Breaking Selma

00.1| prologue

Song: Runnin' - Naughty Boy, Beyoncé, Arrow Benjamin

00.1

Selma let her sight focus and adjust to the darkness of the room before turning her head to the side. She was met with a beautiful, peaceful face; lips in a slight pout, hair fallen over one eye and breathing steady. Jamal's face was still ever familiar to her, considering she had made it a habit to watch him sleep sometimes.

Trying her best not to disrupt his sleep, Selma carefully traced her index finger across all the planes and contours on his face. Getting to his cheekbones, she laid her palm on his cheek and let the warmth from his body seep into hers.

Every little detail of the dream Selma recently woke up from played over and over again like a video on repeat. Considering her dreams were mostly memories of when all was good in the Jamela kingdom, every scene was vivid enough and the pain, raw.

"Stay away from me." Her hand jerked back at the voice but Jamal's eyes were still closed in a deep sleep. "I want you to stay away from me."

Forever etched in her heart were those words that came spilling out of her husband's mouth. Those words that made her want to go back in time; to the days of their honeymoon phase. But she immediately rebuked that thought as going back to that time would mean losing her son, Rae. That was never going to happen.

"You destroyed everything."

Sensing the beginning of a sob in her chest, Selma pushed herself away from her husband's side and walked into her closet.

- - - - -

The cold air hit her right in the face, as the front door closed behind her.

Judging by the lighting of the sky, Selma would guess it was still 6 AM. At Forest Hills Garden, it was as quiet as midnight. The roads were deserted per usual, but in a non-creepy manner. There were almost no sounds of car horns, blaring from a distance. Everywhere seemed still, like time had paused for Selma to gather her rowdy thoughts.

Initially, while getting dressed for this run, Selma had gotten the impression that it would take her mind off the turmoil in her home. That running would shut off her view of a wide black hole, sucking in her marriage life, and leaving behind her broken heart. But she couldn't have been more wrong.

Running only gave her more scope for thinking. And thinking meant Jamal Macario Halpern. And Jamal meant pain, and misery, and guilt, and frustration.

Two months ago, if she had been told that her husband — the one who had kissed her for a good ten minutes as goodbye when leaving for a business trip — would come back closed off like a bottle screwed shut by Mark Henry himself, she wouldn't even obtain any measures to avoid it because it was considered impossible.

But you know what they say, absolutely nothing is impossible.

She got to find that out in the hardest way. A goofy husband by 12 AM when they face timed, and a broody, snappy man by 7 AM when he made his way into the house, unexpected. By unexpected, she meant being totally convinced that it was a telegram in their living room when she saw him.

Their eyes had locked for some minutes, and the life in his green irises assured her that it really was her husband. Words couldn't describe how great it felt to see the person that you missed so much, his voice always seemed to come from the other end of a tunnel over the phone.

It had seemed like the last time they saw each other, Shakespeare had been their next door neighbour.

Change seemed to be floating in the air in between them. Only it wasn't the positive change that manifested itself.