Page 184 of Tarek

“Ask the questions that you need answered Penny?”

“Why did you give me the necklace? Were you going to break up with me?”

I hesitate “Yes and no.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means I thought I would. But then I didn’t. Because I love you.”

“But you kept the cabinet as a sort of insurance. Just in case,” she replies.

“There is no fucking just in case.” My voice sounds harsher coming out.

She laughs. “No? Then why the fuck is it full of necklaces? Who are they for? Your future lovers.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Don’t I?” she cries. “I have seen this play before Tarek, and I’m not signing up for the lead role.”

I grind my teeth. “I am not your fucking dad Penny.”

Penny recoils “No, but you are exactly like your mom.”

Shots fired, all gloves are off. I step closer to her, my jaw is tight. “You know nothing about my mother.”

She doesn’t flinch. “I know enough to know that she didn’t stick around, and you may do the same to me and my babies.” I feel like someone punched me in my stomach.

My breath stalls as my rage passes through me. How could she think that I would do that?

“Meanwhile you are still trying to prove yourself to your dead mother,” I look down in her eyes feeling happy that they are watering. I want her to feel the pain that she gave me. “Still trying to have your real mother acknowledge you.”

She lifts herself from the bed. “You know nothing about me or my fucking dead mother.”

“No, I do know about your parents. I constantly have to prove myself to you because of them. Over and fucking over again.” My insides are clawing trying to stop me, but I am also filled with rage.

Penny throws the necklaces at my feet. “Meanwhile you are searching for love from different people, a love you should have gotten from your parents.”

A bitter chortle leaves me. “But my parents wanted me. See the difference.”

Her sharp inhale is the only sound in the room. For the first time she falters.

Fuck, I went too far. We should stop; we need to stop. But something in me won’t let it go. I reach for her hand, and she jerks away.

Her voice is quiet, breaking “You were never the kind of man I wanted to love in the first place.

God that hurt but for my own sanity I need to end this shit show. “I can’t keep fighting you for a love that you think wasn’t meant for me.”

The room becomes quiet, and we both stand in pain. She pulls off her ring and rests it in my hand. “I think it’s best that I leave.”

I say nothing, I want to scream at her, I want to kneel and beg her to stay. But I can’t. I just squeeze the ring, warming it in my hand.

She waddles to the door and stops. “I’m sorry, Tarek. I just want…peace.”

I can’t look at her. “If I couldn’t give you peace while loving you, maybe I can by letting you go. Walter will take you home.”

Just like that she was gone. I just stood there, praying that she would come back. That she would say that we were both wrong. But she doesn’t come back, like everyone else I love she left me behind.

ChapterTwenty-Four

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