There it was……the truth slapping me right upside the head: another damn receipt! And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t ignore it, deny it or wish it away. My husband had bought condoms!
How in the hell can he do this to me again? I asked myself. And how will he explain himself when I confront him about it? What will he say? Thoughts raced through my mind at warp speed. I tried to make sense of it all. But I kept coming back to the same conclusion: Malcolm had cheated. Again.
“You must be devastated, girl,” one friend told me.
“Devastated, my ass! She should be pissed the hell off!” my best friend Sasha said in her straight-to-the-point manner. “It’s almost like he didn’t care if you found out, like he wanted to get caught. What fool buys that many condoms?”
Sasha always had my back.
Sounds crazy, but the more I thought about it, the more clearly I could see Malcolm cheating. The images were just too much. My head exploded and I hit the ground. Through my state of semi-consciousness, I could hear voices.
“Pulse, steady at sixty-two beats per minute…we gotta’ get her to the hospital NOW!”
“Fatimah, hang in there girl,” someone said. It sounded like Sasha.
“You’re going to be fine,” another voice said calmly. My friends are such liars. I didn’t feel like I would be okay.
“We’re almost there, Miss. Hold on!” The EMT was doing his best to save my life. “Is there someone we can call for her? A husband, a boyfriend, another family member?”
Sasha gave them Malcolm’s cell number. I remember wishing that she hadn’t, even though I knew she meant well.
I was struggling to keep my eyes open. And I had no idea how I even got into the ambulance, or who called for help. But I knew one thing — if I survived this, I was finally done with Malcolm’s sorry ass.
I didn’t realize how tightly I had clenched my fist, but when I opened it, there was that stupid receipt. I crumbled it up and threw it as far as my limited strength would allow.
The emergency crew rolled me into the hospital and immediately went to work. They had my vitals stabilized in a few minutes. An hour later, they checked me into a room.
“Your husband is on the way down, Mrs. Briggs. He’s very worried.” Worried? I thought to myself. He should be — he’s the damn reason I’m here in the first place!
Seconds later, a tall blurry figure entered the room.
“Hey, baby,” Malcolm whispered in my ear. “Are you okay?” He smiled the way he always does when he knows he’s being watched.
As I stared up at him, I became hypnotized by his sexy voice.
“Fatimah, I asked you a question.” Malcolm started to raise his voice, but remembered that we weren’t alone. “I mean, um……can I have some time with my wife, doctor?” he asked. “Alone?”
The doctor left the room, but kept the door cracked.
“So how are you doing?” Malcolm asked, waiting for me to answer as he paced around the bed with angry feet.
“As good as can be expected, I suppose, especially when you consider the day I’ve had so far. And the monster headache I still have right now. How are you, baby?”
How are you, baby? What the hell was I thinking? Here I was, lying in the hospital near death, and I was worried about how Malcolm was doing! That was so typical of me during our marriage. I felt myself getting angry all over again. I knew I wasn’t ready to hear the answer, but I had to ask.
“Malcolm, why did you buy condoms? And don’t you even lie, because I found the receipt!”
“Just being an asshole, I suppose.”
Definitely the right answer, I thought. And it came out of his mouth so damn smooth! Unbelievable! But there was no way he was getting off that easy. He stared at me, as if trying to look right through me, and into my soul. I’d always been a sucker for Malcolm’s dark brown eyes, and he knew how to work me with them. I had to remind myself that I was still pissed off at him.
“Is that the best you can come up with?” I asked him.
“That’s all I got,” he said, with his usual smug tone. “Can we talk about this later, baby? When you get better, and I take you home?”
He was stalling. Does he really think I’m going home with him? I mean, really? As he leaned over me and fixed my hair, I caught a glimpse of my name tattooed on his bicep. I wanted to feel those strong arms around me more than anything, but I couldn’t let him talk his way out of this again. I had to start standing up for myself. And now was as good a time as any.
“Malcolm, I trusted you, even after that last time you cheated!” I screamed. “Now you’ve abused that trust by doing it again? How am I supposed to believe anything you say to me? How?”
“I don’t know. But I swear to you, I haven’t had unprotected sex with anyone else since that last incident. I might be guilty of getting a little sumthin’ sumthin’ on the side, and a few other things, but I haven’t slept with another woman in a really long time.”
He paused, and then he went into his version of damage-control mode. “And even when I did,” he chastised, “at least I used condoms! Wasn’t that your complaint the last time? That I was jeopardizing your health?”
What the hell…? Oh, no he didn’t just try to flip this shit around! And for the record, Mr. Can’t- Keep-It-in-his-Pants, my complaint was that you were screwing every woman you met!
I couldn’t believe it! I shook my head, struggling to wrap my mind around what Malcolm was telling me. Subconsciously, I could hear Sasha screaming: “Hello? Anybody in there? Wake up, Fatimah — he cheated on you! AGAIN!”
Malcolm’s words rang even louder. Haven’t had unprotected sex…..in a really long time? I thought. Why was my husband being so careful with his words? What were these “things” he may or may not be guilty of?
And what the hell is “a little sumthin’ sumthin”?
Synopsis:
