These shouts. These situations take me back to those nights in his apartment. Fighting. Screaming. How could I have ever been happy there?
“Are you going to fight for what you left behind? You can’t battle for something that isn’t yours,” I retorted, dripping with sarcasm. My voice was laden with fury, anger, and disdain. I was well aware of it, and it thrilled me.
“I didn’t know he existed!”
“He’s my son, and I won’t let you have him,” I snapped back.
“I’m not asking, Anna. He’s mine, and I want him,” he declared, pointing to Jeremy’s door.
I stepped back, ran my hands through my hair, gave it a slight tug, and resumed.
“You realize he’s not a toy, right? He’s a child with feelings. But wait, I forgot. You prey on people’s emotions only to shatter them later. I won’t let you do to my son what you did to me. You played with me like a toy and then discarded me.”
“That’s not how it happened!” He exclaimed in pain.
That’s exactly how it transpired. He left me. Deceived and wounded me. He disappeared with his little buddy and forgot the girl who was madly in love with him back at that apartment.
“Leave,” I gestured to the door, but he just shook his head, smiling.
“I’ll fight for him, Anna.”
“You’ll lose.”
“He’s my damn son!” He advanced on me, and on some foolish reflex, I closed the distance. Indicating I wasn’t afraid, but in reality, it was another kind of reflex, one I hadn’t felt in a long time.
“You’ve been absent from his life for five years.”
“What don’t you understand? I didn’t know he existed!”
“You didn’t use protection! You could have called Alison to see if I was showing symptoms of anything. You could have seen me leaving your apartment, headed straight to university, clearly pregnant. I waited there for four months, working just to eat. I searched everywhere to tell you we were having a child and to beg you not to leave me in this alone. But I was nothing to you. Right now, I wouldn’t care if a truck ran you over. No one would mourn your loss.”
“You know that’s not true,” he responded, looking as if I had landed a crushing blow, his head dropped, resembling a wounded soldier needing to heal.
“I’ve never spoken a truer statement in my life.”
“I was an idiot; I know, but…”
“The fool was me for staying after all our quarrels. Foolish for enduring those harrowing nights filled with tears and desperation. Foolish for standing by you even when you treated me like dirt. Foolish for believing you would change. Foolish for trusting your ‘I love you’s.”
“Every single one of them was genuine,” he asserted, looking deeply into my eyes, and for a moment, I almost believed him. Thankfully, I’m no longer that naive girl.
“You didn’t love me. If you had, you wouldn’t have destroyed me. Now I’m indifferent. I don’t love you anymore.”
“You perfectly well know that you do, Anna.”
His confidence restored, he approached slowly, stealthily. I knew exactly where he was headed. Old cats don’t change their ways.
Does he think I still have feelings for him? He must be mad.
“Why are you doing this to me? I’m happy. I’ve forgotten you, Henry. I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE!”
“Shut your mouth,” he retorted, his words landing like a direct shot to my heart. I knew my words wounded him, and it felt so good.
“Leave. Exit my life for good,” I persisted, landing another blow.
“I can leave, but a part of me will always stay with you; my eyes, my hair, my memory. That’s how I know you haven’t forgotten me.”
He was now inches away from me. All I wanted was for him to give me my space.
“Back off,” I uttered, but he ignored my plea.
“Why?” He was just a step away, yet he didn’t close the gap. Instead, he placed his hand near my chest, making my legs feel like jelly. “Your heart’s racing, Anna. Does it do that with him?” he whispered, his breath against my face causing a familiar stir in my belly.
“My heart’s like this because I don’t want you near me,” I managed to respond.
“Keep telling yourself that. You still have feelings for me, and deep down, you know it,” he murmured, drawing his face closer to mine.
“No, I don’t even feel disgust for you. Nothing.” I declared, more to myself than him. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath, exhaling slowly, trying to steady my pulse.
“We’ll see about that,” he replied, pulling away.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Your boyfriend, like the idiot he is, invited me to dinner tomorrow night. If I’m not mistaken, your mother went on a trip with her husband, right? There won’t be a problem.”
“When he finds out who you really are, there will be.”
“Are you going to tell him?”
No way in hell. Dave can’t know that I was involved with my ex-boss.
“Thought so,” he said smugly.
“Henry, please. Just go back to wherever you came from. Leave me be.” I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping he’d concede and grant me peace. But that moment was fleeting.
“Anna, that child is mine. I want to know him. Soon, he’ll know I’m his father. And you, you’ll come back to me. You’re eternally mine by right.”
“You’re sick.”
“Think whatever you want, but that will happen.”
“Henry, I don’t love you anymore.”
“You’ll love me again.”
“You left me! You didn’t want me! I don’t want you now! Who the hell do you think you are? Are you trying to make me hate you?”
“Maybe. There’s a thin line between love and hate.”
And with that, he crossed the threshold, leaving me with an overwhelming urge to hurl the vase from the coffee table straight at his damn head.