A Woman Scorned

Part 24

You were in Davina's townhouse, pondering the current mess you were in. After your confrontation with Billy, you drove around for a little bit to calm down and then decided to come to your best friend's. You needed to talk to someone and she'd always been a great listener, which she was doing now as she handed you a glass of wine.

Your phone buzzed on the table-top, Billy's face flashing on your screen again.

"He keeps calling," Davina noted.

"I know." Picking up the phone, you texted him. I don't want to talk right now.

Where are you?

I'm fine. You don't need to worry.

Tell me where you are and I'll meet you.

I'm too angry right now. Need space. I'll call you when I'm ready.

Ready for what? To end things? Not gonna happen.

You didn't respond to him, instead putting your phone in silent mode. "Is it okay if I stay here tonight? He's probably at my place right now and I don't want to deal with him."

"Yeah, of course," Davina replied. "What happened?"

You recounted your last conversation with Billy. A part of you had always known you and he were on different wavelengths when it came to politics but it's not like there had been any meaningful discussions about it. At first when things were casual, it didn't matter how he leaned. Then your relationship went from 0 to 100 and you'd already fallen head over heels in love with him and there were so many other things to discover about each other that something like this never came up. Or maybe you'd purposely avoided the topic because deep down you suspected this was who he was all along.

"You never told him about the promotion?"

"They made the offer last week." Then you remembered that Davina didn't know about the separation; it's not like you could just blurt out you'd needed space after he plotted to kill your parents. "And I didn't see the point since I turned it down."

"Seems like the two of you don't talk much about work stuff."

You shrugged your shoulders. "We work at competing firms. I have to be careful about what I say around him."

"Do you want some advice?"

You exhaled a resigned sigh. "I don't know... I just feel like an idiot. If he's an entitled bigot-"

"You don't know that he is. Not really. Sounds like you guys haven't actually discussed this stuff before."

"Davina, you didn't see him. He was so fucking blasé about working for a racist."

"Billy's a guy, a white guy. They're so used to seeing the world in a certain way, they've never had to worry about privilege or how not having it impacts others."