The Stranger

Chapter 2

Jacob is home reading the newspaper. He is wearing a T-Shirt that says Rage Against the Machine.  I'm afraid he can smell the cologne on my clothes, see the guilt written on my face.  I'm happy he's smoking.  I don't remember the last time I've really looked at him.  His curled blond hair and tan skin looks so beautiful by the lamp light, like a smokey angel in repose.  I remember why I first fell for him, his conviction seemed beyond reproach, and I was jealous of how passionately he could believe in changing the world. 

How was the meeting, he asks, referring to the staff meeting I said I had to attend.

Great, I say, moving toward the bedroom door so that I can get undressed, shower, and shampoo the dark fingers of guilt from my hair.

What are they going to do about the position? he asks, without looking up from his paper.

Uh, nothing right now, I say.  They hope to fill it within the month.

He looks up at me, smiles at me, sadly. It feels suddenly like an interrogation, where he is mocking me because somehow he knows.

Miranda called, he says.

Yeah?

She said there was no late staff meeting.

Yeah, well, uh...

This is what you wanted.  This is why I did it.  I don't know why I'm surprised.  I just though I'd have some time to think of a better way to explain, a better way to break it to him.  You fucking knew this would happen.

I tell him I slept with a student from class.  That it was stupid, didn't mean anything, and my words are hollow, even to myself.

He breaks the mirror beside the couch with his fist, and calls me a bitch. Part of me wants him to hit me, part of me wants him to just disappear, but Jacob's never hit with their fists.  They hit with their own sense of goodness and innocence, and the unbearable sense that somehow you are not worth him, as you send yourself deeper into your own darkness.  Maybe you saw this, and maybe you we're laughing the entire time, watching from the shadows, but this is how you wanted it.

You're a fucking liar, and I'm done, he says.  You didn't even have the guts to break up with me, to show me the respect I fucking deserve, and you know it.

I say nothing.  What can I say?

Get the fuck out of here, and find a place to say tonight at one of your fucking friends.

I make myself look him in the eyes to say I'm sorry.  I know that I'm now a stranger to him, but I am setting him free, even if he can't see it that way yet.  In time, he will thank me.  In time he wil find someone who will not betray him, someone who will not answer your call.

I will be gone by tomorrow, he says. 

I know, I say, walking out the door and shutting it behind me.