Jealousy (18 page)

“
I won’t.  I promise.”  He smiled at her.  “I was just mad because . . . of what you said.”  He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head.  “Forgive me?”

She wanted to stay mad at him.  She didn
’t want to give in so fast, but she couldn’t hold out.  “I’m sorry too.”  She put her arms around his waist and smiled up at him.  “What I meant to say was that you were acting like a first-class bitch.”

Justin laughed. 
“That’s better.”  He kissed her on the cheek and hugged her again before he turned his attention to Kenny.

Justin put his hands on his hips, glared at Kenny and let out a deep breath. 
“And you . . .”

Kenny didn
’t respond.  His hands remained in his lap, and he looked at Justin with his head down, like a child waiting to be scolded.

Justin sighed again, then slowly displayed a huge smile.  He took Kenny
’s hand.  “Come with me so I can finish yelling at you, and then we can have raunchy make-up sex.  It’s still our anniversary, you know.”

Peter
’s eyes bore into Kenny and Justin as they went upstairs to the bedroom.  As soon as he heard to bedroom door close, he blew up.  “They better not have sex in our bed!  I’m not fucking kidding, Heather!  I’ve had just about enough . . .”

“
Relax.  He wasn’t serious.”  At least she hoped he wasn’t serious.  She didn’t want Justin and Kenny to have sex in their bed either, but she realized that they probably would. It would sicken Peter, and he would be outraged. “Nothing else is gonna happen.” She tried to sound casual.  “They’re just gonna talk privately. That’s all.”

“
That better be all they do, because I swear, if I find out . . .”  Peter bit his lower lip and shook his head.  “I put up with a lot of fuckin’ shit around here, and I’m starting to get really tired of it.”

“
What are you talking about?”

“
You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“
No.  I don’t.”

“
You and Justin.”

She immediately narrowed her eyes. 
“What about me and Justin?”

“
He waltzes in here and takes center stage with his drama.  He yells at Kenny.  He yells at you.  He locks himself in our bedroom.  And you expect me to sit here and let him do whatever he damn well pleases.”

She was taken aback by Peter
’s tirade and stood there without saying anything. She wanted to defend Justin, but she didn’t want to end up in an all out brawl with Peter.  “I don’t know what to tell you,” she finally said.  “I agree that he was being unreasonable.  I was mad, too, but he apologized.”

“
I don’t care if he apologized.  You won’t let me tell him how I feel, and it pisses me the fuck off.”

“
He doesn’t get involved when we fight.”

“
This is my house!”  Peter slammed his fist down on the table next to him.  “I expect him to respect it!  He acts like he lives here!  I’m getting really fuckin’ sick of him intruding in our life!  He needs to remember that he’s a guest in our home!”

“
A guest?”  She raised her eyebrows as high as she could.  “Intruding?”  She glanced toward the stairs to make sure Justin was still upstairs.  “Are you fucking kidding me?  Justin is a part of my life!  You knew that when you met me!  Nothing’s changed!  Justin is anything but a guest here!  This is my house too, and my home is Justin’s home!  Don’t you dare ever try to make him feel unwelcome!”

Her blood was boiling.  Her eyes bulged in their sockets and her chest heaved with labored breaths.

Peter met her stare and neither of them said a word.

She wasn
’t budging.  She could have stood like that and stared Peter down all night.

That
’s how their fights usually ended. They didn’t talk it out and rarely had a screaming match.  They each said what they had to say on the subject and stared each other down.  The one who stood their ground the longest was deemed the winner.

Her eyes continued to burn into Peter.  So that
’s how he really felt about Justin.  Now she knew why Peter had a bad attitude all the time.  It’s finally out in the open.  Peter resented Justin.  She had no idea how to deal with the issue.  Like she said, nothing changed.  Justin was always part of her life and always would be.

Heather didn
’t know how long they stood like that, scowling at each other with their eyes narrowed and their lips pursed together, but Peter finally dismissed her with a cold hard glare over his shoulder and left the room.

Chapter Thirty-Seven:

For the next three weeks Heather and Peter barely spoke, but they carried on their life as if nothing happened.  They even continued to have sex.  It was purely physical, though.  Heather didn
’t enjoy it much, and they didn’t kiss, but it fulfilled a need.  Dominick, and the passion they shared, suddenly popped into her head.  She squeezed her eyes shut and shook him from her thoughts. She tried to block the affair from her mind – make believe it never happened.  She wanted it to be another closed chapter in her life, but Dominick never fully vacated her memory.

She looked at Peter reading the newspaper across the table.  How long were they supposed to keep this up?  She knew that she was stubborn, but Peter made her look complacent.  She let out a deep breath. 
“Can we talk, Peter?”

He looked at her from over the paper. 
“About what?”

Did he really expect her to believe that he didn
’t know what she wanted to talk about?

When she didn
’t answer, he went back to reading the newspaper.

“
C’mon.  Are we gonna clear the air between us or is this the way we’re gonna live?”

He folded the paper and put it down on the table. 
“You know how I feel.  I don’t have anything else to say.”

He wasn
’t even trying to make up.

“
Don’t ask me to choose between you and Justin,” she said.

“
I’m not.”

“
So what are we supposed to do here?”

He
took a long time to answer and for a minute she thought he was going to say that he wanted a divorce.

“
I don’t know,” he said.  Then he surprised her by leaning across the table and giving her a small kiss.  “Let’s just forget about it and pretend it never happened,” he said.  He picked up his newspaper and left her sitting at the table alone.

She was dumbfounded and perplexed.  Was that his idea of reso
lving the problem?  Did his ill feelings toward Justin disappear?  She didn’t know.  Could she forget about what happened, like Peter suggested?  How many things in life was she supposed to forget about?  At this rate, her entire life was going to be one big suppressed memory.  Could she forgive Peter for the things he said?  She looked out the window in search of an answer.  No.  She couldn’t.  And she couldn’t forget the hurtful things he said either.  But she could try.  She could give him another chance.  She didn’t know what else to do.  She couldn’t talk to Justin about it.  He knew something was wrong and asked her what was going on, but she just told him that she and Peter were fighting.  She could never tell Justin that it had something to do with him.  And she couldn’t talk to Kenny behind Justin’s back.  There was no one else left to turn to. Despair and depression settled in her heart.  She was forced to deal with her broken marriage alone.

Chapter Thirty-Eight:

Heather wanted to make things right with Peter, but she didn
’t know how.  She wanted a normal relationship where a husband and wife enjoyed each other’s company, not one where they merely cohabitated.  She invited a small group of Peter’s friends over last night and hoped it would be a first step in bringing them closer together and doing things as a couple.  But the men ended up talking amongst themselves on one side of the yard, while the wives sat together on the other.

Heat
her stepped out onto the patio and evaluated the mess left over from their little get together.  At least everyone had a good time.  There were half-eaten plates of food, wine glasses and beer bottles everywhere.  They were a nice bunch of people.  She wouldn’t mind spending more time with them.  It could show Peter how married couples were supposed to act.  Maybe she could convince Peter to go to marriage counseling, too.

She tossed a few paper plates in the trash.
First she needed to clean up.  Then she would talk to Peter about counseling.  She picked up as many bottles as she could carry and made her first trip to the recycling bin.  She questioned why she didn’t bring the recycling bin to the table instead, and rolled her eyes at her lack of reasoning.  It was the roll of her eyes that caused her to misstep over the uneven patio blocks.  She stumbled and fell to the ground with a loud crash.

T
he bottles shattered into large dangerous fragments underneath her.  She felt foolish as she got to her feet and dusted the debris from the palms of her hands.  She picked up some of the larger pieces of broken glass, but was interrupted by a stinging sensation in her right calf.  She rubbed her leg and felt a warm wetness.  The bright red blood penetrating her jeans, now transferred to the palm of her hand, made her gasp out loud.

She held her calf with both hands and limped into the house. 
“Peter, I need you to call Kenny!”

Peter met her as she hobbled through the kitchen. 
“Holy shit!  What the fuck happened?”

“
I fell on some broken glass.  Call Kenny.”

“
Forget Kenny, you need to go to the hospital.”

“
I’m not going anywhere.  Just call Kenny.”

Peter tried to look at her leg, but she guarded it with two blood-soaked hands.  She wouldn
’t let him near it.  She tried to explain to him that she needed to hold pressure on it, the way Kenny once instructed her to do, in case of an accident, but Peter just grunted at her.  He thought she didn’t trust him.

Peter couldn
’t get in touch with Kenny, so he called Justin.  “You need to get over here,” Peter said into the phone.  “Heather cut herself, and she won’t let me look at it.  She’s bleeding all over the fucking place.  I told her to go to the hospital, but she won’t listen to me.  You’re the only one who can talk some sense into her.”

Peter was quiet for several seconds, then handed her the phone.

She streaked a small amount of blood onto her cheek as she held the phone to her ear.  “Where’s Kenny?”

“
He’s working a double shift, but don’t worry, sweetie, I’ll be right there.  I’m already on my way.  Are you alright?”

“
I . . . no . . . I don’t know.  There’s a lot of blood.  I’m afraid to look at it.”

“
Tell Peter to open the door.  I’m almost there.”

Heather limped her way to the bathr
oom and was barely off of her feet when Justin burst through the front door.  He found her sitting on the toilet seat, still holding pressure on her bloody calf.

“
What happened?” he asked.

“
I fell carrying some bottles in the yard and cut my leg.”

Justin pried her hands from her leg.  She whimpered from the pain and bit her lower lip.  She peered down at the small gash in her blood-soaked jeans with apprehension
, but her leg looked like it had finally stopped bleeding.  Justin tried to pull up her pant leg to get a better look, but she flinched and cried out.

He
jumped at her cry.  “I’m sorry, sweetie, but I need to see it.”

She unzipped her jeans and started to shimmy out of them
, while sitting on the toilet seat.

“
What the fuck are you doing?” Peter snapped at her.  He was upset that she was undressing in front of Justin.  It was ridiculous.

“
He’s seen me in my underwear plenty of times, Peter,” she said.  “It’s not a big deal.”  She finally freed her leg from the jeans, and Justin examined the wound.  It was a deep cut, but the bleeding diminished to a slow trickle.

Justin cleaned up some of the blood on her leg with toilet paper.  Heather winced again and squirmed from the pain.  She leaned to the left and supported herself on the bathroom vanity while Justin tended to her leg.  She was only wearing a thong, so her position exposed her right butt cheek
as she hung onto the sink.

Peter shifted his eyes between Justin and the small piece of material that covered Heather
’s crotch.  He snorted and heaved repeatedly.  He stormed out of the bathroom, but quickly reappeared with a pair of shorts and demanded that Heather put them on.  She waved him away, but he continued to try to hand them to her.

Justin yanked them out of Peter
’s hand and threw them on the floor.  “I don’t give a shit about that, Peter!”  Justin pressed his lips together in a tight line and shook his head.  He let out a deep sigh, grabbed the bath towel off of the rod hanging next to him, and threw it over Heather’s lap.  She smirked at Peter and shook her head at him.  Justin couldn’t care less if her naked crotch was staring him in the face, and Peter should’ve known that.  He should’ve been more concerned about the cut on her leg than about her sitting there in her underwear.