Two

BETH- PRESENT

“What!” I cry softly as he rises to his feet and begins to pace.

“You and I are different people now, different from who we were when we met. I love you, Liz, I really do!” He exclaims and pauses in front of me. “But not enough to marry you.”

I listen quietly while he speaks, not interrupting, and not asking questions. My ears are ringing and my pulse is racing. I feel like hyperventilating while I have a panic attack. ‘You're not good enough for him,’ a part of my brain informs me and I start to gasp for air.

“Elizabeth, Liz!” He exclaims with alarm and grabs my shoulders and I instantly shrink away from his touch.

“Why?” I ask. “Why am I not good enough for you to marry?” I ask in a calm voice, after locking my emotions away.

“I didn’t say that you aren’t good enough.” He instantly defends.

“Why then? Why can’t you marry me!” I deadpan.

“Because you are boring! Our relationship is boring!” He yells and resumes his pacing

“Huh?” I ask in disbelief.

“You used to be fun and spontaneous, but now you behave like my mother!”

“You wanted me to be more like her.” I gasp out.

“Yes, but I never wanted you to become her!” He yells.

“I am not her!” I yell back

“You dress like her, sit like her, talk like her. You even argue like her! You have everything planned out; from the moment you wake till you go to bed. The Liz I fell in love with was not like that.”

“This is not happening.” I deny with a shake of my head.

“Liz, I want you to get angry. Curse me out. Yell at me like you used to.” He demands with a sneer in his voice.

“Why? Why now?” I pull out the folder his mother had given me and throw it at him. A couple of pictures spill out and he looks down at them.

“My God, you both have already started planning the wedding! You think you have everything perfectly planned out, that everything will go according to your plan!” He says in horror.

“What is so wrong with being prepared?”

“Everything! My mother plans everything, and my dad just goes along with it. I will not become my father! I do not want a future where I have an affair with every female on sight and my wife turns a blind eye to it just to keep up appearances. I want a future where she fights for me because she loves me, and not because of what people will say!”

“Why can’t you have that future with me?” I ask in confusion. “Do you doubt my love?”

“I cheated on you today.” He replies abruptly.

“You did what now?” I blink in confusion.

“With the sales lady, after I paid good money for that ring.” He explains as if that justifies his actions.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask softly, fighting to steady my racing instincts. He gives me a look that suggests that I’m addled.

“Is that all you have to say? The man you’re about to commit to a future with just confessed to cheating on you and you look like we are discussing the weather? You really have become my mother, boring and unoriginal.”

He curses and begins to pace again. I watch him as I try to collect my thoughts. An ugly feeling is rising from the pit of my stomach, strong and uncomfortable. I feel bile rising up my throat but I force it down. But my whole body is on fire.

“Boring?” I finally choke out. “I give you seven years of my life and you think I am boring?” He looks surprised by my response.

“Liz, you are missing the point here...” He begins, but I cut him off with a shout.

“Don’t call me Liz!” I yell and his eyes widen in surprise. “I hate that name and you know it. You want me to yell? Cry? Fight for you? Break down in tears?” I ask in a jeering voice. “Guess what mister, you are not worth it!” Even though I can feel the tears flowing, I continue my rant.

“I wanted you to be proud of me! I dressed in the way you approved because you were ashamed of me when your friends called me a neo-hippy. I learned to eat your tasteless frou-frou food because that was how people in your world ate. For years, I chased away everyone who tried to befriend me because you did not approve of them. And now I am boring?” I yell.

My voice is so loud, our nosy neighbours could probably hear us, but I didn’t care. Chase is watching me from a corner of the room with interest. When I look into his eyes, I see some of the heat that used to be there in the past, but ignore it. My head is pounding louder than my heart, which incidentally feels like it’s about to burst.

“Baby calm down, let us talk about it.” Chase tries to calm me down.

“How many times?” I ask instead, and clarify at his confused look. “How many times have you cheated on me?”

“I…” he begins, then clamps down.

“Mia?” I mentioned the name of one of my coworkers that suddenly became a bitch to me after meeting him. At his guilty look, I have my answer. “Jenny?” Jenny is his secretary and she always gives me pitying looks. “Lola? Tiana?”

I collapsed into tears at the fool I had been. I never could understand their animosity, but it finally makes sense to me. They know I was being foolish, when I walk about in a cloud of superiority. I wasn’t better than them; and they weren’t jealous of me. Rachel was wrong, Chase did not think the world of me. He didn’t think of me at all!

“Get out.” I say instead in a steady voice.

“I beg your pardon?” he asks in confusion.

“Get out.” I repeat in a stronger voice.

“You can’t tell me to leave!” He protests and I arch a brow.

“Get out!” I scream. He is so startled he jumps away from me. He mutters something I didn't quite catch and walks away.

I watch his retreating form and continue to stare at the spot he had vanished through. When he comes out a few minutes later with an overnight bag, he gives me a considering look but I return it with a glare. With a sigh, he walks out the door. I listen for the sound of his car before giving in to the emotions warring within me.

I broke down and cried, and it was not pretty. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Chase did not want me, no one ever has. My birth mother certainly didn’t, if her action of dumping me in front of a church minutes after my birth is any indication.

Alex had left me to finish her education in her homeland, Mexico, after giving me a charm bracelet that had the letters BFF engraved on the charms. She might have tried to stay in touch, but it is not the same.

I remember that Beck, my childhood sweetheart, hadn't wanted me too. He forgot about me mere days after promising to marry me. My brain tries to tell me that marriage proposals when you are eight years old do not count, but I am not thinking rationally.

By morning, my heart still aches. My body feels heavy and I’m sluggish. When I manage to struggle to wash my face, the blotchy spots on my face and my red rimmed eyes show just how unprepared I am to go to work. I phone my boss to call in sick; my boss who happens to be Rachel’s friend, Ophelia.

Ophelia receives the news rather calmly, with feigned concern; as if it is to be expected, and tells me to take my time to heal. She gives me the week off. Even though I appreciate her understanding, I cannot imagine what she must have heard from Rachel. At the back of my mind, I know that I don’t care but when I think about it, I wonder what to do with my life next. For the past seven years, Chase’s circle has made up my life. His friends are my friends, and his family mine. In shame, I realise that outside his circle, I have no one.

Then my brain reminds me that I did have someone; the one person that has never abandoned me my entire life. I decided to spend my ‘sick leave’ with Mary, the woman who raised me and has stuck by me all these years. I have no doubt in my mind that some time with her would help me put my life back in perspective.

With slightly trembling fingers, I pack a bag and when I leave our shared apartment, it is without a backward glance.