Page 6 of Friends That Heal Us
I follow behind her as we walk into her house with the pizza in my hand. The bread and sweet smells that usually fill her houseare absent. Not once have I ever walked into her house and my nostrils haven’t been hit with some sort of smell from her baking.
I step further inside, about to set the pizza on her kitchen table. I stop and gaze over all the papers around the table—some are on the floor while others are crinkled up on the floor and table. I look over at her with questions in my eyes.
She looks between me and the table. “Those are the text messages.”
I set the pizza down on the kitchen counter, turn back around, cross my arms, and watch as she shuffles the papers on the table into a pile.
Has she not been staying here? If not here, where? I’m sure these have been here since the day she found out.
I bend down and help pick up the ones on the floor.
“You can read them if you want,” she says, looking over at me.
My eyes raise to her, and I shrug my shoulders.
It’s funny that I don’t care to see the proof. The proof of my wife and best friend going behind my back. I guess it’s the final straw for me moving on from them. After debating for years and going back and forth if I wanted to stay married or stay friends with Zay, I guess this finally settles it. It was driving me crazy deciding what to do. I finally feel relief. As crazy as that sounds, I wonder if Rya has found some relief? It was always hard to get a straight answer from her about how she felt about us. I always felt that if I’m feeling this way, she has to be feeling it too. Or at least a little. But every time I would bring us up, she would shut everything down as if we’re fine. So then, I thought she didn’t feel the same way and maybe it was all me.
After cleaning up the table and floor, I place a slice of pizza in front of Vi as I sit down and take a bite of my own. I watch her as she picks at the pizza and eats one single piece of pepperoni.
“You need to eat.”
We catch eye contact. “I am.”
“Eating a pepperoni isn’t eating.”
She lets out a small giggle like her body wants to, but her brain stops her.
“So how have things been?” I ask, and right after those words come out of my mouth I want to kick myself.
She looks at me with her eyebrows raised. She’s looking at me likeare you really asking me that?
“Okay, that came out wrong,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Have you been sleeping here?”
She nods and takes a little bite of her pizza.
Then my stomach sinks knowing she has been here and maybe she has been ignoring me when I come over. I decide against asking her that because I feel like I’m already making a fool of myself with the questions I’m asking.
I want to get a better idea of how she is feeling so I know more of what to do or say. I don’t want to say or do the wrong thing. I want to be there for her, but I don’t want to push.
“Alone?” I ask because I have no idea what happened to that bastard that calls himself a man. He hasn’t reached out to me, and I haven’t reached out to him. I want to rip his limbs from his body for hurting Vi. But for me, the friendship we had hasn’t felt like much of a loss.
She nods and clears her throat as if she is going to say something, but nothing comes out.
Is she having the same problem as me, and doesn’t know what to say?
I get up from the table and head for the fridge. “You got any beer?” Maybe we both need some alcohol courage.
No.
Nevermind.
I know she doesn’t like to drink. I don’t want to be another Rya. She would always get irritated with her when Rya would try to shove alcohol down her throat.
Vi held her own and would always shut Rya up, anyway. Sometimes it bugged me how pushy Rya was that I wanted to tell her to shut the hell up, but I stayed quiet, not wanting to get in the middle of the two because I didn’t want to hear all about it from Rya later on.
“There should be some in there.”
I reach in and grab a Dos Equis, twist the cap off, and chug a gulp down. The soft thud of the beer bottle hitting the table echoes through the house as I sit back down. “Have you been baking?” I ask, taking another bite of the pizza.
