Page 1 of Breaking the Rules
ONE
“What’s this?” Noble asked, walking out of his shared closet, holding a packet of abortion aftercare paperwork.
He’d read it – thoroughly. Checked the dates, recalled all the times he slept with his fiancée. He played back conversations of wanting to start a family. Especially when the loss he’d experienced within the last year had been so great. He read it again. They were due to be married in two days. He was going to move his sister and niece out so they could be close because she swore that family was the most important thing to her. However, what he’d read didn’t add up.
His brain couldn’t make sense of it. And his heart refused to believe that the woman he was sure he could vow his life to had done this without even considering him. He stood – planted, with bated breath – waiting for anything. A lie, an omission – the truth.
The longer he waited, the more his body felt like it was being crushed, and his feet were cemented to the plush carpet. He couldn’t even flinch a muscle without an answer.
“I want an answer,” he stated.
Mecole, his fiancée, looked at the stapled papers then at him. “I don’t even know what those are for you to want an answer, Noble.”
A rattle of unamused laughter quaked his being. It came from his toes, radiated through his core, and belched out of his mouth. “You don’t know? Imagine me looking for a pair of socks in the basket and this was at the bottom. Since you don’t know what it is, let me read it to you. Because I’ve read this six times and it didn’t fuckin’ change. Patient: Mecole K. Roberts. Procedure date: May 23rd. Abortion after care. Follow up with T. Manos, OBGYN. When were your pregnant?”
Mecole swallowed the lump in her throat and attempted to snatch the paperwork from his hand. There was something she’d forgotten in the moment, Noble caught balls flying at onehundred miles per hour. He leapt, ran, and trained his body for years to be agile. She wasn’t getting the papers.
“Why would you go through my shit?” she huffed. “What are you trying to do? Get out of marrying me? If you didn’t want to marry me, that’s all you had to say.”
“Nah, you’re not going to gaslight me and turn this shit around. When were you pregnant?”
She swayed. “That’s none of your business, Noble.”
“No? It ain’t?” Noble slammed the packet down on the dresser her back was against. The motion boxing her in and making her jump. “I’ll tell you, four weeks ago, when I was in Ganton Hills for those five games back-to-back. The ones you couldn’t come to because what did you tell me?”
He snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah, your mother was sick. If you flip over to the next page.”
He flipped the page and pointed to date. “Eight weeks pregnant. Which means when you and I were talking about starting a family you were already pregnant. The issue is that week, month or whenever you could’ve gotten pregnant, I was in training camp.”
“Noble, let me explain,” Mecole whimpered. “I-I messed up.”
“I’m listening,” Noble rumbled. “Talk fast. I got practice.”
“You were up and down after your dad passed. Flying back and forth to see about your sister and niece. I was lonely and upset that I couldn’t take your pain away, and I messed up. It wasn’t supposed to happen,” she rambled off, attempting to grab his shirt, but he stepped back out of her reach.
“Who?”
“It’s not important, baby. I love you, I want to marry you. I messed up. I never wanted it to happen,” she cried. “You have to believe me.”
Noble let the one-syllable word come out of his mouth again. “Who?”
“Baby, please.”
This time, he roared. “WHO THE FUCK WAS IT?”
She jumped again, whimpering. “Please, we can work this out.”
“Mecole, I swear!” His fists clenched at his sides, and his nostrils flared.
“O-oman,” she spoke just above a tearful whisper. “I swear it was just once.”
“Was it? Or you lying about that, too?”
She buried her face in her hands.
“How many times did you fuck my teammate? Huh?” he asked, clapping his hands together in a thunderous beat of anger.
“A few.”
