9 #2
My body was like a rickety air conditioning unit. My entire frame was shaking, tears painting my face. Happiness was an old memory.
“I’m supposed to be your wife,” I cried. “I thought you loved me. I thought you loved me. I thought you loved me.”
He pulled me into his chest. “I do love you. I love you so much.”
“Then why did you do that? Because that didn’t feel like love.”
I thought of my mother and father. The way he watched her dance in the kitchen and brushed her hair from her face as she spoke.
How he’d stay up for her when she hosted an event or large dinner party at the restaurant, slumped on the staircase in the foyer waiting to embrace her.
How he’d buy her a new charm for her birthday every year, adding it to the bracelet he had given her for their first wedding anniversary.
How he clutched her headstone and let his tears stain the granite, praying for her to come back.
My heart was cut open, and I was bleeding.
Blood tinted the taste in my mouth and stained my vision.
My eyes were clogged with tears, and my throat was clotted with emotion.
I was suffocating but had access to air; I had simply forgotten how to breathe.
I wept and sobbed and screamed with grief because my marriage wasn’t supposed to end. It was supposed to be like my mother’s.
I pulled myself out of his grasp and ran down the stairwell, out of the hotel, into the street, and all the way to the train station.
“Dad, I’m coming home,” I squeaked over the phone.
I filed for divorce the next morning.
We had only been married for a year.
Eight months have passed since that night, and his voice simultaneously warmed and chilled the numb heart behind my rib cage. I could still feel the handprints on my biceps from the way he clutched me.
Once he received the divorce papers in the mail, the phone calls began. Calls where he begged for forgiveness. Calls where he cried apologetically. Calls where he screamed at me in frustration for not trying to repair what he refused to admit he maimed in the first place.
I took his calls. I listened. Guilt filled my airways anyway.
Accepting apologies sounded like an easy melody to hum along to. If my father and Walt hadn’t been there with me, I would have fallen for it. But looking at my father and seeing the old wedding band on his finger reminded me of what I wanted.
So when Jeremiah screamed at me, I screamed back.
I called him names. I told him I hated him, told him I should’ve never married him in the first place. Every cruel thing I had been keeping to myself because I had felt guilty for leaving our marriage, I let go. I screamed for so long that my throat felt cut up.
I hadn’t expected him to record it and punish me with it for not taking him back.
I knew our divorce would make headlines, and journalists would speculate and look for sources.
I assumed that’s why Jeremiah was taking a break from tennis, the same as I was.
But heartbreak was the real reason I hid, wrapped in my childhood duvet in Rhode Island.
Until Deidra arrived on my doorstep six months later.
“Jeremiah did an interview,” she told me.
“Oh… about returning to tennis?”
She nodded. “And the divorce.”
Interviewer: So you’re saying that your divorce with Luna Aldridge was the cause for your break. Did things end amicably?
Evans: No, not at all, actually. I loved Luna, she was the love of my life. But this sport was a priority of hers at the end of the day.
Interviewer: Was it not for you?
Evans: Of course it was—I understood that more than anyone.
But I hadn’t expected it to become the rift in our relationship.
She was a perfectionist. She became obsessed with winning and ultimately made it part of our marriage.
It was toxic—she was toxic. I remember her screaming at me one night because she hadn’t won.
[Evans takes a choked-up breath.] There was no more love in our relationship.
He preferred lying to make himself feel better rather than admitting to his absence and infidelity. And somehow, he almost convinced me it was my fault.
But then a recording of my sharp screams and curse words directed at Jeremiah during our call was released. And the whole world came after me.
“What do you want, Jeremiah?” I asked, avoiding Cecilia’s and Coach’s stares.
“Don’t tell me you’re actually dating this actor,” Jeremiah scoffed.
I exhaled, picking up my racket, and bounced a ball off the ground.
“I don’t remember that being a concern of yours,” I responded coldly.
“No one is going to believe this shit, it’s—”
“Is this why you called me? Really? To give me a lecture on relationships?”
He blew out a frustrated breath. “Luna, I’ve tried apologizing for everything, that’s not fair.”
“That’s not fair?”
“I made a mistake with that interview, I was upset, I was pissed. I was losing my wife,” he pleaded. I tried my best not to shudder. I had hundreds of voicemails and letters exactly like this one. Meaningless apologies that poked at my heart.
“We’re not together, and that’s your fault. Do not put the blame on me for your actions.”
“People aren’t going to believe this stunt. Do you really think this will work? You’d never date some arrogant actor.”
“Well, I married an arrogant tennis player, and look where that got me,” I argued. “Don’t call me again, or I’m calling my lawyer.”