Adele—Turning Tables
Lea Michele—Battlefield
As I drive home, the feeling of anxiety runs through my veins like an electric current. Eight years together—seven years married—and it’s come to this. But I have to tell him how I feel, I can’t go on like this any longer.
Our marriage was great at first; solid and comforting. We had so many things in common, especially our love of art. All of that seems to have been forgotten about lately, instead it's turned into the biggest grievance between us. I’ve tried. I’ve tried so damn hard these last few years, but nothing seems to be working.
My heart pounds and my body temperature spikes the closer I get to our marital home. I keep telling myself that I can do this; I’m a big girl.
His car is in the driveway when I arrive, but it’s at a weird angle, like he was in a rush when he parked. Weird. I walk into the house calling, “I’m home.” My voice echoing off the colorful walls of the hallway.
“Shit!” I hear his voice coming from the kitchen so I place my purse on top of the table in the hallway and walk in that direction. I turn the corner and see a topless Gerry—my husband of the past seven years—bent over the sink, furiously scrubbing at something.
“Gerry? Are you okay?” I ask, making him jump and swirl around, dropping whatever he has in his hands into the sink.
He frowns. “Fine, why do you ask?”
“You look… frazzled.” I step toward him, pointing at the sink. “Anything I can help you with?”
“No, I—I can do it,” he stammers out, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallows.
“Okay, if you’re sure?” He nods and turns back around, scrubbing again at what I see is the white shirt he was wearing when he left for work this morning. “Spill something on your shirt?”
“God, Harmony, can I not have five minutes peace!” he shouts, hands braced on the kitchen counter.
“I…” Deciding it’s not worth the argument, I nod my head even though he can’t see me. “When you calm down, I need to talk to you,” I mumble in shock at his outburst. I was only trying to help.
I watch as his back tenses but with a flick of his head, I realize that’s the only answer I’m going to get from him. I leave him to his bad mood and walk up the stairs to have a much needed soak in the bath to try and gather all of my thoughts. This won’t go down as well as I thought it would, not that I was expecting the talk that I wanted to have with him to go down well, but things need to change—he needs to change, but in this mood, I can see things blowing up.
I’ve been walking on eggshells for I don’t know how long with him. Everything I do seems to be wrong and everything I say gets ignored or ridiculed.
I sigh and turn the taps on the side of the bath, pouring in some lilac bubble bath and watching as the bubbles foam up, bringing with it the smell of lavender. I strip off my clothes and climb into the bath, leaning my head back against my bath pillow and trying to relax as much as I can.
My mind won’t let me relax though, it keeps wandering back to Gerry’s odd behavior. He can’t resent me that much, surely?
A while later as I’m dropping off to sleep, there’s a knock on the bathroom door and I startle before clearing my throat.
“Come in,” I call.
Gerry walks in with his head facing the tiled floor as he shuts the door behind him and walks over to me, sitting on the side of the bath before he finally gets the courage to look up at me. “I’m sorry, Harm.” His blue eyes sparkle and he gives me a small smile.
“I was only trying to help.” I keep my voice soft; I don’t want to say anything that’ll cause him to act the way that he did earlier.
“I know, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I’m not making excuses, but I’ve had a crappy day at work.” He sighs. “How about you get out of the bath and then we can talk?”
He pulls a large towel off the towel warmer and holds it open, waiting for me to get out. I do what he says and pull out the plug, watching as the water starts swirling down the drain.
I catch his eyes scanning my body as I step out of the bath, my gaze focusing on his lip as he sucks it in between his teeth. Now is not the time for that.
I turn around when I get to him, letting him wrap the towel around my body before he spins me so I’m facing him again.
With his arms around my waist, he says, “You go and get dressed and I’ll pour us a glass of wine each,” before kissing me on the forehead and leaving the room.
It hurts to think about how he normally is when he’s being the man I married, not the critical, resentful man he’s become, but I need to get this off my chest before it eats me up inside.
Stepping into our walk-in closet, I pull on a pair of sweatpants and a white t-shirt before towel drying my hair and braiding it over my shoulder. I grab the damp towel off the floor and trudge back into the steamy bathroom, picking up my clothes from earlier and opening the laundry basket.
Seeing it’s overflowing, I take a deep breath and decide that I should do a load of laundry so I can put this conversation off for a few more minutes. I pick up the basket and carry it downstairs, walking through the kitchen and into the laundry room.
“Babe?”
“Just doing the laundry, be there in a second,” I call back through the house as I place the basket on top of the counter.
I sort our clothes into piles of whites and darks—how can a family of two have so much laundry in so few days?—picking up a few of Gerry’s work shirts and scrunching up my nose as I do. An odd smell lingers on them, but I’d know it a mile off—perfume. It’s not my perfume, but it’s definitely a perfume smell.
I’m about to put it down to him being around a lot of female students when he barrels into the room, ripping the shirts out of my hands. “I’ll do the laundry, you go and sit down. Go and relax.”
I take the shirts out of his hands and open the washing machine. “No, the last time you did a load you turned all the whites gray.” I chuckle but it teeters off as I frown at the sodden shirt in the bottom of the machine. “You really need to treat this before it gets washed if you’ve stained—”
I pick it up, my head spinning as I stare at the red smear on the collar.
“Harm, I can explain.”
I stare between him and the shirt, my mind instantly stopping all of the excuses it was making for him in the split second it took for him to say those words. Those words mean that there is something to explain, and not a simple explanation either. The heaviness of the words made it sound like I’ll need to sit down for the blow he’s about to deliver.
I storm past him, slapping the wet shirt against his chest as I do. I hear it drop to the floor as he follows me, trying to grasp my hand on the way into the kitchen. I pull it away from him and lean against the counter, my head hanging as I try to control my breathing. This can’t mean what I think it means, it must be a coincidence.
“She doesn’t mean anything,” he says like he’s heard my inner thoughts.
My hands resting against the countertop grip the edges harder, my knuckles turning white as I turn toward him in fury. “What are you saying?”
I need to hear him say it out loud.
He grips his hair and blows out a deep breath. “I was so mad at you, it’s no excuse but… she was there and—”
He walks toward me so I hold up my hand, cutting off his advance. “Don’t you dare come near me!”
“Harm—”
“No! I don’t want to hear your excuses!” My heartbeat is deafening in my ears. “You were mad at me, so you what? Kissed someone?” His head snaps to the floor. “Oh my God, you slept with someone.”
“I—”
“Who is she?” He shakes his head. “Who is she!” I shout when he doesn't answer me right away.
“Just a colleague, she’s a nobody. I swore after the first time—” He stops what he’s saying, realizing what he’s admitted to.
“It was more than once?” His distraught face isn’t a patch on what I’m feeling as he winces and nods. It’s like a slam to the chest, a physical blow delivered by his words. “Well, you’ve just made this a hell of a lot easier for me.”
I storm out of the kitchen and up the stairs, Gerry following me and watching as I pull two suitcases out of the closet.
“What are you doing, Harm? Don’t be so irrational.”
“Irrational?” His head turns away for a split second before turning back to me. “Do you know what? I’m not even having this conversation. We’re done,” I spit out at him.
“Done? What do you mean, ‘done’?”
“I mean exactly what I said, Gerry. This…” I point between us both. “Isn’t working anymore. You don’t respect me and you constantly put me down. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about tonight. I wanted to somehow make you realize how resented I feel. I thought I could try and get out of you what I’m doing so wrong that would make you act the way you do toward me. But none of that matters now.”
“How I act toward you? We’ve not had sex in over two months, you hardly want to touch me. How’s that for feeling inadequate!”
“Because of the way you’ve been making me feel!” I shout, my chest heaving. “Why would I want to be physical with you when you treat me like trash the majority of the time?” He’s silent, not saying a word back as we stare at each other. I scoff and throw a pile of clothes into the suitcases, not caring that they’re getting wrinkled. “We weren’t having sex so you went elsewhere. That shows how much our relationship means to you.”
“It was just a kiss the first time,” he says as if that makes it perfectly okay.
“Just a kiss?” He nods. “There’s nothing ‘just’ about a kiss.” I start loading the suitcases with my shoes. “I’ll be back in a few days for the rest.”
“Where are you going to go, huh?”
I stand defiantly after zipping up the suitcases and look directly into his blue eyes, only they don’t look sky-blue like they usually do, right now they’re cloudy.
“Away from here.”
“But… we need to talk about this,” he deadpans, watching me walk out of the bedroom and down the stairs with the first suitcase.
I place it by the front door and walk back up the stairs to get the second. “I can’t talk to you right now, Gerry. I can hardly even look at you.”
“That’s it, is it? Our whole relationship is being thrown out the window over a stupid mistake?”
I stop and spin around to face him as I walk past with the second suitcase. “Buying decaf coffee instead of regular is a mistake. Miscounting the change in your pocket is a mistake. This? This is betrayal, complete and utter betrayal, there's no ifs or buts about it.” My eyes flit between his, trying to see a single bit of remorse, but finding none as I deliver my last blow. “I tried to make it work, I wanted to move past all of our problems, but I won't do it anymore. This was the icing on the cake; you fucked up for the last time.”
Walking down the stairs with the second suitcase, I hear him call my name but I don’t turn back, not wanting to see him. He calls my name again not once, but three times, each time sounding angrier than the last. So I flip him off over my shoulder, feeling a sense of urgency to get out of here and to my friend’s house.
It’s nearly been a week since Gerry admitted he’d been cheating on me. I’ve spent this time thinking a lot about what I want to do. I love my job, but I’ve made the hard decision to return home to my mom so I handed my notice into my boss. She was sad that I’m leaving, but I need to get away from here and start fresh.
As the days have gone by, my head’s clearing and I’m finally seeing things for what they really were all along. He’d been treating me like this for years but I was too blind, not able to see it.
With no job and not wanting to outstay my welcome at my friend, Heather’s, I say my goodbye’s and drive over to my old house. It’s time I got the rest of my things and cut all ties with Gerry, but as I stand here staring at the house that I once called home, I can’t bring myself to walk in there.
I wish he wasn’t here while I packed up, but I know he’s inside because I saw him walk past the kitchen window not too long ago.
I blow out an audible breath, painting a smile on my face as I walk up the driveway. This needs to be done so I can move on with my life.
My hand hesitates on the door handle; do I knock? I decide that I should since it’s no longer my home. Lifting a shaky hand, I rap on the white wooden surface three times and wait. It’s not long before I hear footsteps padding toward me before the door opens and I’m faced with a laughing Gerry.
As soon as he sees it’s me, the smile he’s wearing drops from his face and a frown replaces it. “Harmony, you should have called.”
My brow pulls down into a frown and I fold my arms over my chest. “Last time I checked, you were the one in the wrong here, so don’t dictate when I can show up to my own home. I’m going to get the rest of my things and I’ll be out of here before you know it.” My gaze roams down his body; he’s not wearing a shirt so I quickly tear my eyes away from him, not wanting him to see me gawking. “So… can I come in?” God this is awkward.
He clears his throat as his hand scrubs at the back of his neck before he opens the door wider, inviting me in. “I boxed up all of your art supplies that were in the hallway closet, your cushions and canvases too. The only thing I didn’t touch were the drawers full of your lotions and potions, and the rest of your clothes and shoes.” He points to three full boxes. “I... I can load your car with these boxes while you pack, if you want?”
I don’t know what to say, I never thought this would be us; talking about packing up and moving my stuff out of our marital home and into my car like we’re talking about the weather. But he’s a stranger to me now, long gone is the sweet man that I married.
“Erm, sure, thanks.” I place my car keys in his outstretched hand and point to an empty box that is leaned up against the wall. “Can I use that?”
He nods, so I pick it up and walk up the stairs and into the bathroom, emptying my side of the built-in drawers and moving onto the measly amount of clothes and shoes that I left behind.
I’m placing one of my favorite scarves into the box when he appears in the doorway to what was our bedroom, leaning against the doorframe.
“Here, I’ll carry that down for you,” he offers, stepping forward and picking up the box.
“Thanks,” I mutter and frown as he walks out with the box; he’s almost being too nice. Looking around the room, it seems I’ve got everything of importance, so I guess this is it—apart from the grueling process of divorce and the long drive back to Mom’s.
I’m about to follow him out the front door and to my car when I hear a girly giggle coming from inside the house so I spin around, trying to find the source.
“Harmony, wait!” Gerry shouts after me, but I’m already on the move, storming into the kitchen and finding a scantily clad brunette who can’t be much older than twenty perched at the table.
She’s wearing one of Gerry’s white shirts, her lacey bra peeking out of the top, but that’s all she seems to be wearing. Her eyes widen at the sight of me and dart around, looking for a getaway without coming into contact with me.
My blood boils and I walk over to her, ripping the stupid, pink cellphone out of her hand and throwing it across the room. I hear it crack against one of the walls but I’m past the point of being angry to care.
I corner her in and point in her flushed face. “You homewrecker!”
“I—”
“I don’t want to hear your fucking excuses! How could you do that to someone? Did you not see the wedding ring on his finger?”
“Gerry!” she shouts, stumbling as she tries to stand up.
I match her movements until I’m pulled back into a familiar body, feeling his hot, bare skin against my back as he restrains me so I don’t do anything stupid.
“Get off me!” I shout, wriggling out of his arms and looking at them both, standing there with their mouths hanging open. “I hope you’re very happy together. Although, I don’t know how you’ll ever be able trust him. Once a cheater, always a cheater, right?”
“Harm—”
I silence him with my hand and shake my head. “I’ll be calling an attorney when I get to my mom’s, I’ll contact you through them. I was trying to be the bigger person by coming here today and being civil.” My fists clench as I look between him and his whore. “But you obviously couldn’t wait for me to be gone.”
I take one last look at them, conveying all of my hatred in the stares I leave them with before turning and walking out of the front door.
I hear footsteps race behind me so I speed up my walk until I’m at my car.
“Harmony!” Gerry shouts as I’m about to open the door. I fight myself to get in and drive away, but old habits die hard. I look back at him, seeing the remorse on his face for the first time since I found out he’d cheated on me. “I’m sorry, I...” He wipes a hand down his face. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
Normally I would have walked back up to him and told him that it was fine, that what happened doesn’t matter, but it’s not fine, and it does matter. His woe is me act won’t work on me anymore.
“Well at least we agree on something; I never wanted you to hurt me either. Go fuck yourself, Gerry, or your whore. Either way, you’re not my problem anymore.”
I drop into the driver's seat of my car, angry tears running down my face, but I know the enormity of the situation hasn’t hit me yet. It will, but for now I’m going to try and keep my head above water and concentrate on rebuilding my life.
My muscles tense at the thought of going it alone. Being alone frightens me more than anything, but I’ll do this, I have to.