The Other Woman

“Hey, whatsup?”
“Hi baby,”

“You alright? You sound weird,” he answers suspiciously
“”I’m just tired. I stayed up half the night. I couldn’t get to sleep,” I explain, which is a lie of course

Tre doesn’t answer right away. I only hear near silent murmurs in the background of wherever he is for today.
“Something troubling you?” he finally asks after a short silence.

“Well…actually,” I suggest in a playful manner, well what I could muster up as playful due to a depression
“Yeeees…” he questions, a hint of annoyance and anxiousness in his tone.

“I really want to come visit you this weekend,” I murmur, unable to release the gloomy grief in my voice,
“Sure. Uh, do you want me to set it up for you?” he asks cautiously

“If you want. It doesn’t matter to me,” I oddly explain.
“Alright, I’ll do it later,” he utters, and then with a little hesitance, “you sure you want to come?”

My heart cracks a synch by his inquiry; did he not want me to come anymore?

“Yes,” I murmur, “Not unless it’s a bad time for you or someth—“
“No!” he loudly interrupts, causing my right ear to flinch. “I want you here. I just don’t want to be the reason you collapse from exhaustion or something,” he says, and a faint laugh is laced in his speech, causing a small smile to break in my face.

“I’ll be fine,” I grin, closing my eyes as I imagine myself with him…us…together.

Mission: Initiate normal conversation
“You guys have the night off today?”
“We’re playing at a small club. There’s always a show.” He answers
“Where are you anyway?”

“In Philly” is his abrupt reply.
“Oh… How’s the weather?”

“Good.” Another callous reply.

And then silence.

Mission: Failed

“Are you ok, Tre?” I ask, not knowing where this sudden burst of awkward tension crawled through from.
“I’m fine, and you?” he snottily replies.

“I think I’ll call you later. Goodni—“

“Sorry,” he breaks in. “I’ve been in a bad little mood all day”

You’re in a bad mood?! At least you’re not pregnant with your best friend’s baby!

“Its ok. I’m drained though, so I’m actually gonna talk to you later,”
“See you soon…snookems,” he coos.

All I can do is shake my head in a melancholic, yet joyous way. This guy could switch from impressively pleasant to impressively bitchy in seconds.

You wont call me snookems when you find out what’s happened.

“I love you Tre,”
“I miss you,” he sighs, and I already know he means the happier me, when our relationship was a bit brighter.

“Me too,” I reply

“But on a lighter note…What are you wearing? A shoe lace?”

I giggle, a sound so foreign to my ears…

“You wish,” I smirk
“Well I’m wearing a thin nothing of a shirt and a thong,” he answers to a question that I don’t recall asking.

“Now that paints a pretty picture in my head,” I utter sarcastically
“As it should,”

Smiling, I lie down against my head back, eyes shifting to the white ceiling. “What happened to you being in a bad mood?”
“Your voice ran it away. And what happened to you having to get off the phone?”
“I’d rather stay for now,” I smile.

I can already smell a pot of vanilla bean coffee already brewing from the hallway. And when my feet reach the living room, a scent of stinky eggs, but deliciously sizzling vegetables waft into my nostrils.

Waltzing clumsily inside the kitchen, I take a seat on a wooden stool next to the round table, not surprised that my best friend had come back despite my pleas, to cheer me up (and maybe eat something). Rubbing the sleep still tugging at my eyes, I lay my head on the table top, a yawn drawing from my throat.

“You owe me big time for doing all this nicey nicey stuff for you,” Jennifer whistles from the stove top.
“I owe you?” I grin, “What happened to that’s just what friends do?”
“This isn’t Sesame Street,” she counteracts as she uses the spatula and places the fresh omelet onto a Styrofoam plate.

I almost laugh, but fight the feeling as she drops the plate next to my head. The odor immediately floats to my nose, causing me to sit up. She joins me at the table mere seconds later, knife already cutting into her eggy meal.

“Finally decided to dye your hair back?” I murmur between mouthfuls, appreciating her brunette hair once more, and the extra waves looked amazing.
“Yeah,” she hums, “Mark said I should change it, but do something with it. But I know the waves are gonna flatten by Friday,”

I nod, taking a dainty sip of coffee. “That’s fascinating and all, but I spoke to Tre last night,”
“I would toss a piece of my omelet at you, but I’m hungry, so I’ll kick you instead,” she mumbles, followed by a loud ouch from yours truly.

“So what happened?” she inquires
“We spoke for a few hours. I think I’m going crazy or something. I miss him and want to be with him, but then I don’t want to see him because I know it’s going to be hard just to look him in the eye,”

“Personally, I think your blowing things out of proportion,” she mutters. “Before you come depressed and whatnot you need to make sure that Billie is the dad,”
“I know, but when I look at the dates, it just leads to him. I dunno,” I ramble, playing around with the yellow treat with my fork.

“If it is his, do you know what you’re going to do?”
“I honestly don’t know. I don’t want an abortion, but I don’t want to tell the truth either. It’s not his or her little fault in there for what happened. It’s my dumbass,” I digress, tears already pricking my eyes at the thought.

She drinks off her coffee in minutes as we finish our breakfast in silence.
“Well, whatever it is that you decide. I support you,” she smiles, giving me a knowing smile.

As the day progresses, I find it difficult just to stay on task at work. I would stare out the window or at the light switch on the wall, trying to figure out my fate. I had declined lunch invitations, blaming it on an upset stomach or headache. But it was really my thoughts that were upsetting me. After filing away a mess of permits, leases, document holds, blue print sketches, and too many invoices, the day had finally ended.

“Just getting back from work?” a stranger approaches me. I had just got out of my car, and had taken two steps when this handsome Spanish looking fellow came up to me. I knew pretty much everyone in the complex, but he wasn’t recognizable.

“Yea,” I mutter, holding my purse extra close to my arm, empty hand already going into my pocket for the tube of lipstick which was actually pepper spray.
“You know,” he talks with a distinguishable accent, “I’ve never seen you round here before. What’s your name?”
I roll my eyes, “I don’t have a name,”

He laughs, following me up the stairs.
“I see,” he grins. “I’m José. I just got off work too. Had a hard day today, you?”
“I don’t meant to be rude or anything, but what do you want?” I bite, turning around on my heels to face him.

“You just seem angry or depressed, and well, I can make you feel better…” he slowly smirks.
Fighting the urge to smack him across his face, I glare. “Go fuck yourself. I look a prostitute to you?”

“Whoa! Whoa! I didn’t mean that sweethe—“
“Don’t call me sweetheart dipshit,” I spit, purposely taking the wrong stairway so he couldn’t figure out where I lived.

“Ok, ok,” he mumbles. “But I didn’t mean that. I mean I have things that can cheer you up. You know what I mean?” And to further show his meaning, he looks at his left and then his right before digging into his pocket and producing a tiny bag of grass.

“Not interested,” I sigh. “And get the fuck out of here before I call the police,”

He takes the hint and slowly trudges away. “You have a good evening,” he calls out, which I reply with a growl.

“We need to fucking move,” I muse over to Jennifer who is nursing a bowl of ice cream whilst watching a rerun of Sex and the City as I step inside.

“Hello sunshine,” she giggles
“I’m serious,” I exclaim. “I got out of my car and was greeted by a drug dealer. If I do have a child, it isn’t going to be around here,”

“Seriously?” she responds, “and it wasn’t Mark?”
“YES!” I half yell, grabbing the ice cream from her grasp. “And Mark isn’t a drug dealer, he’s just dumb”

“Is this character Spanish, light brown hair, nice green eyes?”
I nod, “you’ve seen him before? His name is José” I mutter between spoonfuls of cold vanilla.

“Yeah, he’s nice I guess, but Mark told me sells like everything, and that he mixes stuff that can actually kill people. Just don’t cross him,”
“I told him to fuck off before I called the cops,” I regretfully respond.

She shrugs, “no biggie,”

It’s well into the night this Tuesday in late June, I needed fresh air. With my head tucked into my lap, I draw circles with my finger into the concrete, not knowing what else to do.

Why me?

The moon is shining vaguely in the sky, dark clouds occasionally brushing over it. I find myself stewing in dozens of thoughts of children, Tre, Adrienne, marriage, Billie Joe….

I still didn’t understand how any of this happened. I had used protection, and from what I’d seen, no condom had ever broken.

Damn you Billie Joe…

No more alcohol, no weed, no this, no that till the pregnancy was over. If there was going to be a pregnancy anyway.

I could smell the faint burnings of a cigarette somewhere, and I knew it was probably José. Did this moron not understand the concept that I didn’t want anything from him?

Looking up from the dark shadows of my lap, I take in a fresh breath of smoke tainted air before standing erect. This guy needed to leave. Who wants a malicious drug dealer hanging around your apartment?

“Do you mind smoking somewhere else? I’m pregnant José,” I mutter, fighting the urge to snatch the cancer stick from his mouth and squash it to smithereens with the heel of my shoe.

My eyes still aren’t adjusted to the velvet darkness, and his face is still masked with black, only the burning orange from his cigarette visible. His figure is standing against a wall just a few doors down from my apartment, head down with the looks of a frown.

I brush my hair back with my fingers when his movements still.

“José? Who’s José?” he asks.

The voice belonged to none other than Mr. Armstrong, it was indistinguishable.

My eyes finally begin to adjust, and surely enough it’s him. Green charcoaled lines eyes and all. The burning stick is still torched inside his mouth, so I take the liberty of ripping it from his lips and throwing it to the floor, only to glare at him dead in the eyes as I gnash it to bits with my heel.

And its just then that I notice the expression on his face, the faint leftover tears still tugging on his eyelashes, the melancholy in his eyes.

And I don’t know why, maybe it was the cool breeze or my own displaced anger still meshed inside of me, but I wrap my arms around his neck and press myself against him into a hug. He immediately coils his arms about my waist, lowering his head to my shoulder.

No questions are asked as we hug each other outside the door, the cool night gripping us. Our embrace is purely platonic, no hidden desires or covert motives.

His warm tears drip, slipping down the crook of my slender neck downward to my chest. My left hand somehow finds its way into his messy black hair, naturally French tipped fingernails running through each dark strand in a soothing manner.

“Maybe it will be o.k,” I announce to no one in particular. I only receive a soft sob from the gentleman lying on my shoulder.