Charlie's Angel

too late for sorry [short]

Charlie

We weren't even married yet and our honeymoon phase was withering away. Chris always seemed to be distracted with something on his phone; it was more important than his family at times: sneaking away to take a phone call, smiling at the plastic screen as he read text messages, even burying his face in it as our son napped on his chest.

I'm not afraid to say I thought he was cheating on me, and I was ready to call the whole wedding off. Every time I asked why he was on his phone so much, he would shrug it off and explain that it was business.

"Charlie," Isaiah called when I was in the kitchen making dinner. "Can I sit by you for dinner?"

Paris, Chris, and Jacob were bonding in the living room, while Isaiah opted to sit at the kitchen table while he did his homework. I turned to look at him with a bright smile and nodded enthusiastically. "Of course you can, baby! I don't wanna sit by anyone else." This pleased him and he grinned, flushing slightly pink.

I heard the wailing of our smallest child, and I dropped my knife to the floor and sped into the living room. Chris sat on the floor, phone in one hand and our screaming toddler in the other. Paris looked back and forth between us with wide eyes.

"Chris, what the hell?!" I demanded, snatching my baby away from him and bringing him to my chest, smoothing my hand up and down his back to soothe his crying.

Chris frowned, "Chill. He sat up and fell backwards. Musta scared himself."

"And you weren't watching him?" I snapped back, stroking Jacob's curls. He was only five months old and had began to experiment with sitting up on his own. "Oh of course not, you were too busy on your phone."

He narrowed his eyes at me and scoffed to himself. "You really wanna have this conversation again? Forreal, Charlie? Cut that assumin' shit out, aight?"

"Dinner is ready," I mumbled with a huff, collecting my child and storming up the stairs to my bedroom. Isaiah followed on my heels and slipped through the threshold right before I slammed the door shut and locked it. Isaiah hopped up on the bed and stared at me as I paced the floor to calm the baby.

Jacob's cheeks were wet with his tears, and his thick eyelashes, just like his father's, clung together with moisture. His tiny fists were balled up with his tantrum, and Isaiah stepped up and searched for his pacifier.

I slipped it into his mouth and sighed with relief when he began suckling, "Thank you baby."

When Jacob quieted down, I kissed his forehead and laid him in his co-sleeper for a nap. Isaiah crawled up to the head of my bed and laid down, waiting for me to do the same, but I opted to go into the bathroom and shut the door.

One look at my twin in the mirror and I was done. I cried, sobbed, sniffled until my face was a runny mess. I was overwhelmed with the pressure of planning our wedding, getting all the details just right to make it perfect. I was plagued with so much anxiety, and the one person that made it better was best friends with his phone.

I was alone, I was losing weight, and not just my pregnancy weight. If he noticed, he hadn't mentioned it. Not that I would want him to. In other words, I didn't look like a woman who was on top of the world waiting to marry the man of her dreams; I didn't look like myself.

After my pity party, I slipped out of the bathroom and crawled into bed right beside my oldest child and he wasted no time in cuddling into me, tucking his face into my neck.

"I'm sorry I said some bad words," I murmured to him and smoothed my fingers through his soft curls.

"It's okay," he yawned. "You were sad. Uncle Chris says sometimes when you're sad you say bad words, but you're still a good person."