Exit: Us

Prologue

Amina Sinclair

London, England

“Baby, where are you? I’m so excited to tell you about everything that happened at the salon with the girls. Wait until you see my hair. The stylist did a good job. You’re going to love it,” I beamed, walking into my home, excited to get to my fiancé, so that I could give him all the tea.

My fiancé’s name was Jacob, and all his cars were parked out front in the driveway, so I knew he was home. Just didn’t know where the hell he was yet. I’m used to walking inside the house, and if he was already here before me, he would typically greet me at the door.

I took steady steps throughout our home, until I landed in the kitchen area.

Standing in the kitchen, it was easy to look out of the patio glass doors that were ahead of me, and I spotted Jacob.

His back was turned to me, as he sat alone on the patio, in one of the outdoor lounge chairs.

I wasn’t sure if I was thinking too much into it, but his body language seemed off.

The way he was sitting was unnaturally still.

I’ve been standing here for about a minute now, just glancing over at him, and he has yet to move.

I eventually sat my purse down on the kitchen counter and walked over to the sliding door. You would think that the sound of the door opening would cause him to turn around. He didn’t though. He continued to look ahead of him.

“Baby, I was looking for you. How come you’re sitting out here?” I asked, taking a few steps, until I landed right in front of him.

It wasn’t like Jacob to sit outside. It really wasn’t like me to sit outside, either. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the sun. I preferred to be in the AC. This big, beautiful backyard that we had was simply for the aesthetic because we rarely spent any time out here.

Jacob looked up at me, and it’s as if when I spoke to him, I’d snapped him out of whatever daze he had slipped into. Almost like it took him a few seconds to come to terms that I was standing in front of him.

He smiled at me eventually, but his smile was forced. Almost like he only did it because he knew that it was the right thing to do. The thing that he would always do whenever I joined him in any room.

“I’m sorry, beautiful. I came out here to see what was going on with the sprinklers, and I ended up just taking a seat.

How are you? How did everything go with the girls?

I love your hair. Come here. Let me get a better look at it,” he said, sounding more like the man that I was getting ready to marry in one week.

Even so, he still looked down about something. Sad. Unsure. He had been thinking about something deeply when I walked out here, and I was curious to find out what it was.

I walked even closer to where he was, and he opened his legs a little bit, so that I was able to stand directly in the middle of him.

With a big smile on his face, he reached both hands up, running them through my freshly straightened hair, that cascaded down my back.

I knew that Jacob loved it whenever I would come home with a fresh silk press.

It showed in his smile. It showed in the way he continued to run his hands through my hair.

After showing love to my hair, that’s when I straddled his lap. Instead of him wrapping his arms around my waist like he would do any other time, or placing them on my ass, he kept them on the sides of the chair.

“How did it go?” he asked me again, referring to my meet up with the girls this afternoon.

“It went well. You know I rented out the entire salon for me and the girls, so it was just us in there. We talked, we laughed, we played games, we drank wine, all the things. We even cried together. My emotions were so high today for whatever reason. Sitting around, being there with the women in my bridal party, I think it just hit me that this moment is so real, and we’re really getting married in just one more week.

The girls were making jokes, saying that I should get my IUD taken out, so that when we make love on our honeymoon, I can get pregnant that night,” I shared, following that statement with a laugh because I thought back to when the comment was said at the salon, and how funny of a moment that had been.

Jacob didn’t really laugh though. If anything, he forced a smile. The same forced smile that he’d given me when I walked out here.

“Baby, what’s wrong? Did I do something? Are you upset with me about anything?” I asked, picking my hands up, so that I could wrap my arms around his neck.

He sighed, and then he looked away from me for a few seconds.

He eventually placed his icy blue eyes back on me, and within seconds, his eyes watered.

Something in my gut told me that he was getting ready to put something on me that was going to break my heart.

I could feel it. I could feel it in his energy.

I could feel it in his lack of affection right now.

He wasn’t even touching me. Knowing that I was getting ready to get my heart broken, I removed my arms from around his neck, placed them at my side, preparing myself for this.

“Amina, you do know that I love you more than anything, right? When I tell you that I love you, I need you to know that I mean it with every fiber in my body. You know that, right?” he asked me.

I sat on top of him, and my body was literally shaking right now. I was trembling to the point that it felt like I was getting ready to pass out. It was almost as if I couldn’t speak, so instead of verbally answering the question that he just asked me, I simply nodded my head.

Before he got the chance to respond to me, his phone began to ring.

Because I was sitting in his lap, I could feel the vibration through his jeans.

I watched his actions. I watched the way he dug into his right pocket, and instead of pulling the phone out to answer it, he just declined the call with the side button.

Not even a second later, his phone began to ring again.

“Who’s calling you, Jacob?” I wanted to know.

“I’m not sure, but whoever it is, I’ll just call them back. We’re having a discussion right now,” he sounded so guilty. Very guilty.

The phone began to ring again, and this time, I was quick to reach inside of his pocket, and right there, the name, ‘Gabby’ appeared on his screen.

I didn’t know who Gabby was. Jacob and I have been together for about three years now, and in that amount of time, I knew all the women in is family, and even the couple of female friends that he had. I never met a Gabby before.

“Who the hell is Gabby, Jacob?” I screamed at him, holding his phone in my hands, ready to answer it myself if he wasn’t going to start talking, and tell me who this woman was that was calling his phone.

His face turned beet red. The sudden change in his color told me everything that I needed to know. With the phone still in my hand, I launched it at him, and stood up from his lap. I placed my hands on my hips, tapping my right foot, prepared for him to tell me what the hell was going on.

“Amina, I swear I love you—”

“Who the fuck is Gabby?” I cut him off this time, not wanting to hear that bullshit.

“She’s a childhood friend of mine,” was all he told me.

“Okay, and why is she calling you? Is she coming to the wedding?” I asked him, still not understanding what the hell was going on. When I asked him that question, that’s when his tears fell.

“I’ve known Gabby since we were kids. We used to be neighbors.

My parents were close with her parents. She moved away for college, and after college, she never came back.

Over the years, we’ve had each other on social media, so from there, I was able to see that she was in a relationship.

Gabby and I never dated, but I’ll be honest, we did have feelings for each other.

We just never really acted on those feelings,” he started, and it broke my heart hearing these things because I kind of knew where this was going.

“I think back then, we were both too afraid to explore anything with each other, thinking that it might ruin our friendship. She went away for college, and I did the same. Here it is, years later, and she moved back home, after the failed relationship—”

“You’ve been seeing her?” I cut him off to ask.

With his head down, he didn’t even have the balls to look me in my eyes when he responded. He just simply nodded his head.

“She came back about two months ago. She reached out to me on social media, telling me that she moved back. I went to see her. Amina, I’m being so honest right now when I say that I only met up with her to visit a childhood friend.

I was going to even invite her to the wedding.

Things didn’t go the way I expected them to.

I hate to even say these things to you out loud because it makes me sound like a monster, when I know that I’m not.

Seeing Gabby, being around her, all those things just reminded me of the past. I didn’t realize that there was so many underlying feelings still there for her.

I’m at a place right now where I cannot 100% say that I’m ready to walk down the aisle next weekend and say, ‘I do’.

Baby, I’m so sorry,” he finished, and when I say this man broke me… he broke me.

I didn’t expect this. Naturally, when I walked out here, and I saw that he was down about something, I thought that he was just having a bad day. I didn’t think it was this. I didn’t think that I would get a blow to the stomach like this.

I didn’t want to stand here and give him this weak, foolish, vulnerable version of me because he didn’t deserve it, but I couldn’t control my feelings. This cry came out from the depths of my soul.

“You… you… you couldn’t tell me this weeks ago?

Literally seven days before the wedding…

and you.. you decide to tell me this now?

I built my life around us. In my mind, I was already your wife.

All the while, it means everything to me to become your wife, and you’ve been out here exploring, needing time to figure out if it’s really me that you want?

” I screamed at him, tears falling from my eyes.

Tears fell from his eyes as well, and because he knew that the things I was saying were the truth, he didn’t have a rebuttal. He stood there, looking pathetic.

I laughed through my tears, as I shook my head.

“Crazy thing is, I’m sure that the moment you saw her, you knew right then and there that it was no longer going to be me.

Even with you knowing that, you still let me sit there and continue meeting with the wedding planner, doing the final touches for our wedding.

You still let me lay in bed with you at night, talking about baby names, and what marriage would look like for us.

You let me meet with my bridal party today, when you knew all along that this wedding would never take place!

” I yelled again, and this time, he walked over, reaching his hands out to touch me.

“Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare fuckin touch me!” I yelled even louder this time. He respected it, throwing his hands up, as he backed away from me.

“Amina, I’m so sorry,” he said again.

“I’m standing here with a broken heart, and the only thing that you have for me is telling me that you’re sorry?

This is cruel what you’re doing to me. It would have hurt me two months ago, but I would have preferred for you to tell me then, compared to you dropping this shit on me one week before our wedding.

No idea how you can fix your mouth and tell me that you love me.

This isn’t love. This is the equivalent of hating me.

To allow me to go on and be happy, to have me crave a life that you knew was never going to be mine is cruel,” was all that I had left to say about this.

He stood there, wiping his eyes, and once we both calmed down, he walked over to me.

“You deserve someone that’s sure about you, Amina. Right now, I’m just not sure,” he said to me.

I chose not to respond. I allowed that to be the final word. I think it was for the best that we just stopped talking to each other because every time words were spoken, my heart would hurt a little more.

I followed him with my eyes, watching him as he walked away and stepped inside the house. He closed the patio door behind him, and I used this time to lower myself onto the concrete, sitting Indian style. Through gut wrenching tears, I mourned a life that no longer belonged to me.

Just an hour ago, I had a fiancé. I had a wedding to tend to, and I was going to be the most beautiful bride that the world has ever seen. I had a future. I was ready to carry children for this man. I was ready to live a life with him that made the most sense to me.

Now, all I had was emptiness. Embarrassment because I knew what had to come next. I had to tell family and friends that the wedding was now off. All because a man stood in front of me and told me out of his own mouth that he wasn’t sure of me.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t have any idea what came next. I had no idea how I was supposed to put my best foot forward and move on from this.