Page 13 of Out of Bounds
“It’s not what it looks like, Masai.”
“Not what it looks like...” She snorted. “Really? Because it looks like you’ve been sleeping with someone else.”
Running my hand down my face, I sighed heavily. “I messed up. I wasn’t thinking. It just happened.”
“Shit doesn’t just happen, Kreed!” she yelled.
“I know...” I exhaled. “It was a mistake. A stupid, selfish-ass mistake, and baby, I swear... on my kids, I never meant to hurt you.”
“But you did. Every time you looked me in my eyes and lied, you hurt me.”
Taking a step forward, I held my hands up, palm side out. “Masai, on everything I love... it didn’t mean anything. I love you, on God I do.”
“Then why wasn’t I enough?” she cried.
Sitting on the side of the bed, I dropped my head to the ground. “Youareenough, baby. I just.. I fucked up.”
“Kreed, you have another baby. A son... named after you. I wanted to name Kree after you, but you said you wanted him to have his own identity. This kid… He… He has your name,” she bawled, breaking my heart even more.
“She did that, Masai. I had no control over it.” When Ashton was picking out baby names, she mentioned naming him Kreed, and I told her ass no. She let her homegirls hype her up and did the shit anyway. I didn’t find out until I got to the hospital after he was born.
“This is so fucked up! I feel like I don’t even know you. My partner, my best friend, the man I fell in love with... He wouldneverlie to me. He would never do this shit to me.”
Masai’s soft cries and the weight of my infidelity lingered throughout the room. “I’m sorry for lying to you. I’m sorry for hurting you, Masai. I regret that shit every single fucking day. I don’t regret him—I could never. He’s innocent and didn’t ask to be born into my mess.
“But I regret everything that led up to his existence. I regret the lies, the sneaking around, the nights I looked you in the face and kept the truth from you. I made a mistake.”
Masai sat there, listening to me apologize, clearly not moved by anything I’d just said. Instead, she sat there staring at me likeshe was trying to memorize my face. I almost felt like this was the last time she planned on seeing it. Outside of the tears rolling down her face, she was calm. It was the kind of calm that comes after a storm, when everything’s already destroyed.
I opened my mouth to speak, but she raised her hand, cutting me off. “You had a baby, and I didn’t even know you were breaking us until it was already done. You made a life with someone else while I was still here. Waiting, raising our kids, trusting, believing that the bond we had was unbreakable—I was here doing all of that. I’m not angry, Kreed. I want to be so bad. Like, Ireallywant to fuck some shit up around here, but I can’t. I got five kids to take care of. I’m empty inside. And as much as I love you and don’t think I can do life without you, I refuse to stay in something that has hollowed me out.”
“What you trying to say, Masai?” I asked and reached for her hand.
Masai drew back as if the thought of me touching her disgusted her. “I’m saying...” She licked her lips. “I’m saying, I wish you and your child the best. Truly. None of this is his fault. But I won’t raise someone else’s betrayal.
“I refuse to look in his face and see the lies that you fed me. That’s not fair to him, and it for damn sure ain’t fair to me. I’m saying that I’m choosing peace for me andmykids, Kreed.” Flipping the covers back, Masai stood from the bed. “I’ll give you time to pack your things. I’ll even let you explain to the kids why we’re separating.”
The weight of everything we shared fell on my shoulders; the years, the love, our children, my mistake. I felt it all, and Masai telling me to pack my things hurt me in more ways than I’d imagined. I couldn’t stomach not being able to wake up and go to sleep with my family. My favorite thing to do as a father was tucking my kids in at night and seeing their smiling faces first thing in the morning. Those were the things that kept me driven.Those were the moments I cherished more than anything. They meant more to me than any football game that I’d won.
My hands trembled as I reached for her. Masai didn’t move away this time. Instead, she just looked at me with tears in her eyes. “We’ve built a life together. Fourteen years, five kids... That has to count for something. I know I fucked up. I know I did. I was weak, shit, selfish even. But this...” I waved my hand around the room before pointing between the two of us. “This is real, Masai. What we have is worth fighting for.
“Don’t take my kids away from me. Don’t takeyouaway from me. I don’t know who I am without you. I’ve neverhadto be anything without you. I’ll do the work, baby. I’ll go to counseling. I’ll earn your trust back. I’ll restore our foundation, brick by brick if I have to. Just... please, Masai. Please don’t leave me,” I begged softly, praying my words were enough.
My own tears had started to roll down my face. I was filled with instant regret, and part of me knew there was nothing I could say to really fix this chaos. There was nothing I could do to change my wife’s mind. I’d fucked up for real this time, and there was probably nothing I could do to restore her faith in me.
After a few minutes of me begging and pleading, Masai finally spoke, her voice low and steady. She was exhausted, and that much was proven by the despondent look on her face. “It’s not so much the betrayal, Kreed. It’s the fact that you let me believe that we were okay. While you were giving another woman a piece of the life that was supposed to be reserved for us, I was continuing to give my all to this house, our kids, our family. She got to have you in ways that onlyIwas supposed to have you. I can’t... I just can’t.
“This is making me question myself as a partner, as a mother, as your supposedly best friend. This hurt is to the point where I’m sitting here, willing to put the blame on myself, which letsme know that it’s too far gone.Youdid this. I’m not responsible for your actions, and I won’t allow myself to carry that burden.”
“Please... don’t let this be the end.”
Letting my hand go, Masai crushed me with two simple words. “I’m sorry.”
The longer I sat there, the more tears sprouted from my eyes. Instead of wiping them away, I allowed them to just fall. What else could I do? My wife was walking away, and not just from me, but from the life we’d built, and all because I’d stepped outside of my marriage. For the first time in fourteen years, I realized that love wasn’t enough to keep her. I’d lost my heart and fucking soul, and I didn’t know if I could ever recover.
Getting up from the bed, I tried to walk away, but my feet felt like they’d been nailed to the ground. My eyes roamed around our bedroom, the same bedroom I’d kissed her goodbye a thousand times before. Unlike those previous times, this goodbye was final. This goodbye was one I couldn’t come back from. This goodbye was the nail in the coffin for my marriage.
It took me a few hours to pack my shit up; well, as much of it as I was willing to take. When I made the final descent down the stairs, my wife was sitting in the breakfast nook, drinking a cup of coffee. I could tell that she’d showered and tried to pull herself together because she was in her robe and her hair was wrapped up in a towel.
