Page 36 of Rewind

There was another long pause. “Don’t be ridiculous Amina, I don’t hit women and I resent the implication that I would.”

She snorted with derision, as she remembered all the times, he’d choked, punched, and kicked her. He’d even spit in her face a few times. In the beginning he’d apologize but after a while he didn’t bother to. “So, what did you want, that you called me five times while I was in the shower.”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you Amina but I’m not a fan of this new attitude of yours. I stopped by your house earlier, but you weren’t home.”

He’d come by? She was relieved that she’d missed him. “Why did you come by?”

“That’s all you can say? No explanation of where you’ve been?”

“I was out with a friend.”

“What friend? You don’t have any.”

Amina sighed. “Mark, I’ve had a long day and I’m really tired. I don’t have the energy to debate with you about whether I have friends or not. If you don’t have anything important to tell me, I’m going to hang up and go to bed.”

“Don’t hang up on me!” he yelled.

Amina held the phone away from her ear. A bit of the old fear reared its head but she took a deep breath and pushed it away. “You’re raising your voice, and I don’t like it or deserve it, Mark. As I said before, I’m going to bed.”

“Wait! Amina, I’m sorry.”

This was something new. Mark never apologized. “What exactly are you sorry for, Mark? Yelling at me? Telling me I have no friends? Fo threatening me the last time we saw each other?”

“I didn’t threaten you. I may have misspoken but you have to know I’d never hurt you, Amina.”

She nearly burst out laughing. Was he kidding? She knew what kind of monster he was capable of being. “So, you say.”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but you’ve been acting really stank lately.”

“Well, you can always break up with me.”

“I’ve invested way too much time in you to walk away.”

“Geez how romantic.”

“You’re not making this easy for me, Amina. I love you. And I believed we were working toward building a life together.”

This time Amina couldn’t stop the laugher that erupted from her mouth. “That’s a good one, Mark.”

“What’s so damn funny? I’m pouring my heart out to you and you’re laughing? What the fuck, Amina?”

“Building a life together? How?”

Amina wanted to point out how she knew his parents were paying the rent on his apartment even though he was a grown ass man of nearly thirty. Maybe his parents were part of the reason he was so rotten but she hoped soon none of them would be her problem.

“I know you’ve always wanted to get married. How about it? We might as well do it Amina. Let’s get married.”

Amina nearly laughed again. This wasn’t how he proposed the first time around, but the timeline was similar. The first time he came over to her house for a meal she’d cooked for him. After dinner, he’d made a big speech about dating a lot of women before her, but he decided to pick her as if she was winning some type of prize.

The funny thing was, she felt that she was.

“Is this a proposal? Wow, how romantic,” she responded in a deadpan voice.

“I know you women like pomp and circumstances, but let’s be practical. When are you ever going to get this chance again? But if you need a big hoopla, I can have my mom throw a dinner in honor of our engagement. She can invite some close friends and family. You should invite your aunt and cousins. Oh, and since you claim to have friends now, invite them too. I’ll shoot you the details later this week. Bye, bae.”

He ended the call without waiting for her response, leaving Amina to process what had just happened.

His first proposal to her had been shitty but this took the cake. At the ‘engagement party’ he made a big show of presenting her with a ring that had a diamond so small, it wasbasically a chip. Amina wasn’t materialist enough to care about the size. The problem was, he didn’t put any thought into the purchase. In retrospect, she knew that he’d bought the cheapest ring possible not because he was cheap, but because he didn’t think she was worthy of anything more elaborate.

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