The Last Round (3 page)

A painful sting of guilt tugs deeper within me. Maybe I’m making a bad decision. Maybe we can work this out. Maybe . . .
no
! All I can think of is the past couple years and how everything has changed so quickly.

“Was it also me who pushed you into other women and drugs?” The words just come out. I’ve been holding on to so much anger and the fact he’s telling me all of this, infuriates me more. How can he say I’m the reason for so much good in his life, yet there has been nothing but horrifying moments in the past few years? I can’t help but throw it in his face. Maybe I am wrong, but we never fully addressed it, and I’m sick and tired of always sweeping it under the rug.

His jaw tenses and shoulders stiffen. “I was never unfaithful.”

“No? All those parties with your buddies, and the photos of you with drop dead gorgeous women? Sometimes you were captured with them nestling on your lap, while you held bottles of liquor, clearly intoxicated. Do you honestly think I’d believe that bullshit lie?”

“That was all for show and you know it.”

I stand, my stomach feeling queasy. Do not cry. Do. Not. Cry. The more I tell myself not to shed a single tear, the more they roll down my face. “Julian, there were times you were dragged home by either Jonathan or a bodyguard, or a friend who I never met before—at all hours of the night. Sometimes five in the morning, and you were so drunk and high on whatever it was you took that night!” I take in a sharp breath and continue.

“I spent hours in the early morning sobering you up. I spent many nights in tears, thinking this was it; this was the day I would get a phone call that you’d overdosed. I placed you in the shower and cleaned off the smell of cigarettes and liquor and cheap perfume. I had to scrub off the lipstick from your neck!” A shaky breath leaves my lungs. “So you can stand there and tell me you were never unfaithful, but I know the truth.” I stab a finger at my chest, “Okay? I know the fucking truth!”

“I never cheated on you! There may’ve been girls at parties and maybe they clung to me, but I never slept with any of them!”

I laugh and cry and laugh some more. He’s going to make me go crazy. This is all bullshit. Just pure bullshit. “You couldn’t even remember half the shit you did the night before!” I laugh again, more tears trickling down my cheeks. “Do you seriously think nothing happened? If that’s the lies you want to keep telling yourself then go ahead, Julian. But I’m over it. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep living this way!”

His expression grows livid with my words and I know that look. I know this argument is going to get worse before one of us storms out. “You can’t keep living this way? So you want throw away twelve years? Just like that, huh? It’s so easy for you to just walk away from all of that? Is that what you’re telling me, that you don’t give a fuck about our relationship to even work things out?”

“That’s not fair. You know what you’re saying is not fair!”

“How is it not fair? That’s what you’re saying! Let’s just fucking throw all of it away”.” He tosses his arms, causing one of the lamps on a table to drop to the floor and shatter. I flinch and my chest heaves as my breathing grows rapid.

“It’s not fair, because you walked away from us long ago and you know it!” I cry out. “I tried to fight for us for so long and you pushed me away. This has been going on for two years now. We are not teens anymore and I can’t keep doing this. I’m unhappy. You’re unhappy. What do you want me to say? Do you want me to just give us another chance? Well I have. I have given us numerous chances and I have no more left in me to give.”

Julian

I STARE AT
my wife of nine years and she looks just as lost as me. “Was I so bad of a husband?”

She fists a hand to her chest, her face is filled with so much pain and I want to do everything and anything to take it away.

“Not always,” she admits.

“Not always?” This pisses me off. I step around the couch and move in closer to her. I stab a finger at my chest. “I busted my ass, Natalia. I worked hard so you can have everything.
Everything
! The designer clothes in your large walk-in closet, the jewelry, and the expensive cars you drive. I got us the house
you
wanted. Everything was always for you.”

She lifts her head, her tear-stained eyes penetrating me. “I
never
asked for any of that. You know me better than that, Julian. All I ever wanted was you. I didn’t want this lifestyle. I didn’t care for it. I would have been fine in a two-bedroom house in Bensalem. You forced this on me. You thought the more money you had or spent, the happier we would be. In the end, I just wanted to make
you
happy. You bought me that house because you fucked up. Every time you did something wrong, you lavished me with gifts. Shame on me for allowing it; you always had a way of making
me
feel guilty for
your
wrongdoings.” She shoves her hands in the air. “You can keep it all, Julian. I don’t want any of it. The house, the clothes, the jewelry. All of it. I don’t want it.”

What the hell! This is plummeting quickly and I need to defuse it fast. I smooth out the wrinkles between my brows, step in closer, and place my hand to the side of her face. I need her to understand this is not the way, we need to be together.

My fingers embrace her moisten cheek. She weakens in my hand, shutting her eyes. “Natalia. I love you.” And I do. I love her to all fucking hell, and I’d give anything to make her happy. To see her happy.

She lingers in my hold for a few seconds, then she quickly flashes her lids open and removes her face from my touch. “I love you too, Julian. More than you’ll ever know. You have to understand this is what’s best for us. Okay? I still want to be part of your life. I still want to be there for you, but I can’t keep living this way. It’s unhealthy for the both of us.”

I don’t know how I feel right now. This can’t really be happening. I don’t need this right now, ever. “What’re you saying? Do you really want this over?” My voice is hoarse.

A few strong heartbeats later, I silently pray she says no, but instead she nods. And my entire world is rocked in just a few seconds. “I think so. I think this is it for me.”

Twelve years together. Nine years of marriage. And just like that, she wants it to be over. Heart stretching and on the verge of exploding, I narrow my glare. “Are you seeing someone else?”

Mouth widening, she blurts out, “Are you kidding me?” She shakes her head. “No, I’m not seeing anyone. Did you not hear everything I just said?” Natalia steps back and wipes at her face. “I can’t. Just go, Julian. Please. I seriously can’t keep doing this with you. Just go.”

I square my shoulders. So many things I want to say, so much shit roaming in my head and I can’t utter a fucking word. Before I say something I might regret, I storm past her and out of the hotel room, slamming the door behind me.

I need air. Fresh air. I feel like I’m suffocating—the air in that room was thick and poisonous and I need to think. I need to walk, jog, or run. Anything to keep moving, to stop thinking.

Natalia says this is it, but it can’t be it.

Los Angeles seems grey as I step out of the hotel, even with the sun beaming down on me. Jonathan is by the limo, waiting, but I can’t be near him right now. I turn in the opposite direction and walk down the sidewalk. I keep replaying everything in my head and the more I think of it, the more I realize the things I shouldn’t have said, and the things I should have said to her.

It’s difficult for me to express myself, especially with Natalia. I admire yet envy how confident she is with expressing her feelings. She always knows the right thing to say. I’m always yelling, screaming, or throwing shit when I can’t find the right words. But what’re the right words to say, when the person you’ve loved almost half your life is saying they’re leaving you?

There are none.

I could use a drink right now.

No.

I need the gym. I need to hit something and it’s better for me and my sanity if it’s a bag. Maybe I should call a cab and go to the nearest gym. I reach for my phone, but can’t find it.

Fuck. I left my phone and wallet in the limo.

I continue to walk down the same path, my hands in my pockets, my head low. My gaze to the concrete as I think and think and think some more.

Fuck
! I want to scream, yell out my frustration for all of Los Angeles to hear.

How did our relationship get here? I know I’ve screwed up. I know I haven’t been the best husband she deserves, but that’s us. We argue, we makeup, we brush it under the rug, we move on.

It worked for us for so many years, hell, even the first day we met we argued. It was the first day of high school and I was a junior. I always kept to myself. I had less than a handful of acquaintances; I was never surrounded by many. I liked it that way, to be a loner, it was easier for me. I hated dealing with people, until her.

I adjusted the strap of my gym bag as I walked down the hall. Each year we were assigned a locker. If you registered early enough, you’d have the privilege of choosing your own. Since I was lucky enough to have an aunt who worked in the administrative office of Bensalem High, she knew which locker was mine and she’d choose it for me. Everyone who wasn’t a freshman knew which one was mine. I claimed it every year, and no one dared to take it otherwise. It was the first one by the entrance on the second floor. It was easy to get to, near all my classes, and closest to the exit.

Well, color me fucking surprised when I found a cute, tiny Latina fumbling with the combination lock to
my
locker. I approached her and said, “You must have the wrong one. This one is mine.”

She looked up and blinked, a smug grin stretched across her pretty face. “Oh really? Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I was assigned to this one,” she said, matter of fact, raising a blue slip held between her painted fingertips.

I snatched it.

Locker 452.

“This is a mistake. This is my locker; everyone knows it’s mine.”

Her brows pinched. “Well, it’s mine now.” She faced the locker and fumbled with it again.

“You must be a freshman—everyone knows this is my locker. Look.” I stepped in closer, bumping her aside.

“Hey!”

Ignoring her, I punched in the combination I’ve used for the last three years and unlocked the bolt. I opened it and placed my gym bag and backpack in. Before I could close it, she hurriedly shoved her textbooks in as well. “What’re you doing?” I demanded.

“Like I said. This is my locker now.”

I rushed to the administrative office and demanded to see my aunt. Apparently, she wasn’t a part of assigning the lockers that year. Fuck me.

Later that day, after fourth period, I had to exchange my books and of course I see her. She smiled at me with a triumphant grin as if she won some fucking game. I narrowed my eyes as I approached her.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m Natalia Jimenez, by the way.”

I raised a brow, indicating I didn’t care to know her name.

“If we’re going to be locker roomie’s, we should at least be acquainted, Julian.”

“How do you know my name?”

She smiled again, lifting my chemistry book from her hand. “You scribble in your books and I may have asked around.”

“You need to ask for a new locker or you’ll find all of your crap in the dumpster out back.”

Her nose wrinkled as her lips flattened. She leaned in, shoulders squared, and pointed a finger into my chest. “If you throw my stuff away, I will hit you with a three-hook combo and knock you out.”

I laughed so hard, tears were forming. “You seriously think you can knock me out?”

“I know I can.”

I laughed again. “You’re cute.”

My comment was not what she was expecting. It made her hesitate and stumble over her words as her lightly-tanned cheeks flushed. “Yeah, well, test me and see what happens.” She slammed the locker door, turned on the heels of her all-white Converse and stormed down the hall.