28/29
– ~TELL ME LIES-~ ????
Chapter 28
Unedited
‘’I think I lost my appetite, I will go back to be-d. Close the door on your way out,’’ I say turning but before I even walk out of the room, Christ©pher gr-abs me and turns me to face him.
‘’What is it? What do you want here?’’
‘’My wife, I miss you so much.’’
‘’Who is your wife?’’
‘’Tamara! I know I messed up but plea-se let me fix things between us.’’
‘’How? Can you go back in time and reverse everything that you did? Can you take Iris back? Can you erase Trish’s existence?’’
He keeps quiet.
‘’You see? This is unfixable.’’
‘’My life is miserable without you, you always make things better.’’
‘’I want a divorce.’’
He intently stares at me, ‘’you can’t do that to us.’’
‘’Watch me!’’
He drops to his knees and gr-abs my legs, ‘’plea-se forgive me for what I have done to you, I want you back home,’’ He says with sorrow hallowing his voice. ‘’Tamara plea-se, don’t file for a divorce, let’s find a way to mend what has been broken,’’ he says, tears running down his face. I stare at him and for a moment there, I am overwhelmed with emotion, I love this man with everything in me, the years I have spent with him have been amazing well except for the times when I couldn’t conceive and went astray for some time, I did forgive him then but now knowing that there is a full grown child in the picture makes the situation different.
‘’plea-se,’’ He pleads again.
I am about to respond when a knock sounds at the door.
‘’I will get that,’’ I say quic-kly, rushing to the door. When I open it, I am surprised to find Tamara standing in front of me, I have never physically met this woman but I have seen her in ph0tos. I went throu-gh her Facebook account a couple of weeks ago.
‘’What do you want here?’’
‘’Hey Tamara!’’
‘’What do you want?’’
‘’I am sorry for coming here without informing you, I was hoping we could talk.’’
‘’Talk about what exactly?’’
‘’There’s so much I want to say to you, can I come in?’’
‘’Fine! Do come in,’’ I step aside and let her in before leading her to the living room. When my husband sees Tamara, his eyes wi-den in shock, she was obviously the last person he was expecting to see this morning.
‘’Trish? What do you want here?’’
‘’I c@m£ to talk to your wife, I didn’t know you were here.’’
‘’You and my wife have nothing to talk about.’’
‘’I just nee-d a few minutes of your time plea-se.’’
‘’Talk!’’ I say.
‘’First of all, I would like to apologize to you Tamara. I knew Christ©pher was a married man when I met him, he was honest enough to tell me the truth about the kind of relationsh!pthat you had. He talked about you often, during our few interactions, I could tell, he was a man de-eply in love with his wife.’’
I laugh, ‘’did he put you up to this?’’
She shakes her head, ‘’no! I didn’t even know he would be here.’’
‘’Oh, humor me then.’’
‘’I continued being in a relationsh!pwith him despite all that, hoping he would eventually choose me but in the end he didn’t. I begged and pleaded with him to give us a chance or take me as his second wife, I guess you know where that ended. Christ©pher left me and when I discovered I was pregnant, I decided to go my separate ways and not inform me because that was my way of punishing him.’’
‘’Go on.’’
‘’I am not here to justify what happened. I am here to ask you for forgiveness, my life has been a mess for the last two months, my daughter hates me for what I made you go throu-gh. plea-se Tamara, find it in your heart to forgive not only me but your husband, plea-se,’’ she begs.
*
When I leave home, I drive to Cedrick’s house.
Cedrick and I have been getting along pretty well the last two months and I think I am slowly developing what I think of as love for him. Nothing has been defined between us- we are just taking things slow and trying to see where this will take us. I pu-ll up in front of his driveway some minutes later, get out of the car, lock it and head to the front door. The door is slightly open so I decide to invite myself in, easing the door open, I walk in and yell, ‘’is anyb©dy home?’’
I hear the sound of clanking silverware, soon out walks a tall dark woman from the kitchen, she has a white towel wra-pped around herself.
‘’Hello!’’ she says.
‘’Hello, is Cedrick in?’’
‘’No, he has just gone to the mall.’’
‘’Oh!’’ I exclaim and out of curiosity I ask, ‘’I am sorry but who are you?’’
‘’I am Alice, Cedrick’s wife, who are you?’’
‘’Excuse me?’’ I blurt out, ‘’When did Cedrick get a wife?’’
She smiles before she waves her hand in my face and I notice the ring, ‘’we got married over the weekend, it wasn’t something big, just a small ceremony with a few of our closest friends. Are you like his friend or something?’’
‘’Can you plea-se give me some water?’’ I ask before disappointedly sinking to the floor. How is it even possible that this is happening to me again? I was more than sure Cedrick liked me too, we have had great moments together- we have k!$$£d and even made love. Lord this is not happening to me, not again.
‘’Are you okay?’’ she asks when she returns with the water.
I get the cu-p from her and gulp down the water until the glas-s is empty.
‘’What time is Cedrick likely to come back?’’
‘’He should be back soon but who are you?’’
‘’I am his friend,’’ I say, rising to my feet. ‘’And I would like to wait for him if you don’t mind.’’
‘’If you say you are his friend, I don’t mind, you can wait up for him,’’ she gestures at the couch and I sit down.
‘’I will be in the kitchen if you nee-d anything.’’
‘’Okay.’’
I wait quietly, thinking it is the longest minute I have ever spent in my life until Cedrick appears at the door, he walks in quic-kly but when he sees me, he pauses.
I stand up, glancing questionly at him.
– ~TELL ME LIES-~
Chapter 29
Unedited
*
‘’Clarissa!’’ he exclaims.
‘’Cedrick!’’
Alice choses that moment to appear from the kitchen, ‘’hey babe! You are back?’’ She walks towards him, leans in to k!sshim before she gr-abs the plastics from him.
‘’And oh, your friend here has been waiting for you.’’
‘’Alright,’’ he responds. ‘’Can you kindly give us some privacy?’’
‘’Sure, I just finished preparing breakfast, I will go and take a bath now.’’
‘’Okay,’’ she says before leaving.
When she is finally out of sight, I face Cedrick and wait for an explanation but he quietly looks at me obviously looking for the right words to use.
‘’What the fv¢k is going on?’’ I demand. ‘’That woman claims she is your wife.’’
He doesn’t bother to deny it, he meets my gaze straight on, ‘’yes she is. I have been seeing Alice for the last one year and we tied the knot over the weekend.’’
‘’I don’t un-derstand! You and I had something going and I…thought,’’ I can’t even voice out my question properly because I can’t think straight.
‘’That night I picked you up from the club was no coincidence. I knew who you were, I had been following you around for a couple of months.’’
I g@sp.
‘’I am sorry Rissa but this whole thing was never about you, it was about Gabriel, I wanted to get back at him throu-gh you but with everything that has happened, I figured it wasn’t worth it, karma has alre-ady pla-yed its p@rt.’’
‘’You must be joking,’’ I breathe.
‘’I wish I was. Gabriel was involved with my daughter Gracie 9 years ago. I don’t know how the two met but my daughter loved him so much, she would steal money from me to sponsor his fake lifestyle. I tried to break those two ap@rt but to no avail, when Gracie finally got pregnant with Eloise, Gabriel asked her to ab-ort because he wanted nothing to with the baby. I urged Gracie to keep the pregnancy and she did but after giving birth, she suffered from postp@rtum depression, she kil…’’
‘’Killed herself?’’ I finish for him, my voice ba-rely a hint of a whisper.
‘’Yes,’’ he answers.
‘’So you tried to get revenge at Gabriel by starting something with me?’’ I g@sp, my eyes finally meeting his. ‘’You wanted to hurt me as a way of getting back at him.’’
‘’Yes.’’
‘’How could you use me like that?’’ I shout, pushing at him ha-rd enough to knock him off but he quic-kly gets back to his feet.
‘’I admit it, I did use you but I did you favour, that man was not good for you, at least I made you forget him and now you have finally let him go, you wouldn’t have done that if you had not met me.’’
‘’I can’t believe this is happening again, ’I drown into a squat and cry sob on the floor, wra-pping my hands around myself I begin to struggle for air
‘’I am sorry,’’ he says in a quiet voice.
‘’I hate you,’’ I breathe.
‘’I really sorry for leading you on Rissa–.’’
‘’You sle-pt with me! Cedrick.’’
‘’And you enjoyed every moment of it, I know this was a game to me but we both had a great time and you can’t even blame me for slee-ping with you, you are an attrac-tive woman and any man would–.’’
I rise to my feet, ‘’I hope you burn in hell.’’
With that, I walk out of the house and get into my car- shattered. He didn’t even like me as much as he claimed to, he was on a mission to get revenge. I was a link, a link to get to Gabriel. When I drive back home, I am surprised to find no trace of my parents in the house. I was hoping I could find my mother so she could comfort me.
Heading to my be-droom, I undress and get into the shower and curl up in a ball in the bathroom of the tub. And then I cry- This is worse than before, I didn’t see this coming, I thought Cedrick was more mature than this. How could he do this to me?
So Eloise is Gabriel’s child? I still can’t believe this.
I am done with love and relationsh!ps, this is the last time I put my heart on the line for a man, I am done completely- I give up.
*
I have been trying to call Rissa for the last one hour and her phone keeps ringing. I texted her last night and asked if we could meet. She said she would come, could she have changed her mind about meeting up? I wonder, as I get into my car. I will just drive to her house so we can talk, I have had it with this silent treatment, it’s about time she and I talked and figured out what to do next. Rissa is my sister, I will not allow our relationsh!pto die just like that because of the mistakes of our parents.
Getting into her house, I find the door open and I walk in calling her name but no one answers. ‘’Rissa!’’ I call out again, I make my way to the be-droom, the door is open so I walk inside. ‘’Rissa!’’ I call again when I hear the shower running. Walking into the bathroom, I am surprised to find my sister curled into a ball, shivering on the floor of the bathtub.
‘’Rissa, what’s happening?’’ I ask quic-kly turning the water off.
‘’Cedrick! Cedrick is married!’’ she says.
‘’What do you mean he is married?’’
‘’It’s a long story but he is married and he has been lying to me all along, I am so hurt Iris, like why me? Who did I offend?’’ she cries.
‘’Come and get dressed before you catch a cold, you will tell me all about it later.’’
‘’Okay.’’
*
Tbc