Page 17 of Exit: Us
Even with me telling him that I wasn’t hungry, this was his second time still grabbing food for me anyways. I knew that second sub was for me because of the way he ordered it. With the sub that he was getting for himself, he added on so many toppings, but for mine, he kind of played it safe, only asking for things that he felt like the average person might get on their sub.
He finished, and once he paid for the items, and started heading back in my direction, the sound of women screaming caught my attention. I turned to the entrance of the mainbuilding, and that’s when I saw five white women walking in. Four of the women were wearing these beautiful pastel pink silk pajamas. Then, only one of them had on a white silk pajamas. Although they came in loud, it wasn’t the obnoxious kind of loud. It was the overly happy kind. You know like when you’re out with your girls and all of you are just so happy, that you can’t contain it? It was the same happiness that filled the hair salon that afternoon that I went out with some of the women in my bridal party. We were all geeked about my wedding coming up that next week.
The reason why I described that kind of happiness is because that’s what was happening here. The woman standing in the white silk pajamas had a sash around her, which said, ‘Bride to be’. I watched as each of them had phones in their hands, recording their own videos, jumping up and down, screaming about their friend getting married, and screaming about the road trip that they were on.
“Our friend is getting marrieddddd,” one of the girls yelled into the phone, as she was recording a video.
“Come on. I’ll eat in the truck,” Gemini immediately said to me once he was close enough. He knew what was happening. He saw the same things that I saw.
I could feel my throat getting tighter, as if I was getting ready to start crying all over again, but I didn’t.
For the first time, I didn’t challenge him. I just stood up, and I pushed the chair back into the table. I grabbed my shower bag, and Gemini led the way out. The front entrance, which is where the girls were still standing was only a few feet away. Literally a straight shot. It was the quickest way that we could have walked to get back to the truck. Most people would have walked that way. Gemini didn’t though. Instead, he turned left, leading us back through the corridor, that placed us back to the area where we’d been with the showers.
He made us take the longer route. The route that didn’t allow me to have to be face to face with the bride to be, and the bridesmaids. If I had to say it on a deeper level… the route that didn’t force me to watch someone else live the life that I was currently mourning.
Gemini never said anything about why he’d chosen to take this route, but I knew. I knew and it showed me that even with me annoying him with my tears, and mood swings, he was paying attention, and he was fully aware of what was taking place.
We made it back onto the truck. Gemini showed me where to put my dirty clothes. He showed me where to store my shower bag. Before he hauled my suitcase away, he wanted to know if I needed anything else out of it. I needed my hair scarf, so I grabbed it. After that, he took our bags, and he placed them back onto the storage area outside of the truck. I knew that the bottom bunk belonged to me, so that’s where I chose to go.
I pulled the blanket back, quickly got under, allowing the cover to swallow my entire body. Lying on my side, I rested here, as if I was numb.
I didn’t hear Gemini in here with me. I felt like he might have been sitting up front, probably eating his food. I didn’t hear movement in here until about fifteen minutes later. I could hear him when he climbed onto the top bunk. I peeked my head out of the covers, just to see that it was pitched black in here. For another five minutes, I just lay here. At night is when all the depressing thoughts started coming at me full circle. I’ve already had a couple of breakdowns today, so I swore I wasn’t going to cry anymore.
I felt like I might have been good if I hadn’t ran into that bride, and her bridesmaids. I probably would have been able to say my prayers and quickly fall asleep. Because I saw that, myemotions were all over the place, and before I knew it, tears were falling.
I was trying as hard as I could to be silent with my tears. I wanted Gemini to be able to get his rest. I knew he was tired. I didn’t want to be the woman from hell that he took a road trip with. I didn’t want to annoy him more than I already was doing. My cries grew just a little louder, along with my sniffling. It was going on ten minutes, and I was still carrying on, having this sad, depressing ass moment to myself.
“Amina. Bruh please,” I could hear Gemini say from the top bunk.
I couldn’t help what I was going through. I felt like I lost someone. I felt like I was mourning someone. I felt like I was thirteen years old all over again, and I’d just gotten the news that my father was killed. This was a literal grief that I was experiencing, and that’s why my emotions were all over the place like this. I had no understanding how something could be here one moment and then gone the next.
I sat up in bed, swinging my legs over, so that they could rest on the floor. I dropped my head down, and I just completely broke. I could hear Gemini moving around. Seconds later, his body emerged from the top bunk, he turned the lights on, and he was standing there on the side of me, looking at me as if he wanted to curse me out from A to Z because of the way that I was crying, and carrying on.
“Amina—”
“I’ll…. I’ll… go… just…. I’ll just go… up front,” I cried, not even looking him in his eyes because I was too embarrassed to do it.
I stood up from the bed, and was getting ready to walk up front, so that I could just sit in the passenger seat, but he stopped me. He grabbed my arm, stopping me from walking away.
“What’s wrong with you man?” his voice was coming out just a little bit aggressive. He was sporting a tired look in his eyes.
“Nothing. I’ll.. I’ll go up front,” I croaked, looking down. The look in his eyes had been so intimidating that I could no longer stand to look up at him, which is why I dropped my head down in the first place.
“You don’t have to go up front. Chill out. Sit down on the bed, and just relax for a second,” he offered, changing the tone in his voice just a little hit.
As if I wouldn’t follow the order that he’d given me on my own, he placed his hands on my shoulders, and he guided me over to the bed. He lowered me, so that I could sit down.
I sat, and he stood over where the sink area was, crossing his arms. I could feel his gaze on me. His gaze was intense. I wanted to get a male’s perspective on this entire thing. I had to. Since all of this happened, I only got perspectives from women. Women that I worked with. Women who were in my bridal party. My best friend. My mother. Never a perspective from a man. Naturally, women were going to naturally comfort you, protect you, and often give you the reassurance that you wanted to hear. It sucked, but often, you had women that were going to pacify you and would take your side just because they felt it was the right thing to do.
Men were different. Men understood men. I wanted to hear from Gemini if it was something that I was missing. Was it another side that I wasn’t seeing? Was it another perspective that would make Jacob’s actions okay?
“Can I ask you something, please?” I wanted to know, placing my hands in my lap, as I looked up at him.
“Go ahead,” he was quick to respond, letting me know that I could ask.
“If you were engaged to someone, right? You really, really loved this person. You and this person spent a lot of time talkingabout the future. You talked about what marriage would look like. You talked about having children, and the way you planned to raise your children. It meant so much to you for the marriage to work that for a couple of months, you even took marital counseling because that’s just how much a successful marriage meant to you. Knowing all of this, would you ever just give up on that person just a week before the wedding?” I asked my question.
The whole time that I was going into detail with the question, he continued with his back propped up on the sink, leg crossed, and his arms were crossed as well. That same intense look was in his eyes, as he followed my every word.
