Page 33 of Choosing My Happiness
“You forgot those when you left…so I added a few more as I thought of you,” Blaze said, walking in behind me.
“No, I didn’t forget,” I told him, shaking my head. “I left those deliberately.”
I walked forward and grabbed a chair. “I have some questions,” I said, sitting down.
“Sure, can I get you anything? Although, there’s nothing here except water.” He gave his patented cheeky grin. I just stared at him, revulsion sitting at the base of my stomach.
“What was so important that you couldn’t come to me when our baby was born?” I asked the question I already knew the answer to.
He had the grace to look uncomfortable.
“I can’t remember,” he dodged.
“Were you ever going to stop sleeping with other women?” I asked.
He rushed to the table to try and grab my hands. “Of course, Daiz, I love you.”
I jerked my hands away. “How?!” I snapped
He gave a good impression of a fish while he was trying to work out my question.
“Why stop now?” I amended the question.
“I was going to stop when our baby was born,” he stammered eventually.
“Our baby was born, and you had another kid, and you’restilldoing it,” I pointed out.
“You weren’t here!” he tried.
I slammed my hands on the table, making the vase jump.
“That doesn’tmatter!” I roared.
“You had six months to clean yourself up after BJs death, same as I did. I was only going to be away for six months. I only completely disappeared when I heard that things had not changed,” I hissed.
He looked confused again. “Who’s BJ?”
I took a moment. “Our baby, I called him Baby James. BJ,” I explained.
“No, he’s Junior,” Blaze incorrectly corrected me.
I fixed my gaze on him.
“Not to me, he isn’t. But that’s beside the point. You didn’t stop with the girls ever. No matter how much it hurt me, and youknewit hurt me. Otherwise, why would you buy me this?” I grabbed a box and opened it, tipping the bracelet onto the table.
“This. Dad used to do this and think it was okay ‘It’s all fixed; she’s forgiven me, so I can do it again.’” I stopped to calm myself down. The hurt and betrayed feelings were always just under the surface. I took a breath and continued, “I don’t wear jewelry because I heard my mother crying every time she got something. Because every time she got a new piece, she knew he’d steppedout on her. I heard her suffering, and he thought some bit of pretty scrap would make up for the cracks in her heart.”
I looked at his shocked face and realized, “You never noticed. You never noticed that I don’t wear any jewelry. In all the years you chased me, all the necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings…you never noticed I didn’t wear any of it!? I knew what it meant. I learnt that from an early age. It meant that you didn’t care about me beyond being a housekeeper and a badge of honor. ‘I am a man, I have an ol’lady and a house.’ It doesn’t matter that the ol’lady is ahuman, not a thing.”
“That’s not it at all, Daiz. I love you. You’re my ride-or-die. I came home to you every day. Those others were nothing,” Blaze started his tired old excuses again.
“But you had a kid with one,” I yelled.
“It was a mistake, we ran out of condoms!”
“If you weren’t screwing her it wouldn’t have mattered!” Tears of hurt were running down my face. “All I wanted was for you to stop screwing around, Blaze. That’s it. But you didn’t love me enough to do that.”
He gaped at me. He had no words. It really didn’t matter. Nothing could make him understand. I’d left, and he still thought he could win me over.
