Eunice
I’m sorry, Eunice.
I am sorry.
Those last words of his imprinted themselves on my mind.
I am sorry.
A simple sorry, but for what? Was it for being with me? Was that the regret? Being with me? He said he loved me, but then what did his words mean? I could feel the familiar ache making its way back to my heart.
Was this what he meant when he said he would end up hurting me? Was this what he was afraid of, or was this what he wanted? A part of me believed that he left to get some time, but another part of me felt like he left me, even if he loved me. I was nothing to him—maybe he didn’t want me. Irrational thoughts flooded my mind.
The buzzing of my phone put a halt to my irrational thoughts. Looking around the room, I found my clutch on the table beside the door. Wrapping the sheet around myself, I walked towards the buzzing sound. I wished it was Joshua. I was a desperate person who longed for the love I was denied for more than half a year. I was desperate to be loved by someone who loved me. His mistakes, his faults and sins, were clouded by my need to be held by someone. I had lost my dignity because I was still desperately in love with a man who had scarred me deep. I was a hopeless lover, a lover who couldn’t make the right decisions because her heart was clouded with a thick sheet of need to be loved. I had lost my dignity and my own self-respect, but this love of mine was drowning me, killing me.
Nora’s name flashed on the screen, making reality sink in. I knew she would be furious. She told me she would be there for me, she kept asking me the night before if I was all right or not. I lied to her face, and in the middle of the night, left the house with a clouded mind. With steady hands, I answered her call.
“Where the hell are you, Eunice?” Nora demanded. I could feel the frustration and worry in her voice.
“Nora,” I whispered, ashamed of the fact I’d lied to her and left her worrying again.
“Where are you, Eunice? I woke up in the morning to find you missing. Where the hell have you gone?”
I didn’t know what to tell her. She was angry at me and my foolishness for sure, but I didn’t know how she would react to knowing where I was. What would she think when I told her how I had let loose of my dignity and degraded myself? I hadn’t cared what the world said about me for the past two months, but what my friends thought of me mattered the most.
“Eunice!” she yelled through the phone once again.
“I am…I’m at Josh…ua’s,” I whispered while tightening my hold on the sheet wrapped around me.
“What?” she asked, shocked, her voice not much more than a whisper. “You went to him? What were you thinking, Eunice? What in the hell are you doing there? What did you do, Eunice?” she asked, disbelief and anger rolling in her voice.
“I…I…” I wasn’t able to form the words to tell what I did.
“Please don’t tell me that you slept with him, Eunice? Please don’t say that you still love him?” I could hear the desperation in her voice.
“I…did,” I told her, tears welling in my eyes. The harsh reality of what I had done slapped me in the face.
“Is he still with you?” she asked, anger lacing her voice. Her question struck me hard. He’d left me behind with nothing but an apology, with nothing but a sorry. A lone tear escaped.
“No,” I whispered, looking at the empty, unmade bed. Silence covered me and Nora grew silent. Minutes passed.
“I’m coming to pick you up. I want you ready and out of the house. I’ll be there in fifteen.” Before I could say anything, the line went dead.
Wiping away the tear, I stumbled around the room, picking my clothes. I wished to cry at what I had done, I wished for tears for degrading myself, but in the end it was all my doing. Dressing myself up, I wished for Joshua to come home that instant and tell me everything was all right, that he loved me, that he would never leave me. I hoped for it but God isn’t on my side and this was reality. He had left me.
Looking around the room, I let the memories of last night sink inside. Even though I was shunned, I couldn’t forget the love that existed between us last night. He said he needed time, and I was willing to give him that. I wasn’t sure what my next step would be, but something was going to change. I didn’t know what, but I had an intuition of it. I made my way out of the house just in time. Nora had parked a few seconds back. The whole ride back to her house was silent, and I could feel the angry vibes rolling off her. I followed her inside the house with my head hung low.
“Eunice!” I heard Clarisse shout my name and before I knew it, I was engulfed in a warm hug.
“God, Eunice, what have you done?” she said sympathetically, making me ask myself the same thing.
“Clarisse, you don’t have to be sympathetic to her. She made her choice last night,” Nora said with narrowed eyes, making me lower my head in shame.
“Nora, you don’t need to be so harsh on her.”
“I need to, Clarisse. She freaking lied to me. You and I have been here for her for so long. We’ve been trying so god damn hard to make sure she doesn’t get hurt again, but she’s on the track to ruin herself. She just wants to leave her loved ones again in misery and worry,” Nora shouted from across the room. I knew she was hurt, but she had no right to say things like that to me.
“Nora, stop it!” Clarisse shouted, standing midway between us.
“No. She needs to understand that we’re here for her own good. She needs to accept her mistake. She trusts that god damn bastard Joshua more than us—someone who doesn’t even deserve a second of her time. She needs to be reminded of the fact that he was the one who hurt her and what she did last night was wrong. She let herself get weak and fall back in the arms of the man who destroyed her. She needs to get it through her head that he doesn’t love her. That man is a sick bastard who doesn’t care for her. He didn’t have the courtesy to even say sorry to her, he didn’t even come to visit her or call. He doesn’t love her. She can’t act like a lovesick puppy and go back to him. She needs to understand the fact that he isn’t getting back with her and she needs to let go of him!” Nora shouted at me. My eyes were wide. I know I had let my walls down, lost my dignity, but she was wrong about one fact: Joshua and I still had something. Even in our twisted fates we had something and it persisted. He said he loves me and I know he’s just fucked up a bit. He asked for time, and I know he hurt me this morning, but wasn’t last night a clue that we could have something?
“No, you are wrong, Nora. He said sorry, he was fucked up, and he knew he was wrong. We love each other. He still loves me. He truly said himself that I am the only one he loves. I know our love is fucked up, but I still love him. There’s still a part of me that loves him, and last night ignited a bit of hope inside of that part of me. There still could be an us in our twisted, fucked up love story. I know it’s hard, Nora, it’s hard to forget the scars he gave me. It’s hard to forget the pain he inflicted on me. But how do I tell this to the fucked up part of me that is still hopelessly in love with him? His words of last night are stuck in my mind. I am just so fucking confused, Nora. I did an irrational act and I can’t even decipher it myself how I really feel.” I had tears rolling down my cheeks.
“I’m so lost, Nora. I don’t know what I want, what I need, or what to do. The past months had been so hard and torturous that I can’t tell you what I felt from inside. All those accusations from people that maybe I wasn’t good enough, that I couldn’t keep my husband satisfied, that I couldn’t keep my man. Do you know how it felt, Nora? They all made me feel so low, so pathetic, and the worst part was that some of those people I considered to be family. Society portrayed me as an evil stepmother. Want to know what they said, huh, Nora?” I asked, looking at her through teary eyes while she stood stunned.
“Eunice, please calm down,” Clarisse said, trying to hold me but I stepped away from her and walked towards Nora. Standing in front of her, I looked straight in her eyes.
“They said I didn’t love her, that I wanted to get rid of her somehow. I thought I wouldn’t let those fucking things affect me, but they did, Nora! They did! I was being portrayed as a woman who couldn’t satisfy her husband and couldn’t love him enough, while my husband’s mistress was being seen as someone who helped him, who supported him. They don’t even fucking know the truth about me. For them, Anne holds more dignity than me. They say my sins drowned me to the point where I decided to take my own life, but it was the fucked up mind of my husband and the wrong accusations against me that drowned me. I fucking loved him, Nora, and I still do.”
She held me in her arms.
“I am sorry, Eunice.” She calmed me down while holding me and rubbing my back, but it was of no use, because I was hurt. I was unleashing what I felt—the pent-up emotions I had kept concealed for the past two months. The stabbing pain I suffered when I was seen as a woman who couldn’t love her husband enough and was accused wrongly. I cried for my lost dignity, for all the words I had to hear, for my broken heart, for my lost love, for my own broken self, for a confused me.
“He was my true love, Nora, and I stood there for him through everything. I loved him so much. Did you think it would be easy to let go of him like that? I don’t know why I went there, what I wanted, but I needed some love—love from the man I once fell for. I don’t know what to do with myself. He said he loved me and then left me the next morning. He said he was sorry before leaving after some call, and I don’t understand it. I am so confused, Nora. I still want to have a hold on him but the scars of the past make me want to push him aside at times. The part of me that loves him wants him to come back to me, to beg me for forgiveness, and tell me how sorry he is, that he will be with me whatever happens. I just want him to tell me that we will have our forever after, like he vowed.” I sobbed on her shoulder. I was so confused that I didn’t know what to do. Silence passed between us for the next few minutes. Nora made me sit on the couch between her and Clarisse.
“Eunice,” Nora said, raising my chin and making me look straight in her eyes. “I know you’re confused, but all I want is to look out for you. I know a part of you loves him, and I know it has been hard for you these past months. I know you can’t just let go of him like that, but I don’t want to see you get hurt again. He might love you a lot, but you can’t have him. I don’t want to see you go back to hurting yourself, and that is why I want you to let go. I want you to let go of that part of you that loves him the most.” She paused. Her words confused me. What did she mean when she said I can’t have him? I stared at her in disbelief. What was she asking me to do? The part of me that loved Joshua wanted to yell at her and hurt her, but I knew she was my friend.
“Nora…what…are you saying?” I asked.
“Eunice, just hear us out, okay? Just believe us,” Clarisse said, holding my hand. I didn’t know what was happening.
“We need you to let go of Joshua, Eunice. I am saying this for your own good. I can’t see you getting hurt or in pain anymore. I don’t want you to walk down the same path you did before. I want you to trust me, okay? Joshua left you in the morning, right?” Nora asked. I nodded in affirmation.
“Eunice, I don’t know what game he’s playing at or whether he’s playing a game at all. I don’t know what he’s doing, but I can’t trust that man, not anymore. I wanted to tell you this as soon as we knew about it, but I thought them to be rumors. I didn’t want to hurt you or make you remember the past. Clarisse and I both looked into the matter, and the rumors seem to be true.” She looked worried and looked at me with sympathy.
“What are you talking about, Nora?” I asked hastily. I grew more worried by the second.
“Eunice…Anne is pregnant with Joshua’s child,” Clarisse said, making everything go silent. I sat there with wide eyes, looking at them. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know what to say. I could hear my heart being crushed once again. I wasn’t prepared for this at all. I couldn’t feel as much pain after bearing so much. My world stopped. Everything came to a halt.
I am sorry, Eunice. Joshua’s words hit me. He was sorry for this, he left me for her. He went to her. He had hurt me once again. Nora was right. I couldn’t have him back ever because I knew one thing—Joshua would never choose me over his kid. Maybe this was the end of us. We were never meant to be together, and I needed to accept that. I was already torn and there was nothing left. This news made me go numb. I was devoid of emotions. I could feel the numbness spreading through my veins. I could feel a shield forming around my crushed heart. I was protecting what was left of me. I needed to protect my last fragments. My heart needed to be preserved, and I was building a wall of emotions to keep what was left of me.
“Eunice! Eunice, are you all right?” Both of my friends were crouched down on the floor in front of me. I don’t know what came over me, but the next words slipped through my mouth, shocking them and myself. Minutes passed as I stood, appalled.
“I want a divorce,” I breathed out. “I need a divorce,” I said, louder than before…