32. Chapter 32
32
Rose
W hen Kelly, Malak and Grey all left, I was left sitting on the bed, my eyes sore from crying. I wasn’t sure how I was going to go downstairs and face Lindsey, eventually. I hoped she was still in bed, but I had no way to be certain. I felt frozen where I was. I could have gone after them. What would I have said? I knew I wanted Kelly and Malak — but when it came to Grey, I knew it couldn’t work. Or maybe it was more that I felt it shouldn’t.
Could I really get involved long term with someone like him? My family would throw a fit at Malak enough as it was, and hell when they found out about Kelly? I was already going to be in deep, so why did I care so much if they hated me even more for Grey?
I swallowed and pushed up from the bed. Grey’s family weren’t people I wanted to mess with, I didn’t want Malak or Kelly involved with him either, but I couldn’t make their choices for them.
“Damnit,” I mumbled.
The truth was my heart ached at the absence of all three of them, even with how frustrating I found Grey, how nervous I was that who he was and who his family were could never end in anything good.
Combined with the cruelty and privilege of Kelly and my own family, I couldn’t see how it could work. My stomach turned in stress and growled in hunger at the same moment. I decided I was going to get no good thoughts or things done while hungry and weak from sex and crying.
Pulling the robe tighter around my body, I headed out of the bedroom. A door opened to the right of me just as I was stepping out.
“Lindsey,” I said as I looked over. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun on her head, she looked more rested than she had the day or two before. Her face still contorted slightly in annoyance at my presence.
“Is Kelly up yet?” Lindsey asked, “I said I’d talk to her, I guess I should get that started.”
My heart jumped into my throat. “Uh, why don’t we go downstairs and get some food first,” I insisted.
Lindsey eyed me. “Alright.”
My fingers tapped on the railing as I lead Lindsey downstairs, not looking forward to selling her about how Kelly had left with Malak and Grey. I was also not looking forward to making her sign the divorce papers, but honestly, the latter did not scare me as much.
I sighed, almost glad for the distraction in a way. Anything to not have to think about what I was going to do after talking with Lindsey.
“Okay, talk,” Lindsey said as I was pulling bread out of the cabinet and placing it next to the toaster.
“Kelly left,” I said as straightforward as possible, before stepping over to the fridge. I ignored the anxiety that was rushing through me. Lindsey trying to fight me again, Kelly deciding she didn’t want me, Malak deciding he didn’t want me. Grey’s family somehow getting involved in the whole mess. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to clear my head.
“What?” Lindsey asked.
I opened my eyes and looked over at her, the carton of eggs in my hand. “Kelly left, with Malak and Grey,” I explained, “Kelly decided she wasn’t going to stay here and try to talk to you, it was stressing her out too much.”
Lindsey’s face fell. “Great,” she huffed, “when I finally decide to try to talk to her, she leaves.”
“Well, if you hadn’t lunged at her, scratching me, before, you might’ve been able to sit down and talk then,” I said. I turned on the burner underneath a skillet and set the eggs beside the stove.
“I can’t exactly take that back, Rose,” Lindsey reminded me, “I was going to try this morning.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” I replied.
It was quiet for a second as I cracked the eggs into the pan, but then I heard a soft breath.
“Wait, Kelly left you here, didn’t she?” Lindsey asked.
My eyes stayed on the pan as I wiped my hands clean with a paper towel.
“She did, didn’t she?” Lindsey laughed softly.
My brows furrowed, and I looked over at her. “Yes, she left with them, I stayed here,” I replied. She didn’t need to know the details. My throat grew tight as the look on her face became one of a person I didn’t like. Amused.
“What did you do?” she asked, “did you fuck something up?”
“Don’t look at me like that,” I told her.
Lindsey leaned against the counter, “I’m asking, seriously.” I watched her try to relax her face. She was mostly failing.
“Don’t pretend like you aren’t reeling over this, Lindsey,” I accused her, and grabbed a spatula from the drawer beside the stove.
“Whatever,” Lindsey sighed, “is that why you look like you’ve been crying?”
I looked over at her, preparing to see an amused face, but her forehead creased, brows furrowed. A genuine look of concern on her face. If I didn’t know her, it would have fooled me. I didn’t understand how she could go from one to the other so quickly; it was so hard to tell if she was serious, faking, trying to manipulate me. My heart pounded in my chest at the stress of it.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I told her, “I knew you’re upset with me, you can hate me, but I’m done talking for now.” I took a deep breath and kept my eyes on the stove.
The kitchen was silent for a long moment, but for the sound of Lindsey shuffling around to make coffee, mumbling under her breath. There was an almost nostalgic feeling to it. A feeling of familiar comfort, even if I wasn’t in love with her, we had been together so long, acting a couple for so long, that even when I knew, two seconds before she was just happy at my pain, I found some enjoyment in her being in the same room — because it was what I had known for several years.
I blinked.
I’ve let so many things slide, so many times where she manipulated me, so many times that I was uncomfortable with the way she acted, and all because she was my wife. I was so comfortable having someone that would be there, the idea that I was done, and I just had to deal with it, or be uncomfortable. Maybe it was truly time to be uncomfortable, if it meant being with people I could be honest with.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I mumbled, and turned the burner off.
“What?” Lindsey asked.
I darted over to her, shoved the spatula in her hand, and made my way out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
“What are you doing?” Lindsey called from behind me.
Not caring, I barged into Lindsey’s room, spotted the box beside her bed, opened it up and dug the folder with the divorce papers in them out. I rushed back down the stairs, nearly slipping on my way down, and Lindsey was walking up to the end of the stairs.
“You’re going to sign these papers,” I told her, and disappeared into the living room. I pulled the papers out the folder, grabbed a pen from the pull out drawer of the table and slapped it down.
“Can’t we talk—“ Lindsey asked.
“No,” I said, “I don’t want anything from you, I’ll make sure you get money. Get things settled for yourself. Sign.”
Lindsey’s throat moved slightly as she swallowed and stepped closer, her brow furrowed. “I don’t have to sign anything,” she told me.
“You sign, or I have someone much more annoying serve you, every day, until you do sign,” I said, “I really don’t want have to do that.”
Lindsey folded her arms and looked down at the table.
“Fine, just let me read it,” she said, and grabbed it up from the table and sitting down in a nearby chair.
I sighed and made my way out of the room. At least that was taken care of. I needed to get back to Kelly, Malak, and Grey. Tell them I wanted to figure things out. Even if it meant keeping things secret from our families until it was safe, if it ever would be.
A couple minutes later, I was dressed, and had my bag over my shoulder. I walked back to the living room and watched as Lindsey was signing the papers, hesitantly, but she was finally signing them.
“There,” she said and looked up at me, “are you leaving now?”
I nodded. As I grabbed the papers and folder up, I heard tires on the driveway, and my pulse quickened. Maybe they had come back? It had only been about an hour and a half since they left.
“Bye, Lindsey,” I told her.
Lindsey’s brow furrowed, and she looked at the floor.
I turned around and headed for the door, uncertain what I was going to see when I opened it. I unlocked the top and bottom locks and pulled the door open.
My breath caught in my throat in surprise as I saw Joseph standing there, a deeply unhappy look on his face. I stepped back one step and looked up into his unnerving gaze.
“Where’s Lindsey?” he asked, voice quiet and flat.
I looked over my shoulder. “She’s in the living room.”
Joseph looked over me and then back at my face before speaking quietly,
“We need to talk, alone.”