Chapter 17 - Jenna
Even a few minutes after Feliks’ car drove away, the smile plastered on my face was enough to melt even the coldest ice and break the hardest rocks. I wondered if Feliks ever noticed.
I noticed, not for the first time, that I’d been smiling after him a lot these days—when I re-read his texts, which usually had little or no emotions attached to them, or better still, he usually tried to hold back his feelings and not express them in his texts.
Whatever it was, what I knew for sure was that something about him always made me smiley, even when he wasn’t there.
It was one of the very few mornings he somehow had the time to have breakfast with me before he left for work. Usually, he was always in a hurry, as if he was rushing out to catch up with someone or something.
I gently slapped the side of my face when my jaw began to hurt from smiling too much and walked back into the house to meet the table where we had just had breakfast being cleared by the housekeeper. I stood there for a while watching. I was getting used to other people doing my chores for me.
In the beginning, it had been hard for me to adjust. It still felt weird that I could leave the table after eating and have someone else clear it for me.
I walked straight to my room after standing there and watching the housekeeper for a while. Because it was still early morning, there was so much time and nothing much to do, and I felt bored.
My usual routine, whenever Feliks left the house since I didn’t have anywhere else to go, was to stand by the window of my room, which overlooked the small garden at the back of the house. The cool morning breeze and its counterpart in the evening usually soothed my nerves.
The garden was beautiful, but for some reason, I’d never actually visited the garden and spent time there—maybe because I’d always been voluntarily confined to my room.
I decided to stand by my window that morning to admire the garden as usual, especially since the sun was already starting to peek from the sky, making the view even more beautiful. The fact that I had to glimpse the sun from the branches of some of the trees in the garden made the whole picture look more surreal.
It was so beautiful that I didn’t want to stop looking.
The ding from my phone, lying under the pillow since last night, pulled me rudely from my thoughts and cut short my admiration of the natural goodness that I had the luxury of viewing from my window from the comfort of my room.
I reluctantly pulled away from the window and walked toward the bed to find my phone. I realized I hadn’t touched my phone that day, but it was early anyway.
I sat on the bed, picked up my phone, and unlocked it to check my messages. There were mainly unimportant messages, which I easily discarded after going through them.
However, I was prompted to check my archive to see the messages.
I’d received tons of unwanted messages from an unknown number, but from the contents, it was easy for me to tell who they were from.
They were from my ex, Leo, whom I’d been trying to avoid.
He’d sent me several messages after my wedding, but I ignored and deleted them because I no longer wanted anything to do with him. I even blocked him, but he wouldn’t stop; he kept sending more messages from several other numbers.
I’d tried to ignore them, but the more I did, the more he kept sending, so I decided to reply. Just maybe, if I told him off and put it in straightforward and clear language that I no longer wanted to talk to him, he’d finally stop harassing me. Otherwise, he might keep sending more.
I opened my keyboard to type a reply to him. After much thought on telling him off and making it clear enough that I no longer wanted him, I finally typed out the words I don’t want to talk to you or see you leave me alone .
I reread it several times to ensure it was clear enough and conveyed the message I wanted. Satisfied that he would get it and finally let me be, I hit the send button and dropped my phone on the bed, face down.
Receiving the text from Leo reminded me of how much I hated him. I wished he’d stop texting me so my memories of him would be gone for good. They were too traumatic to remember, and I wished I could forget.
I didn’t miss Leo, not even one bit.
The only thing I could do was recall the heartbreak he’d given me when we were still together. There wasn’t a single positive emotion from my side, which hurt me each time I thought of it.
However, I wished I could talk to him one last time; for some reason, I realized that I wanted to see him one more time so that I would be able to convey my rage and make him realize how much he’d hurt me. I wanted to curse him in his face, if possible, spit at him and slap him across the face, make him feel how hurt I was by his actions, and finally tell him off forever. I wanted to see him and do all those things so he’d finally leave me alone, but I knew it wasn’t possible; I wouldn’t be able to do it because my husband would never approve.
Though I hadn’t been married to Feliks for long, and I had yet to know him and the kind of person he was, there was one thing I’d come to learn—I was making sure to live by it to avoid getting into trouble with him—and that was that Feliks was capable of doing anything out of anger. I’d been unfortunate to witness a flash or two of his anger even though I wasn’t a direct partaker of it. Like the day he’d broken a vase in the living room while yelling at someone over the phone.
The anger wasn’t directed at me that day, but I felt it, felt the impact of it.
Now imagine all that anger directed at me, especially since he’d proven enough that he was jealous and wouldn’t want me close to any other man. I feared for my life and what he would do if he found me talking to another man. He may end up even ending my life.
The thought of that alone made me cringe, and I moved over to the side of the bed. It would have to be enough for me to message Leo and ask him to leave me alone. I believed that he wouldn’t try to contact me again after that.
My phone dinged again to indicate that another message had been sent, thereby interrupting my long train of thought and almost causing me to panic because I thought that Leo had managed to find a way to reach me again.
I let out a sigh of relief and a smile when I noticed the message was from my best friend, Violet.
Seeing her message brought a smile to my face because I’d missed her. I hadn’t gotten a chance to see her after I got married. My marriage had come out of the blue, like a total emergency, and she’d been mad at me earlier because she thought I kept it from her all along. We’d only got to iron things out recently.
My smile broadened as I unlocked my phone to view the message she’d sent : Let’s meet over the weekend, pleaseeee ... She’d added lots of emojis to emphasize her emotions.
My smile further broadened as I read the message because I could almost picture her in my head, how she would have looked if she’d said that to my face.
I imagined her with her round, pink lips pouted, her cute brown eyes darting around her eye sockets in the most adorable manner.
I shook my head and almost burst into laughter when I remembered how Violet would always get me to do things for her or get things from me just by acting cute. Of course, she’d just gotten me to agree to see her by sending the text message and sounding cute. I wanted to see her too.
Sure, love! I typed my response and hit the send button before I heard a soft knock on my door.
“Who is it?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t Feliks because he usually wouldn’t knock on my door, and his knock certainly wouldn’t sound that soft.
I watched the doorknob twist, and the door was slowly pushed open to review the older housekeeper. I looked up to inquire why she was there.
“You have a delivery, and you are required to sign.”
“Oh!” I said with raised brows before eventually remembering I’d ordered something last week. “I’ll be right there.”
I dropped my phone on the bed and hurried downstairs to check for the delivery man.
The man greeted me politely. “Good day, ma’am.” He had a cap on, so I couldn’t take in his features; it wasn’t like I wanted to, anyway, but it was easy to note that he had an Italian accent.
“You are required to sign here.” He held out a signature pad.
I signed, took the delivery, and returned to my room.
“I’m going to the grocery store,” I heard the housekeeper say just as I was about to climb onto the staircase. “Is there anything you want me to get for you there?”
I racked my brain but couldn’t think of anything, so I shook my head. I returned to my room and walked to bed to get my phone.
I noticed another message from Violet, a question mark—which indicated that I hadn’t responded to her first message, which was strange because I remembered dropping the reply before I left. Maybe I’d forgotten to hit send before I left.
I quickly unlocked my phone to reply to the message, but before I could open Violet’s chat, I noticed that I had sent the message—only that it wasn’t to Violet; I’d mistakenly replied to Feliks’ chat. He’d texted me at the same time as Violet did, and I hadn’t noticed, maybe because I was carried away with Violet’s message.
My heart began to beat fast when I noticed the grave mistake that I’d made. Not only did I feel embarrassed by the message, but I was also scared out of my wits. My fear intensified when my phone buzzed again with another incoming message from Feliks.
Who was that message for? Love?
I felt my heart start to sink into the deepest part of my stomach as I swallowed hard and tried to push the lump behind my throat.
Just as I was trying to think of a suitable—and compelling—reply that would get me out of my predicament, my phone began to buzz again, this time nonstop.
Why the hell did a call have to come in now ? I was about to decline the call and respond to Feliks first when I noticed that it was from the hospital.