroom. I took an unnecessarily long shower, using the time to give myself a pep talk, and slathered lotion on my skin, one inch at a time, in an attempt to delay the inevitable. By the time I emerged from the bathroom, the steam had dissipated and nearly two hours had passed. I froze in the doorway at the image of Jeremiah reclining on the bed with his attention on his cell phone. He looked up at the sound of the door opening, and my breath caught in my chest as our eyes met. Neither of us spoke for a good ten seconds, and I watched as he ran his gaze from my face, down my body until he reached my plain, white-painted toes. The corner of his mouth lifted, and I recognized the desire in his eyes as clearly as I recognized my own face in the mirror. I had to put some distance in between us. If we made love right now, it would be that much harder for me to be able to go through with my plan.

“Is dinner ready?”

He nodded then licked his lips, and I felt my nipples bead underneath my thin t-shirt in anticipation of what would surely come if I let it.

Needing more effort than I expected, I tore my eyes from his enticing form lying in the middle of our bed and walked over to the night stand on my side to put my phone on the charger. Without looking at him, I spoke.

“What’s on the menu?”

I felt his eyes on me, or more specifically, my butt, but he didn’t answer my question. After a full minute of pretending to be engrossed in something on my phone, I turned around with my hand on my hip.

“J!”

That caught his attention. He dragged his gaze up to mine and gave me an unapologetic grin.

“Are you ready to eat, baby?”

I rolled my eyes in false annoyance. “I just asked you what you cooked, Jeremiah.”

He slid to the end of the bed and placed his feet on the floor, grabbing my hips and pulling me to stand in between his knees.

“My bad, baby. You know I can’t think straight when you put that thing on display for me.” I was unable to hold back a giggle as his fingers trailed up the back of my thighs to grip my cheeks. In hindsight, I should have put more thought into my attire, because the cotton shorts I wore did nothing to cover me up and he was taking full advantage of it. I allowed myself thirty seconds to indulge in his attention before I stepped back out of his grasp and headed toward the door.

Eyes on the door, I called over my shoulder, “Since you can’t be bothered to focus, I’ll just go see for myself what you cooked.”

I could hear his laughter as he hopped off of the bed and followed me downstairs. When I got to the kitchen, I was startled to find the stove and counters clear. The smell of food was still in the air, but the evidence of its preparation was nowhere to be found. Jeremiah stepped up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. He pressed a soft kiss to my exposed neck and reflexively, I leaned my head to the side to give him easier access.

“We’re eating in the dining room tonight.”

I tried to head in that direction but he held me firm against him as he licked a trail along the column of my neck. I shuddered and my arousal instantly soaked the crotch of my shorts. Nudging firmly, he walked me over to the island in the center of the kitchen. I already knew what he had in mind.

“J,” I whined, unable to formulate an argument against what was likely to happen next. And if I were being honest, I didn’t want to.

His hands roamed up and down my body before slipping underneath my t-shirt to cup my unrestrained breasts. When he circled my nipples with his thumbs, I moaned and bucked against him. That was all of the encouragement he needed. He pulled his hands from under my shirt and grabbed my own to place them on the island in front of me, before pushing me in the middle of my back until I was bent forward, all in the span of five seconds.

As I faced the tiled floor, I tried—halfheartedly—to put a stop to this. “What about dinner? I’m starving, J.”

Contrary to my words, I was vibrating with need as he tugged my shorts down to rest right under my knees.

“You were in the bathroom for two hours, Lee; you can give me fifteen minutes.” He tapped on my thigh until I widened my stance. The elastic of the hem of the shorts stretched when my feet were about two feet apart and Jeremiah rewarded my acquiescence with a kiss on the small of my back where his name was inked just above the curve of my cheeks.

I looked over my shoulder just in time to see him pull his t-shirt over his head, revealing a deliciously muscular chest that was wrapped in flawless mahogany skin. He stepped out of his lounge shorts and my mouth watered at the sight of his engorged erection. When he caught my stare, he smirked and reached around me to place his t-shirt on the edge of the counter in between my hands. My breath halted in my chest as I watched him kneel onto his shorts and grip my thighs.

At the first swipe of his tongue at my seam, I whipped my head forward and jerked in his grasp.

“Baby…”

In response, he buried his face in my pussy and slurped his life away.

“Ahh!” I twitched and shuddered in his hold as he dragged his tongue from the bottom of my slit to the top, where he suckled none too gently on my clit. I rotated my hips wantonly against his face as he slurped noisily behind me. His fingers dug into my flesh as he pistoned his tongue and wrenched a strangled cry from my throat.

I felt rather than heard him chuckle before he released me. Sucking in gulps of air, I tried to calm my breathing so I could ask him why he stopped when I felt two of his slender digits press into my opening. I moaned at the intrusion and tilted my pelvis forward, raising my hips slightly. At that, he added his other hand between my legs, using his fingers to swipe back and forth against my throbbing clit with precision. When his tongue rejoined the party, lapping at me with quick, determined strokes, my eyes nearly rolled to the back of my head.

The tingling began in my toes and I raised onto their tips in response. It traveled up my legs, causing them to tremble rapidly. When it hit my core, heat exploded inside of me and my head dropped to the counter, unable to continue holding it up. A long, drawn-out wail burst forth from my lips as I squirted, drenching my thighs and coating the floor with the warm, clear fluid.

Jeremiah made a sound of satisfaction before removing his hands from between my thighs, standing up, and sliding his hardness into my dripping channel in one smooth motion while I continued to convulse in front of him. His wet hands gripped my cheeks and spread them apart as he thrust into me at a downward angle. I moaned into the fabric of his t-shirt as every snap of his hips caused his dick to brush my sensitive walls.

“Ah, ah, ah.”

I could barely catch my breath in between thrusts as he pulled me against him every time he thrust forward. He gripped the back of my t-shirt briefly before sliding his hands back under my shirt to palm my swinging breasts. His deft fingers pinched and twisted my nipples and the sweet combination of pain and pleasure coupled with the fullness of him quickly brought me to a second orgasm. As I came apart in his arms, his pacing increased and the slap, slap, slap of his skin against mine signaled his impending release. He brought his mouth to my shoulder and bit down on my flesh through my shirt as he swelled and exploded inside of me. I could feel the rise and fall of his chest against my back as he panted heavily behind me. He stepped back, pulling out of me, and landed a heavy slap to one of my cheeks.

“I told you, I only needed fifteen minutes.”

I chuckled throatily and looked at him over my shoulder, attempting a glare, even as pleasure still coursed through my veins and my core clenched with orgasmic aftershocks. “I’m still hungry.”

He tossed his head back, laughing heartily and I couldn’t help but bite my lip at the sight. With his bald-head, gorgeous brown eyes, strong jawline, and slim but firm build, Jeremiah was hands down the most beautiful man alive. Though all of the men in the Hawkins clan had been blessed physically, Jeremiah looked like God had molded him with his own two hands.

And if I didn’t let him go, God would apparently call his perfect creation back home. Life was cruel.

I averted my eyes as regret settled in the pit of my stomach like lead. With my legs still spread apart, I backed up from the island and once clear of the rapidly cooling puddle, stepped out of my soaked shorts. Jeremiah grabbed my hand and when I turned my head in his direction, he cupped the back on my neck and brought his lips down on my own. I opened up to him, tasting myself on his tongue as he worshiped my mouth in a similar fashion to how he’d worshiped at the altar between my thighs only minutes earlier. When I moaned into his mouth, he leaned back and observed my swollen mouth.

“You’re about to have me saying ‘Fuck that food!’ that I cooked, while I eat you for dinner all night.”

I forced out a breathless giggle. “You’re not full of me yet?”

“Hell naw! My appetite for you is endless.”

My face heated. As tempted as I was to drag him upstairs and test his declaration, I knew that I couldn’t do that. “Well, my appetite for food hasn’t gone anywhere and now we have to clean up this mess that you made.”

He smirked arrogantly as his eyes followed mine to the puddle. “I did make that mess, didn’t I?” I narrowed my eyes at the wicked grin on his face. “I’ll keep making that mess again and again until you tell me to stop.”

I could feel my core clench and I once again averted my gaze. This man commanded my body so well that with just a few words he could elicit a reaction out of me. Jeremiah chuckled and dropped a kiss on my temple and another slap to my bare cheeks. The way his hands were always back there, you’d think I had a big, juicy, booty instead of the medium-sized cakes I’d developed after having Ja’mya.

“I’ll clean this up and meet you in the dining room.”

“Okay.” I breathed a mental sigh of relief. If he had initiated a second round, I would have been powerless to stop him. My body yielded to him like he was its master, and despite my current misgivings, I loved it. Keeping my thighs pressed together, I made my way into the half-bath located in the living room to clean up as much as possible without a towel. Satisfied that I wouldn’t leak, I took the stairs up to our bedroom to toss my t-shirt in with my dirty laundry and take a second shower. Dressed in lounge pants and a long-sleeved shirt, I returned downstairs to find the kitchen spotless and the floor dry. The air held a faint scent of lemon cleaner.

A couple of strides brought me to the dining room just as Jeremiah entered from the living room side. There was a covered plate at each of our place settings and a bottle of wine sitting in the center of the table. He pulled out one of the four high-backed chairs that surrounded the tall, bistro-style table and motioned for me to have a seat before easing into the chair directly across from me. I lifted the cover off of my plate and steam hit me in the face. Jeremiah had roasted whole sweet potatoes and topped them with chili. It was the perfect meal for the cool weather we were having, but despite how good it smelled, I couldn’t eat. My stomach was tied in knots and the turmoil killed my appetite. I could feel his stare as I used my fork to push the food around on my plate but I refused to look up. I kept trying to find a way to say the words I needed to say but they wouldn’t come out.

There is a tragedy on your horizon.

I gasped. The words rang as clearly as if Mama Sari stood next to me in our dining room.

“What’s wrong?”

I shook my head. “Nothing. Stubbed my toe.”

Death looms near.

The fork fell from my hands, clattering to the plate. Jeremiah shot out of his seat and rounded the table.

“Lee? Lisa, what’s going on, baby?”

I felt like I was under water as I dragged my eyes from the table to collide with his. I tried to ignore the concern swimming in those chestnut depths. Pushing back from the table, I shook my head once more. I couldn’t do this.

The path of inaction leads to despair.

I clutched at my chest as tears sprang from my eyes. “I can’t do this,” I murmured.

Heavy hands gripped my outer thighs. “What is it? Talk to me, baby. What can’t you do? Are you in pain? Did something happen?”

Yes and yes.

Gathering up every drop of strength I could muster, I reminded myself that if I didn’t do this, Jeremiah might die and that fueled me to lie to him as convincingly as possible.

“I can’t do this with you anymore.” I shoved his hands off of my legs and slid out of my seat, crossing to the other end of the dining room to put some space in between us. “I’ve had enough of this eternal dating thing that we’re doing, and I don’t want any more of it.”

He stood and stared at me with brows joined in confusion. “What—what are you saying?”

“I’m saying—I’m saying that I won’t be your forever girlfriend anymore. I’m too old for this mess.”

In two quick strides, he was in front of me. I took a step back but he continued forward, crowding me against the wall.

“This eternal dating thing was your idea, Lisa. How have you forgotten that?”

I shook my head in denial of the facts. It didn’t matter. I didn’t have to be rational; I just needed to do this.

“That doesn’t even matter anymore. I’m done with it. I’m done with all of this.” I swallowed against the lump in my throat and forced the last words out. “I’m done with you.”

He staggered back as if I’d shot him, and if words were bullets, then I definitely had. Hand on his chest, he looked at me as if he didn’t know me and I stared back at him through my tears.

“You’re done with me? After everything we’ve been through? After what just happened in the kitchen? How? What did I do?”

I tried to push past him, unable to stomach the sight of his increasingly glossy eyes. “None of that matters. I just—”

“Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter!! You need to answer my fucking question, Lisa! HOW?!”

His roar stopped me in my tracks. Never had I heard this tone from him, and my heart cracked in two at the reality that I was the one to take him to this dark place. But I had no answer for him. I couldn’t think of anything that would be believable enough. Except…there was one thing that might. But, no, I couldn’t go there. I might be lying. I might be breaking his heart, but I didn’t want to take it that far. That was too much. It was—

You must leave.

“There’s someone else,” I blurted before collapsing my lids against the immediate disbelief that appeared on his face.

“What?” The whispered word was heavy with pain and sharp with accusation.

“You heard me. I met—”

“You—you cheated on me?”

No!

“Of course not. It’s not cheating if I’m single.”

His confusion morphed into anger. “Hold the fuck up. Am I hearing this right? I know you didn’t just say that you’re single.”

“I am and—”

“How the fuck are you single when we’ve been together since college?! We raise our daughter together, share this home, and have joint bank accounts! That doesn’t sound single to me!”

“We’ve been dating since college. If I’m not married then I’m single. It’s not a hard concept, J.”

He scrubbed his hands over his head and started pacing the length of the room. “That’s how I know this is some bullshit. You’re the one who didn’t want to get married, and now, you’re telling me that you’re tired of being so-called single?! Is that the real reason you didn’t want to get married? So that you could keep your options open for something better to come along? Is that what this was?”

“Well, actually we agreed that marriage wasn’t right for us—”

He stopped pacing and faced me, chest heaving in and out with each word. “WE DIDN’T AGREE ON SHIT!!” His thunderous roar made my heart race. He even seemed to have shocked himself by how loud he had gotten. Shaking his head, he continued speaking in a lower tone, one that attempted to placate me. “I proposed to you four times, and you turned me down each and every time!”

I wiped my damp cheeks, though the tears kept falling. “Right, because the most romantic thing in the world is hearing “Damn, marry me girl” while a dick is still inside of you. It’s a wonder I was able to resist that.” I didn’t have to dig deep for the sarcasm about that particular memory. I had been highly unimpressed.

Jeremiah came back to me and dropped his hands to my hips, bending his knees until he could look me in the eye. “That was one time, baby. Every other time, I had a ring and was down on one knee. I did the shit right, and you still shot me down.” The bitterness in his voice was thick, and my brows furrowed as I observed his face. That didn’t sound new. I pushed his hands away and walked around the table as he said, “Let’s not pretend it was something else.”

He was right; I had refused him every time. I had a good reason each time and explained that to him, but I couldn’t let facts or an argument distract me from what I had to do. “The last time, you practically threw the ring at me! Let’s not forget that, shall we?”

His mouth dropped open. “Are you seriously nitpicking right now? Man, that’s how I know this is a farce. You don’t even have a concrete reason for leaving me. Why are you trying to hurt me? Whatever I did, I can fix it. Just tell me what it is.” He followed me to the other side of the table to stand in front of me, this time framing my face with his hands and giving me no choice but to stare right up into his beautiful brown eyes that were rimmed red with the pain that I had caused. “Just talk to me, baby. We can fix this.”

He wasn’t buying it. He had completely glossed over me cheating on him. What else was there?

Turn your back that they may avoid death’s snare.

I closed my eyes against the silent tears I couldn’t stop spilling.

“I don’t love you anymore.”

His hands fell from my face as if I’d burned him, and when I reopened my eyes I saw that he’d sat back down into his chair. His shoulders were slumped in defeat. When he raised his head, his eyes were glassy with unshed tears and filled with anguish.

“What about last night? How could you make love to me if you don’t love me?”

My chest cracked right open, and I bled out as I lied, “Last night was a mistake.”

He winced as my words stabbed at the already gaping wounds I’d inflicted. “But you asked me for our son. What about that?”

I looked away from him. I had said that and I had meant it, but it would do me no good to admit that right now. I sighed heavily.

“A moment of weakness,” I whispered. “I was supposed to end this yesterday.”

He didn’t say another word, and I’d had enough of the torture. I couldn’t stay in that room a moment longer and watch as he crumbled under the weight of everything I threw at him. At a speed barely slower than a run, I left the room and headed upstairs to get my purse and keys. Just as my foot hit the bottom step, Jeremiah came barreling into the living room, and I froze. He dropped to his knees in front of me and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“Please, Lisa, don’t leave me. I love you; I need you; I can’t live without you. Please, baby.”

I covered my mouth to stifle my sobbing and choked out, “I can’t.”

He pressed his face to my abdomen and squeezed me tighter. “You can, baby. Please. Baby, I’m begging you. Don’t do this. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave us. Me and Mya need you. Don’t do this to our family.”

My hands itched to comfort him, to dry his tears and wrap my arms around his shoulders. To tell him that I didn’t mean any of what’d I’d said.

You must act quickly.

My resolve steeled and I began to move. I struggled to push his strong arms down, but as if a switch was flipped, his grip loosened, and I was able to step around him. He released me and allowed me to move past him before standing up with his fists balled at his sides. I hesitated for a moment, and it was long enough for him to grab my arm. I looked back at him, and the fire in his eyes made me gasp.

“We aren’t finished, not by a long shot. I’m letting you leave right now because you seem to really want to go, but know this; I’m coming for you.” And with those parting words, he took the stairs two at a time until he hit the landing. I knew it was coming, but I still jumped at the sound of our bedroom door slamming.

Walking to the garage door felt like making the trip to the electric chair. Leaving Jeremiah might as well have been the death penalty. I was leaving my heart behind after stomping the life out of his. The hardest thing I’d ever done was leave while I walked out of the house without looking back. In a different scenario, his words might have warmed me up, but in this situation, all they did was sadden me. No matter what he said, I wasn’t coming back to him. Not if his life was hanging in the balance because of it.

I climbed into my car and managed to make it out of the neighborhood before I had to pull over on the side of the road because I was crying so hard that I couldn’t see well enough to drive. Like the eye of a hurricane, there was a break in my sobs that gave me enough time to make it to Trisha’s house. I’d called her after lunch and told her my plans, so when I pulled into her driveway, she opened the front door and came outside. As soon as I stepped out of my car, she enveloped me in a tight hug and the dam snapped, allowing my sorrow to pour out.

She guided me inside and onto the couch, where several minutes passed before I was able to even utter a word.

“I—I left him!”

Trisha rubbed my back soothingly, not saying a word.

“He begged me to stay, and I just left him there!”

She reached over to the coffee table and pressed tissues into my hands but I didn’t want to wipe my face. I didn’t want to clean my nose. I wanted to look a mess because that was how I felt. My insides were shredded from leaving my heart crying out at the bottom of the stairs.

“He begged me, Trisha! I told him I met someone else and he still begged me not to leave him! I hurt him!” I blubbered on, recanting my conversation with Jeremiah up until I arrived at her house. By the time I reached the end of the story, I was no longer sobbing loudly, but my tears still ran like a faucet. My head was pounding and my sinus felt clogged. This had to be the worst Monday of my life.

“Come on, let’s get you to bed.” Trisha tightened her grip on my waist and helped me to stand up. We shuffled across the living room and into the hallway that led to the bedrooms.

Trisha’s room was on the left at the end of the hallway with the two guest rooms in the middle and opposite end respectively. The middle room was used as an office slash library and housed all of Trisha’s books so we made our way to the third bedroom. I sat on the full-sized bed and stared at the wall. How could doing the right thing hurt this badly?

“Do you want some help getting into bed?” She gnawed on her bottom lip as her worried eyes roved over my hunched frame.

I shook my head. Thanks to the shower I’d taken before dinner—and after our lovemaking—there was no need for me to even undress. Trisha leaned in for a quick squeeze and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

“Get some sleep, please. We’ll talk in the morning, okay?”

I nodded even though I had no intentions of sleeping. When Trisha closed the bedroom door, I kicked off my shoes and climbed under the duvet. I appreciated her withholding her questions and letting me be, at least for tonight. Tomorrow would be a different story but right now I was too raw to do anything other than regret the day I told Candice that her cousin could come on our girl’s trip. That was the day my life as I knew it would end.