Chapter 20 Paper Cuts
Chapter twenty
Paper Cuts
Teyonah
Why would this bastard show up and ruin such a great night?
Once Dominic left, I got close to Scott. “Why are you here?”
He lifted the papers. “I’ve got a court order, counselor.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why?” His mouth curled. “Too real? Or not real enough? Counselor.”
Bitch ass piece of shit.
Scott always used the word counselor like a thumb on a bruise. He knew I wasn’t a lawyer—I was a legal assistant who could run circles around half the associates in his firm—but he also knew I had wanted to be a lawyer long ago.
We had met first year. Contracts, front row, competing for the same answers. I left second year when I discovered I was pregnant. Nine months later, in the hospital, our daughter, Mia never took a breath.
I'd been so shattered.
So confused.
For the rest of the year, I could barely function, let alone study.
So many tears I'd swallowed for months because crying made him uncomfortable. Silence lived in my throat after Mia died because there were no words big enough for that kind of empty.
So I worked.
And worked.
And never went back to law school.
“You will see that I have every right to be here.” Scott waved the papers at me again and his scent hit me—that same bergamot and cedar cologne, expensive and sharp.
My stomach dropped.
Suddenly I wasn't in front of him anymore.
I was in a hospital room with blue walls and too-bright lights, and he was wearing that same smell when he said, "Maybe her passing is for the best," three hours after our newborn daughter died.
He didn’t say our daughter or her name.
Just her passing.
Like she was a kidney stone he'd been worried about having to deal with.
He'd checked his phone twice during that conversation while I'd still had my hospital bracelet on.
“Teyonah.” Scott brought my attention back to him. “Read the papers, counselor.”
“I said stop calling me that.”
“Why?”
“You do it to be cruel.”
“Or nostalgic. You remember law school. Back when you had. . .potential.”
“No. I remember that it was back when I was helping to pay your rent. Back when I was color-coding your outlines while my ankles swelled under the table. Back when I worked two jobs so you could ‘focus’ and ‘network’ and practice your opening statements on cute bartenders.”
Maybe, Mia would have been alive if I had just remained on my own. . .
I should have left him then.
But I wanted to make sure our child had a father in the house.
I’d been so young.
So stupid.
So insecure.
Now I knew one major truth. . .it was always better to not have a shitty father in the house, than to force yourself to raise a child with one.
His jaw ticked. “I didn’t ask you to quit law school.”
“No, you just never thought about what it cost me to stay. You didn't pack my hospital bag either or go to any medical appointments. You chose yourself as always—"
"I was busy—"
"You were at a Dodgers game when I went into labor. I called you fourteen times. You texted back 'can't talk, bottom of the ninth.'"
My voice cracked. "Our daughter was dying and you were eating nachos in the nosebleeds. You chose yourself as always, and throughout our entire marriage you continued to do so.”
"Believe what you want, Teyonah. I am a good husband and father."
I stared at him.
He actually believed it. That was the sickest part—he'd rewritten every memory until he was the hero and I was the ungrateful shrew who couldn't appreciate his sacrifices.
"Good father? Name any of the kids' teachers. Any one of them."
"This is ridiculous—"
"You don't know their birthdays without checking Facebook. You've never made them breakfast. You don't know Oliver’s allergies or J's shoe size or what they’re afraid of in the dark." My voice dropped. "But you know every big-breasted bartender's name and birthday at The Standard, don't you?"
“Read the fucking order.” He thrust the papers forward.
I snatched them from him and the first page’s corner snagged the pad of my thumb.
Shit.
A hot, ridiculous sting came.
A thin bead of blood welled.
Fucking asshole.
I brought my thumb to my mouth and tasted copper.
While I read, Scott beamed and spouted it out, “Judge Coleman has approved six months cohabitation. The State will not allow us to divorce without an attempt at trying to save it. So, congratulations. You win me back. You are going to help us become whole after you ruined—”
“You cheated—”
“You kicked me out—”
“Because you cheated—”
“It was one mistake—”
“It was several times.”
He leaned his head to the side. “Prove it.”
Rage flared.
No. Please no.
I scanned all the words.
Motion.
Temporary.
Household stability.
Neutral environment for the minor children.
The phrases stacked like bricks, walling me into a prison I hadn’t agreed to enter.
Please, God. Don’t do this to me. My days were finally getting better.
I skimmed faster, looking for the brutal trapdoor.
Fuck.
It was there—buried in the phrase “husband shall remain in the marital residence with wife and children pending final custody hearing.” It had been surrounded by case citations stacked like ladder rungs leading nowhere I wanted to go.
Why, God? Why would you do this to me? Is this punishment? Or a test?
Scott’s expensive attorney had threaded the needle: play-acting concern for the kids while twisting the word “stability” until it meant “my presence, whether she wants it or not.”
“You had this drafted.” I looked at him. “You didn’t file pro se; this is too clean. Who wrote it?”
“A friend.” He nodded toward the papers like we were colleagues admiring a brief. “Our friend, really. You remember Alex from Civil Procedure.”
“You remember I dropped out of Civil Procedure to have our child that passed.” I threw the words back the way one threw a rock at a snarling dog that kept trying to bite. “Because I was pregnant. Because you wanted me to keep working while you finished your second year.”
His eyes flashed, and then the smirk came back. “And look how well that turned out for you. I got the degree; you got the diaper bag. You should be begging me to come back to you. Got a tenant renting the basement because you can’t even pay the bills on your own. I told you that you needed me.”
There it was.
The old poison.
I should’ve felt it sink in like always.
It didn’t.
Due to Dominic’s new presence in my life, something in me had changed shape and refused to absorb his vileness.
“I don’t want you back and you know it. And the top reason is because you’re a bitch.”
He blinked hard and stepped back like he’d been slapped. “What?!”
“A sad bitch. A spineless bitch. A no-good, potbellied, little old dick bitch.”
“How dare you—”
“And you know you’re a bitch that I would never want back. That’s why you had to go to court just so I would have to look into your shitty face every day. Who really needs who?”
Color rose onto his face. “Don’t posture with me.”
“Posturing is your native tongue, but I speak it better than you think.”
He laughed under his breath. “Listen to you. What is it—years of being a legal assistant and suddenly you’re Atticus Finch?”
“I am very good at my job, and you know it. You know it because while you were in law school, I kept the lights on, I kept the rent paid, and I kept your outlines color-coded because you’re incapable of making a key without turning it into a performance piece.
Remember those nights? Me at the kitchen table with a belly out to here, highlighting in three colors while you ‘networked’ with your study group, which was code for getting drinks with a woman who thought your jokes were new and then got bored with you real fast.”
His mouth twitched. “You always loved rewriting history. Lies. That’s all that fills your head. I was a devoted boyfriend.”
“Oh please. Let me guess: the hoe you’ve been sleeping with finally got tired of you like they all do. Is that why you’re here with your suitcase and a piece of paper dressed up like court-ordered love?”
He tilted his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I folded the order. “Could you not get your lazy dick up again? Did you beg her to be patient like you did with me? Oh, baby, give me one more minute. I swear it will get hard.”
His bottom lip quivered. “I don’t have that problem with my dick.”
“Your little dick can’t get up because it’s pathetic, worthless, and sad just like you.”
That landed.
He blinked again and snarled. “I couldn’t get hard because you gained weight. That’s the only reason why I couldn’t get hard. You let yourself go. Not just your body, your whole ambition. You had potential. I couldn’t want you because you stopped wanting anything more than to raise the kids.”
That hurt, but I laughed at him instead. “You wish that were the reason.”
“It was.”
“Well then if you like skinny women so much, go back to her or find a new one. Why are you over here?”
Sneering some more, Scott took a step closer.
I didn’t move.
“Fine. Now you’ve forced me to tell you the truth.”
“Oh sure, Scott. Let’s hear the truth according to you.”
“Teyonah, I don’t care about you. I don’t even love you. I could never. You’re too fat. Too ugly. Too useless. I’m here for the kids.”
“You’re here because you lost me, and then you lost the story about being the good husband and father. So you hired someone to write you back into the house.”
“My sons want me here.”
I rolled my eyes. “Where was that energy when Oliver had the stomach bug last month and I was bleaching sheets at two in the morning? Where was that energy when J’s art show was on a Wednesday and you had ‘a conflict’?
Name one of J’s favorite books. Name at least one of Oliver’s after school activities. ”
He opened his mouth and closed it. “This isn’t about trivia.”
“It is. It’s about you not knowing your kids, and about you thinking ‘stability’ is the sound of your voice in a house you don’t take care of.”
“I move in tonight, so deal with it. And I’m not having this out where your tenant can eavesdrop on us.”