Page 79 of Heartless

“Any time,” she replies, dashing across the hallway to grab something to eat.

I head out to the main lobby and take the elevator back to my room. I call Meadow again and finally reach her this time.

“Hey, I’ve been calling all morning.”

“I didn’t get much sleep last night and overslept,” she mumbles.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Yeah, well...maybe you need to take this time to get your shit together, O.”

Pulling my hands through my hair, I exhale loudly. “Look, I didn’t call you to argue. I called to apologize and see how we work through this.”

“We can’t, Onyx—”

“So, that’s it. You’re just done?”

“You made that decision the moment that you cheated. I refuse to be someone’s second.”

“You’re not my second. I chose you to marry, MJ!”

“And yet, you’ve chosen her because obviously, I wasn’t enough, Onyx!”

“You chose to not be the woman that I married, the one that I fell in love with, and become a stranger. I didn’t choose that for us.”

“Low blow, Onyx.”

“You didn’t do anything anymore, MJ. When you did go to the studio, it took hours to get yourself together to do it, only with me pushing you, and then you returned home two hours later. You need help, MJ. It doesn’t have to be the end of us. I just don’t think either of us should keep living like this.”

“Then don’t, Onyx.”

“Look, I’m sorry we’re going through this in our lives right now. It’s a very bad patch.”

“The only thing that I’m going through is you ruining a perfectly good day.”

“It’s not what I was going for, MJ.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve done a great job of it anyway.”

“Look, I still love you, okay.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“MJ?”

“MJ?” I repeat after several seconds.

Pulling the phone away from my ear, I glance at it and see that she’s ended the call already. I drop my head, shaking it.

***

“Let’s get drinks,” Heather Foxworth says to our group.

When we broke into small groups earlier this week to work on an agenda for the clean air initiative, our group bonded so strongly that we’ve been gravitating towards each other in every small group session all week.

Today is the last day of our conference, and I’m thankful that I’ve survived.

“Are you coming?” Angie asks.

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