The Weekend Pt. 05

Once Lee disappeared into the building, the heavy door swung closed behind him with an audible clang. Regina's inner detective wanted to follow him and see which apartment he was going to, but there was no way to do that without being seen. Instead, she went over and read the names on the many mailboxes that were on the wall.

Only one of them seemed familiar.

"No. No, no, no, no, no..." she mumbled to herself as her hand clasped over her mouth. Tears in her eyes blurred that horrific word from her vision, as if they were trying to protect her.

Jennifer. Only the name of Lucifer could match the evil of that word.

Back in the safety of her car, she did the only three things she could in this situation: cry, wait for him to come out, and take note of how many times the digital numbers on her dash board changed.

Two hours is an eternity for a woman watching a clock while investigating the crumbling of her marriage. The horrendous images that the mind can conjure up in that time unfathomable. It's enough to drive a sane person mental.

And now, here he was; whistling like he just got off work with his six other dwarf brothers.

"Gina? What are you doing here?" he said with surprise as an angry woman stomped across the parking lot.

She stopped when she was right in front of him and glared at him suspiciously. "You took the words out of my mouth."

Incredulously, he asked, "You following me?"

"Yes." She immediately admitted unapologetically. "Now, it's your turn. What are you doing here?"

He shook his head and chuckled disbelievingly. "Wow." Was all he said before he waved her off and walked away from her towards his car. He unlocked the driver door and just got it open when Regina was right beside him. She quickly pushed the door closed and wedged herself between him and the car. With her arms crossed over her chest, she looked at him with daring eyes.

"Move." He commanded as he leaned menacingly over her.

"No."

Unfortunately for her, Lee was stronger than her obstinance; strong enough to push her out of the way with little effort. He once again opened his car and this time was able to step inside, but a determined Regina was quicker than he gave her credit for. Her lightning fast reflexes snatched the dangling keys out of his hand before he could close the door behind him.

"For fuck's sake!" he yelled out as he exited his car and stormed towards her.

She backed away from him, taunting him with the keys jingling in her hands. "Must be tough having to actually talk to your wife. It's a shame you can't hang up on me like you always do.

"Regina..." he started with a voice laced with a warning as he approached her quickly.

"Lee!" she returned mockingly as she continued to stay out of his reach.

The two of them played this childish game of keep-away. When it was inevitable that he was going to catch her, she quickly put the keys down the back of her pants and into her underwear.

"Give me the goddamn keys, Regina!"

"No!" she screamed as she stopped running and stood there defiantly. "If you want your keys back, you only have two choices. Wrestle me down to the ground or stand here and talk to me. Either way, I refuse to sit by and let you continue to ignore me!"

Lee could only put his hands on his hips as he laughed bitterly. "Once again, you're the victim. Of course!"

"This isn't about being a victim or assigning blame. This is about you being too chicken shit to deal with our marriage. You run and hide from the big, bad wife instead of manning up and making a decision about us. Now I find you at this bitch's house."

"Watch it." he warned, feeling an instinctive urge to protect the mother of his child.

Regina's eyes grew large as her mouth gaped open. Her expression looked pained, like he physically slapped her. "Really?" she asked with a hurt whisper.

As mad as he was, her pain was still his weakness. His face softened a little but remained stern.

"You want to talk to me about running and hiding, but that's not my MO; it's yours. Cassie's death has been you're favorite hiding spot for years."

Now it was Regina's turn to send off a "thin ice" warning using her eyes. Lee nodded with a self-affirming smirk. "You see? Look. One mention of her name and you're ready to bite my head off."

Seeing herself through his eyes, and how right he was, she softened her demeanor to a less combative stance. Her fist unballed from the tight knots that they were in, and her lips loosened.

Lee saw the change in her and lowered his voice to a de-escalating volume. In a non-threatening, coaxing tone, he tried to appeal to her once again. "Look Gina, I don't want to fight; especially out here in the open. We can talk about this later when it's just the two of us. For now, just give me my keys."

"Make him listen." Trudy's words echoed in her head.

Regina let a breath out of her nostrils and blinked away tears. Heeding her sister's voice, she reached into the back of her pants, past her butt, and pulled out the keys. Lee held out his hand expectedly but was surprised when she didn't hand them to him. Instead, Regina used the remote to unlock the passenger door.

"Gina..." he said with exasperation when he saw her getting into his truck. With a grunt of annoyance, he got in with her.

When the truck door closed, it was like the rest of the world was cut off. No outside noise penetrated the heavy-duty vehicle, leaving them alone with each other.

Lee looked at his wife sitting next to him. Her face was in a defiant pout and self-righteousness oozed from her. It almost made him laugh, but his irritation kept anything resembling happiness from leave his mouth.

He had cut his eyes away from her to stifle the urge to strangle her. Looking straight ahead, he held out his hand.

"Lee..."

"Keys!" He interrupted.

With a sigh, she put them in his palm.

The engine whirring was the only sound in the truck for the first couple of blocks. Not even the radio was on. Lee's eyes stared straight ahead at the road, while Regina's looked out the passenger window as the world passed in front of her eyes.

She finally found her voice, though it cracked as she sadly asked, "What are we doing, Lee?"

"I don't know." Was his short, honest reply.

She shifted in her seat and turned to face him. His jaw was tight and tense as his head faced directly in front of him. She did see his eyes shift to the right to see her, though it quickly cut back to staring out of the windshield.

"It's been five months." She said imploringly.

He finally turned to meet her gaze. His lips tightened as he said, "It's been a lot longer than that."

Knowing what he really meant, all she could do was sigh and go back to looking out the window.

More silence ensued. This time, he was the first to break it with the question that had been on his mind every night before he fell into his restless insomniac version of sleep. "Have you seen him since I left?"

She was actually waiting for that question. When she rehearsed this conversation in her head, it was one of the first ones that came up.

"No. Not like that."

"Not like that?" he huffed. "What does that even mean?"

"It means, I've seen him at work. We pass each other in the hallways. We even occasionally work on the same patient. But we haven't been...together. Not like that."

He nodded with his head still straight ahead. "Have you guys talked at all? About more than work?"

Regina paused to formulate the words she wanted to say. It was vitally important that she convey this message the right way. Carefully, she said, "Yeah. When you left, I was a mess. He kept asking about how I was doing...so I told him."

Lee had to take an elongated blink as a growl rose from his throat. Jealousy and anger shot through him. Seeing how he was reacting, Regina quickly added, "He wanted to pick things back up, but I turned him down. It didn't go anywhere."

"So, it's over between you two?"

"Yes."

He wanted to believe her; God, he did! His love for her pleaded for this to be true. But he couldn't. How could he? How could they ever trust each other after they'd completely eroded the very foundation that their marriage was built on?

He turned to look her in the eyes for the first time. His were filled with such "How can we ever trust each other after all that's happened?"

She looked away and wiped the moistness from her cheek. "I don't know. But if you can't trust me, then trust that I'm tired of running, of hiding, of not talking. Trust that I'm ready to move forward with my life. A part of doing that means being truthful with you. Honestly, I'm just too exhausted to lie you. I just have to hope that you feel the same."

The drive once again fell into silence. Lee realized that he was driving aimlessly. There was no destination in mind, at least not with Regina in the car with him. He just cruised on autopilot, allowing the road to take him where it wanted.

For her part, Regina didn't complain or make any suggestions on where he should go. Through all the sadness and awkwardness, it felt kind of cathartic to finally be giving voice to the thoughts that had been swimming inside of her lately. Like she said, she was exhausted.

Plus, she missed him; immensely

She reached her hand across the chasm and found his. She knew it was a risk. He could recoil away from her like some diseased aberration of nature, but she took the chance that he missed her touch just as much as she missed his.

He didn't pull away. After a few seconds, she even felt his hand squeeze hers.

"I love you, Gina. I fucking hate you, but I love you."

____________________________________________________________

THE NEXT DAY:

One step forward, a huge leap with a running start backwards.

That's what Regina thought as her tear-filled eyes watched the police man carefully guide her husband's head to keep him from hitting it on the door frame as he was put in the back seat of a squad car. Lee's shackled wrists were fastened behind his back, like he was some common thug

Their eyes met through the window as the door was shut. The sadness and humiliation on his face matched what was inside of her stomach. For the briefest of heartbreaking moments, he looked at her before turning away.

While Lee sat in the squad car with a sullen expression on his face, Brian was being carefully hoisted up into the other kind of emergency vehicle. His face was already beginning to swell, and he was showing signs of being concussed. Even though the emergency room was only on the other side of the building, the EMT's didn't want to risk any further damage during transportation. They thought it was best to strap him on the gurney, put him in the ambulance, and drive the half a block.

"This is all my fault." Regina thought as she covered her mouth with her hands and wept. She wanted to run away; to hide her face and never show it again. All around her, the murmurings of her co-workers filled her ears as they watched the latest drama unfold.

No doubt, her misery was fascinating entertainment; a welcome break from an otherwise monotonous day.

When had her life become a Soap Opera? She asked herself as the police car and the ambulance drove away in separate directions. All she could do is stand there and watch both of the men in her life disappear, both headed to a grim destination.

ONE HOUR EARLIER:

"Finally!" Regina thought as she clocked out. The heels of her feet hurt with each step, despite the comfortable white Reebok's she wore with her nurse scrubs.

She waved goodbye to the oncoming nurses as she walked to the elevators. Her mind teased her with thoughts of a warm bubble bath and her favorite shows on DVR. All she wanted to do was get out of this bra that was beginning to cut into her skin.

Despite a workday that was two hours too long, she felt an energy that she hadn't felt in a while. There was a flush of color in her pale, zombie cheeks; a breath of life that wasn't there before. Yesterday, something had happened between her and Lee before he dropped her back off at her car. She didn't know what it meant, or how things would progress. All she knew was for the first time in months, she got to talk to her husband. Not only talk to him but see him; smell him; touch him. Having him that close to her after so long stirred something inside of her, even if he had told her that he hated her.

She turned the corner to get to the elevator and was stopped in her tracks. In front of her, Brian was standing by the elevator, leaning against the wall looking down at his cell phone. Apparently, he was waiting for the same elevator as she was.

Things between them had grown awkward over the last few months. It was all her fault, of course, just like everything else in her life. It was her fault that she was childless; her fault that her husband ran out and got some other woman pregnant; her fault that they were now on the brink of divorce.

And now, it was her fault that another man would have his heart decimated by hurricane Regina.

One thing about solitude; it gives a person time to think. And Regina did, even when she didn't want to. She was forced to re-watch her marriage over and over. Even in her sleep, the reel kept rolling.

Over the last few months, one thing became abundantly clear to her; clearer than anything else has ever been. The core of her marital problems wasn't that Lee cheated, her weekend away, or even her many miscarriages and inability to give birth. The nexus of her and Lee's marital woes was found in their Grand Canyon sized gap in communication.

And not to get all schoolyard with it, but she started it.

Here is a funny thing about communication; a small, unacknowledged fact that most people overlook. Communication never stops, even in the absence of words. In fact, silence speaks louder than any voice can yell.

It says I am apathetic.

It says your issues are unimportant to me.

It says you don't matter.

If these were the messages that Lee was getting, why wouldn't he cheat? Why would he stay by her side through thick and thin; for better or worse; 'til do they part?

How could he still love her?

But he did. Despite all of that, he still loved her. He even said so yesterday.

This epiphany came alongside another one of equal value, though it should have been an obvious one. Brian wasn't the answer to her problem. In fact, he was a whole new problem; one built with her own two hands. A bigger one, arguably.

Regina knew the final confrontation had to happen. It was about five months too late. She did everything she could to avoid a conversation about the two of them. She saw the expectation in his eyes, every time he talked to her. He seemed to be holding his breath; waiting.

Why did the men in her life do that? Why did they just "expect" her to snap out of her sadness and be with them the way they wanted her to be? It was like they set her grief on a timer and waited for the "ding".

Regina's eyes quickly darted over to the stairwell as her brain made a quick assessment to see if she could make it there without detection. She knew that she had to confront Brian sooner or later. She'd turned him down on numerous occasions when he asked her to go out, but she never really put the final, definitive nail in the coffin. A part of her held out hope that he would eventually just take the hint.

Does that ever happen? Unfortunately, life does not wrap our problems up that neatly.

She let her mind run away as she contemplated her options for a moment too long. Brian turned to see her standing there. Their eyes met, and with a smile spreading on his face he said, "Hey stranger."

"Hey." She returned with minimal warmth.

Luckily, the elevator "dinged" as the doors pulled apart, slicing through the awkwardness. Both stepped inside. Regina's prayers for just one more rider wasn't answered as the doors closed in front of them.

The floor beneath them lurched and started to descend. She kept her eyes straight ahead, looking at her pensive reflection in the shiny, mirror-like doors.

Brian's eyes met hers via that reflection. He looked at her in confusion.

The time was now. She felt it. Funny thing though; he felt it too.

"Gina..." he started to say before he was interrupted.

Ripping the band aid off in the most abrupt way, she simply said, "It's over, Brian" before he could finish whatever sentence was getting ready to fall from his lips. There was no need to drag this out; no need for senseless dialogue that would only end with these three words. Talking through this would only give him false hope that her love was up for negotiation.

He blinked several times before saying, "What?"

This time, she turned to face him. With deep, penetrating eyes, she repeated herself.

"This thing between us; it's over. We have to officially end it so that we can both move on."

"What do you mean it's over?" he asked, his confusion giving way to unfamiliar pain. It wasn't often that he was rejected.

She didn't answer him. Instead, she turned around and once again faced forward. She'd already said what she had to. Giving him any more would water down the message.

Once the doors opened on the bottom floor, Regina walked away without looking back. She didn't even slow down when she heard Brian calling her name. With determined steps, she quickly strolled out of the automatic doors that led outside.

After a stunned moment, Brian gathered himself and quickly double-times until he caught up with her. His hand grabbed her arm in the crook of her elbow to hold her still, but she spun around and twisted from his grip.

Her eyes pierced his with a seriousness that as undeniable. In a stern voice, she repeated herself for the third time.

"Brian, it's over. It was never gonna work out between us." Seeing his face fall, her voice turned softer as she said, "Surely you saw that?"

"Why the fuck would I see that?" he said, not hiding the hurt in voice. He breathed out heavily through his nose, like a bull. Despite the anger in his voice and on his face, his eyes only showed pain

All she could do was shake her head. She hated this; really, she did. In truthfulness, he deserved better. He'd been good to her, despite his womanizing reputation. But she had to do it this way. She had to be cold. It was the only way to get him to understand. He needed to move on from that weekend; find someone else who had a lot less baggage.

"I'm sorry." She said sincerely.

"You're sorry? That's it? You're fucking sorry? After everything, all I get is an apology?"

Regina had to get away from him. She didn't want him to see the tears welling up in her eyes. So, she turned away to walk to her car, hoping she wasn't being followed.

In a perfect world, he would have taken the hint. After mumbling some sort of variation of the word "bitch" under his breath, he would snarl, get into his mustang, and drive away

But this world ain't perfect. Brian was never one to die silently.

"How could she just pretend like she felt nothing for me; like that weekend meant nothing?" He thought as the frustration of being brushed aside filled him. There was no way this was happening. Did she know how many women would love to be in her shoes; how many of them begged him for a fraction his heart?

No. It wasn't going to end like this. It wasn't over until he said it was.

When she reached her car, a feeling of déjà vu rushed over him. He dashed over, quickly pressing her against her car with the weight of his body. With his lips hovering next to her ear, he whispered, "Gina, I know you feel something for me. Don't hide from it. You want me just as much as I want you."

Last time she was in this moment, her body called out to him. Her breasts, her nipples, her butt, her vagina; all of it yearned for this man. Feeling him so close to her made her want to melt into his arms and onto his bed.