Honey, I’m Home (Cringe)

(Violet)

I turned the key and shut my eyes. There was no feeling quite so empty as entering your apartment with a sense of dread. But it was my own fault, though. I let things fall into place as they did. I never meant to run from Mason as quickly as I did. I never meant to stay away from him like I did. Part of me waited for him to track me down but the other part knew he never would. At the same time, wasn’t I worth it?

Opening the door to his apartment and having some beautiful woman stand there and say I’m his wife was the worst feeling I could remember. I had no choice but to leave right then. I was not going to be some side piece. I was going to be strong and stand up for myself.

But truthfully… I regretted it. If that makes me a bad person, then I’m a bad person.

I walked into the apartment and listened.

There was no other sound.

I was alone for once.

I bit my bottom lip and pulled a fist against the side of my body like I had just scored a goal or something in a game. In reality, I only scored a few minutes of alone time before he came home.

Home.

This apartment wasn’t a home.

It was all temporary.

I walked to the kitchen table and looked around. Everything in the place had been staged. I paid a year’s worth of rent on a fully-furnished apartment. The money for the fashion app I worked on with Victoria had come through and I had a sense of freedom I never thought possible. Yet, I didn’t actually feel free. It was amazing how money seemed to be the catalyst to change everything but for me it didn’t change the main thing I wanted.

My heart.

My heart was still broken from Mason. I knew the risk of playing too close to the fire. I liked touching the flame. I liked being burned. The problem? I didn’t expect the fire to disappear.

I missed him but I hated him. I hated him so much. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think of him or picture that woman at the door.

I’m his wife.

He said he lost her, right? The woman… his wife… that was Kate, right? My mind could spin for hours and days trying to piece things together. I should have just gone after him and demanded answers. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t see him with his wife.

The pain was real inside me and it hadn’t had a chance to settle.

My phone vibrated against the kitchen table.

“Hey, Mom,” I said as I took the call.

I used to answer the phone bubbly and excited. Now I answered the phone with a lump in my throat and my brain mentally preparing me for the worst phone call ever.

“All is well,” she said.

She always said that, reassuring me that Dad was okay.

Remember how I said that hearing that woman say I’m his wife was the worst feeling ever? Well, it was only matched when my mother called to tell me Dad had been diagnosed with cancer. Call it crazy as anything, but after he fell off the ladder and had to keep getting checked out, the doctors found that he had cancer in his kidneys. Just as he was starting to feel better from his injury he was faced with something else. And this something else had begun to spread and left him with rounds of chemotherapy and turning into a shell of who he used to be.

Yet he fought. Every single day he kept fighting. The doctors reassured me and Mom that he had a good chance of surviving. That was all well and good but when you watched the man who stood as your strong hero turn into a feeble man, losing his hair, tired all the time, it was a hard left turn to take.

“How is Dad?” I asked.

“Good. Today he’s good.”

“I want to come see you later. I just got home. I had a meeting that ran longer than I expected.”

“That’s good, Violet,” Mom said. “You need to keep living. Keep working on your career and your life. That’s what he wants for you. That… and to know what happened with you and Mason.”

I shut my eyes again.

My father took to Mason. Of all the people in the world to connect with, it had to be him. I had feared Mason would end up making an ass of himself, but instead, he cracked the hardest shell around my father and won him over. That made my life even more complicated considering my current relationship status.

“I talked to you about that,” I said. “It just didn’t work.”

No, I didn’t tell my parents that Mason was married. Foolish, right? I had the chance to bury him like the asshole he was. Throw him right under the bus because he deserved it. Yet I didn’t do it. I simply told my parents that it wasn’t meant to be. Dad didn’t like to hear that. With Mom, I went a little deeper, but never gave her the entire story.

“I really don’t want to talk about that,” I said.

“Then tell me about your meeting,” she said. “I need some good news.”

“Well, the app was very successful,” I said. “So, we’re going to be adding more and more content to it. I guess that’s the next step in everything. I have to stay on top of Victoria to keep designing. I also got an offer to work on some financial app, too.”

“I’m so proud of you,” Mom said. Her voice cracked. “I’m serious. You were always so smart. I wish me and Dad had more to give…”

“Why would you ever say that?” I asked. “You gave me everything I ever needed. A home. A family. College. And then I was able to go out on my own. Whether you realize it or not, Mom, the greatest thing you and Dad ever did was just be there in the background for me. I knew, even on my worst day, that if something terrible were to happen, I could come back home. Whether it was to just get a meal or a hug or a laugh.”

“I want you happy, Violet,” Mom said.

Now the conversation was taking a wicked turn. A turn I didn’t want to deal with.

“Mom,” I said.

“Violet. I’m being serious.”

“I can’t do this right now.”

“Right,” she said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t overstep. I wanted to call and let you know that I’m cooking a big dinner tomorrow night. Your father wants to have a family dinner. You know he eats from the couch or bed and he’s mad about that. He wants me to cook a turkey and he wants to stand at the head of the table and carve it.”

“A turkey? Are you kidding me?”

“Oh, I’m not. So, I have to somehow find a turkey to cook.”

I laughed. “Sorry. But I can picture him saying he wants a turkey. And you raising an eyebrow and asking if he’s serious.”

“That’s exactly how it went,” Mom said. “Sick or not, I can’t turn down a family dinner. You’ll be there?”

“Of course, I’ll be there. I’ll be there tonight, too. I’m here to help, Mom.”

“I know you are. But we have to be careful about treating him like a patient too much. I read somewhere that it could make him depressed.”

“I’m not treating him like a patient,” I said. “I’m… I’m trying to figure out life and I need my mom and dad.”

“Okay,” Mom said. “That sounds good, Violet.”

I heard the apartment door open and my heart started to race. Not the same kind of racing that happened when I would hear or see Mason. Or feel Mason touch me everywhere…

“I’ll catch up with you later,” I said. “I love you, Mom. Give Dad a kiss from me. A kiss because I love him, not because he’s sick.”

“You got it,” Mom said. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I ended the call and braced myself for what was to come.

“Honey! I’m home!” a voice echoed through the apartment.

Granted, the first time I heard that, it was maybe cute. But hearing it every time he came home was just… cringe-worthy.

I waited in the kitchen and painted a smile on my face.

“There you are,” he said, entering the kitchen. “How was your day? How did your meeting go? Did you sign any more deals?”

I looked at his face.

I couldn’t believe what I had done. Running right back into something that resembled comfort. He was my first love but he wasn’t my true love.

“Violet?” he asked.

I swallowed hard. In my mind, I just kept saying his name, still trying to figure out how everything got so crazy so fast.

I exhaled and whispered his name.

“Davis.”

* * *

Yes, I know. It was crazy. Davis was the boy I loved in high school. We were together and he insisted that I give him my virginity or else. The or else turned out to be his cheating on me, breaking my heart, and that was that. Until it wasn’t. He had been engaged but that turned out to be fake. And then when things went bad with Mason and Dad got sick…

Davis slipped a hand around to my back and pressed his lips to my cheek.

“I missed you today,” he whispered. “So fucking much.”

His tongue flickered at my ear. He let out a groan. It wasn't sexy, though. It was like he’d just relieved himself in the bathroom or something.

It made me cringe again.

Davis was wildly attracted to me because I would finally sleep with him. The one conquest he always wanted and he got it. It also helped that I had money and was working on deals to make more money. He was stuck in a dead-end job, trying to work on some business idea.

Whatever.

It was the worst timing when he came crashing into my life. Right after Dad got sick and started his treatments. He knew the right things to say at the right time. And maybe he wasn’t the worst guy in the world, and maybe eventually it would all click and make sense for me and him.

“Come here, Violet,” he whispered. “I want to feel you. I want to feel myself inside you. I’m getting so hard right now.”

He groaned again.

My phone vibrated on the table and I jumped away from Davis.

He stared at me, his eyes squinting with anger.

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s Victoria. Business…”

“Yeah, take the call,” he said. “Good luck. Get those deals going, Violet. I’m proud of you.”

He always pointed at me when he said that.

I’m proud of you… with his chubby finger pointed at me. His high school class ring on his pinky finger. A piece of chewed-up green gum in his mouth. He looked like a coach telling his athlete he did well on a play.

Davis was the complete polar opposite of Mason and maybe that’s why I felt that way. But there was history here and the combination was deadly.

“Victoria,” I said as I walked toward the door that led to the balcony. “What’s happening?”

“Meetings were good?”

“Yeah. We’re all sort of waiting on you. No pressure.” I laughed.

“I have plenty to do here. I have a bottle of wine. My door is locked. Chinese food is on the counter.”

“I’m totally jealous,” I said. “I sort of miss my alone time.”

“Well, you did kind of ride from the big bad hunk to the high school sweetheart pretty fast. Those are two very opposite trains.”

“Yeah I know. Just everything with my father…”

“How is he?”

“Mom said ‘good’ today. I’m going to go visit him in a little bit.”

“Well, if you get a chance you should swing by my place for a night. Just you and me.”

“And wine and Chinese food?” I asked so eagerly it was almost pathetic.

“Yes,” Victoria said with a laugh. “Hey, are you sure you’re happy?”

“I can’t answer that question right now,” I said. “I have so much on my plate, Victoria. I’m just trying to sort through it.”

“Okay. Well, you know where I live if you need anything. I’ll have some designs by tomorrow.”

“Talk to you later,” I said.

I turned and Davis was standing right against the door. He gave a thumbs up then a thumbs down. See, back in high school he was the cutest boy. He was smart and athletic. Your typical small-town, good boy, hero kind of person. And for some reason he took to me. I was smitten and my life was amazing. But time does a strange thing. The cute boy turned into a man. The athletic side faded with very few glimpses of what used to be. Sometimes, I could spend forever trying to parse out those similarities between what he was now and what he used to be. I probably seemed petty or bitchy to Davis, who could never quite figure out that I was a different person now than I had been in high school.

I opened the door and Davis had his hands out. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“What did she say? Are the deals going through?”

“Davis… it doesn’t work that way.”

“She’s lazy, isn’t she? Dammit. I don’t like that you have to depend on her. You should do stuff on your own.”

“I’m fine. You should worry about yourself.”

“And what does that mean? Is that a cheap shot about my job?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Hey, I don’t appreciate your attitude right now. I just got home from work. I have work to do here. I have a busy goddamn night, Violet.”

I looked at Davis. Sometimes I thought about slapping him across the face just to see what he would do. I knew if it was Mason, he’d smile. Or he’d tease me to do it again. Or he’d spin me around and put me up against a wall and start up with me. But Davis? He’d probably cry. Or run away and then cry.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have snapped. I’m under a lot of pressure.”

He touched my arms. He was the epitome of comfort. I could picture a future with Davis. House. Kids. All that fun stuff that most adults worry about.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m going to stop over at my parents’ in a bit. Check on Dad. See if Mom needs anything. So, you’ll have the place to yourself for a little while.”

“Thank you,” he said. He leaned in and kissed my forehead. “You’re perfect, Violet. I’m so happy we’re finally together again. The way it was always meant to be.”

I smiled but didn’t reply when he said things like that. It always left me uneasy, wondering what was right and what was wrong.

Davis kissed my forehead again and said he was going to start getting some work done. I grabbed my keys and got into my car. I was going to swing by Dad’s favorite pizza place and grab a pie for all of us to eat.

As I waited in the warm pizza shop, smelling the perfection of dough, cheese, and sauce all cooking together, I stood at the window and saw the reflection of my face and the neon sign that blinked Anthony’s Pizza letter by letter.

My phone began to ring and it was the old apartment complex.

I didn't answer.

I waited for the voicemail and listened.

I shut my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.

It was official… the last tie to Mason was about to be cut.