Page 5 of Sorry

MATT: Fuck you…

That had me laughing out loud. Matt and Jake were stuck at the hip, and have been best friends since childhood, they moved in together last month trying to save on rent. Jake loves partying and goes through girls as often as he changes his socks, where Matt… well fuck, I couldn't recall Matt ever mentioning anyone. Ever. Shit I’m such a shit friend. Too wrapped up in my own self-wallowing, to know these things about my best friends.

I was not the type to go out to bars. I liked occasional beer if we are gathering at my house or theirs; talking shit or watching movies, but I am not into going out. My favorite thing to do was coming home; exhausted after the gym, taking a long shower and getting comfortable on the sofa with snacks and coffee, while reading horror or thriller novels. I know… thrilling. But what else should I do? Tess was out doing who knows what, with Paul or whatever other guy she was fucking behind my back. I didn't even want her here, but that left me alone all the time.

Before things were this dire in our marriage, I would ask her to spend time with me, suggesting dates, or movie nights. She would tell me that I was way too needy, and that for such a big strong masculine man, I should stop acting like a needy housewife. Sexist outdated shit… I never felt less than a man, for wanting to spend time enjoying my wife's company, or reading books or wanting to go out for dinner with her. I thought that was a stupid way of thinking on her part. Eventually, I stopped trying, a person could take only so much degradation by someone who was supposed to love and respect them.

I looked at the clock, it was 8pm on a Saturday. Tess probably won't be back at least until tomorrow night, unless her boss Paul decides he could exempt his ‘Employee of the Year’ from going to work on Monday, and they decided to extend their Fuckation.

I hoped they extended their trip, the only thing worse than being home alone, was her being here. I was so tired of the bickering, but at the same time I didn't think I could leave her. How fucked up is that? Even if that was what I decided to do, I wouldn't have where to go. I did not maintain an extremely close relationship with my foster family, it's not like I could just appear at their door; after so many years and say, “Hi! My wife is cheating. Can I move back in?”

We still talked on occasion, they checked on me and I checked on them and maybe saw them once a year for Thanksgiving. Tess refused to go over the last couple of years. It was beneath her to go to a small house and sit with people who, “Are not even my real parents, and people who aren't really my siblings,” as she often said.

Putting my phone on silent, for obvious reasons. It was still buzzing with the group chat. I decided to sprawl in bed and watch movies on my laptop. Hopefully that would help me to at least doze off for a bit.

CHAPTER 5

SAM

After a solid week of rain, we finally had some nice weather. It was humid as fuck but at least it wasn’t raining anymore. My dark, messy curls hated the humidity. Spring was usually like that in Oklahoma. Luckily, I lived in a town where there wasn't a lot of mud. I didn't know if I'd still be that lucky when I got to Lantry though.

I was on my way to visit my Baka Mila. She was in her eighties now, and I haven't seen her in a few months. I stopped visiting her every week a couple years ago, when Kyle started drinking a lot more and getting suspicious every time I left the house, so I visited less and less. My heart hurt. I missed her so much. She was the only one I have left.

My Mama Sonja, and Tata Branko died too soon. I was nearly twenty-one years old living with my parents, in the rented apartment we moved into when I was a toddler. They wanted to be close to their work, and for me to be closer to a better school. Baka Mila didn't want to move from Lantry. It was her house that she purchased herself, with her own savings, when we moved to the USA. She said she loved how peaceful it was, and she had friends she played poker with multiple times a week. So she stayed, and we visited her every week.

I loved my parents so fucking much. They were loving and caring, they provided me with everything I ever needed. Always supported my dream to one day become a baker. They were so excited for me when I got a job in ‘Liam's Baked Goods’ bakery, at nineteen years old. That was around the same time Kyle— who was my English teacher in high school— started coming to the bakery daily, to get his chocolate muffin for breakfast.

Then, when he started giving me a lot of attention and chatting with me, I was so weirded out at first, but he was so charming and kind, I drank it up. Not even a month after him flirting with me daily, he asked me out. A tall, good looking man, in his late thirties wanting to date me? A little scrawny, almost twenty year old twink with a curly, dark mop of hair?! I jumped right in. My parents were not happy about it, they said it was odd since he was my teacher, and there was quite an age gap between us. But they supported me, seeing I was so happy.

Not long after that, my mother had an aneurysm and passed away in the hospital. There was nothing they could have done to save her. When the hospital called, I was the one who answered, and since I was an adult they told me what happened over the phone. I don't remember ever letting out such a guttural scream like that before… ever. And with that scream, half of my soul left my body. I never even got to tell her I loved her, not even a goodbye. It shattered me so much that I was a zombie for weeks. I barely remembered her funeral.

And then… My father had a heart attack. He was not the same person after my mom died. In the three months following her funeral, my father deteriorated right in front of my eyes. He never slept. I felt like I needed to step up for him. He would stare out of the window, like he was waiting for her to come back any second. I begged him to eat, to come for a walk with me. I brought him baked goods every day from work and he just smiled at me and said, “Tata vise nije gladan sine." Dad is not hungry anymore. It shattered me to watch him mourn the love of his life. I tried to keep it together, for him.

One evening, he was sitting in his armchair looking out through the front window, listening to old Serbian love songs that were streaming from the little tablet on his coffee table. He looked ashen, too skinny, with a sheen of sweat covering his forehead and upper lip. I had asked him multiple times if he was feeling ok, and he dismissed me with a tiny smile saying he was just tired. As the evening progressed his breathing became labored. He wouldn't accept my pleading to call an ambulance. I sat near his chair, on the sofa just in case he needed me.

Suddenly he grabbed at his chest, and he let out a deep pained grunt and said, "Evo me ljubavi, dolazim ti." Here I am my love, I am coming to you. I jumped from where I was sitting, panic taking over me, grabbed my phone and dialed 911.

He faded so fast, slumped in the chair. I could hear my mother in my head at that moment, calling him a ‘stubborn mule’ because he hated doctors. He kept trying to bat the phone out of my hand, before he lost consciousness. Tears streamed down my face, as I was instructed to lay him flat on the floor and told how to administer CPR. I did it all, switching from English to Serbian, shouting at him to not leave me too. But I couldn’t save him.

He let his last breath out, while I tried to keep him with me a little longer, now sitting down on the floor cradling his head in my arms, crying like a little child. The second part of my soul left me that night. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, but we all knew he died at home, while his last thoughts were of my mom and their reunion.

I was numb and I was alone. I had my Baka Mila, but I had a job in the town away from her and a boyfriend, who doted on me for about two weeks after my fathers death, and then asked me to move in with him. It was too soon but he made a logical point I couldn't seem to argue with.

I was alone, I couldn't pay rent with just my pay check from the bakery and he asked me, "Don't you love being with me Sam? I thought you said you loved me? Do you need more time to be sure of us?” Young and stupid and grieving, I never saw this as the manipulation it so clearly was. I panicked, thinking I couldn't let him think that way. I felt guilty that he did, I thought I did something wrong, something that made him doubt himself or us. I moved in right away, the tenancy was terminated in the apartment I used to live with my parents, and the end of my life as I knew it, began.

Not long after moving in, I noticed random empty alcohol bottles around the house. At the sink, under the sink, under the bed, beside the sofa. I knew he drank. I could smell it on him when we went out on dates, and he was tipsy almost every time we had sex, he was rougher than usual when he had alcohol in his system. Before I moved in, the times I came over to his house it was freshly cleaned, almost too clean. It wasn't like that anymore, I blamed the sudden change in him down to stress from work, so I made a point to keep our home clean, have food ready and warm for him when he came back from work every day. Though, I did have to stop cooking Serbian meals, as he said, “I am not eating random shit from a random third world country.” It stung, he wouldn't even try it. It hurt because I was brought up in a household with the Serbian mentality, where we show love through food. Food that I might add was out of this fucking world good.

Early into us living together, he became aggressive and not just in bed. He would throw things at me, a remote that clocked me in the arm, a bundle of keys that got me on the side of my neck. I have a collection of small scars from all the years of him breaking glass in, on or around me. He started shoving me into walls, while ranting about all the things I did wrong. I suffered from a broken ankle, when he pushed me over the coffee table. I still get pain in that foot occasionally, that makes me limp because it didn’t heal properly. He didn’t let me go to the hospital because apparently I was exaggerating. Even though my ankle was purple and three times the size.

All this because of things like; me not ironing the shirt he needed for work, I’d put too much salt in his squash soup and it was inedible. I stayed longer at work than usual and he wanted to know who was the reason for that. He’d apologize the next day when he was sober, he'd kiss me and even tear up. “I am sorry Sam, I am so sorry but you know how I get when you do stupid things like that. If you just did things right in the first place we wouldn't be in this situation.”

“I'm sorry I annoyed you Ky, I will be more careful.” I would say, feeling guilty and scared of his temper too. It got so much worse in the following years. That's why I stopped visiting Baka Mila every week. Now I only go every few months and try to call her once a week. Last time I called her, she wasn't feeling the best but she wouldn't admit it, she was as stubborn when it came to doctors, as her son was. That is why I was currently sitting on the bus on my way to Lantry, to visit her.

CHAPTER 6

ALEX

“What. The. Actual. FUCK!?” I said out loud, eyes wide, trying to get my breathing back to normal. My vision started to clear. My throat was dry.