Stuck In Quarantine

11.

Celeste walked over to her apartment, just as James started doing the dishes. She entered her front door, and went straight to her kitchen cupboards, gathering all the ingredients she needed. An easy bake pie crust, powder sugar, peanut butter, and vanilla pudding. She laid out all the ingredients on the counter. And knelt down to her lower cupboards, to grab a baking pan. But she forgot, that most of her cookware was still packed away.

"Ah shit! She said to herself, and she slammed the cupboard door shut.

She stood up, and looked to stack of packed boxes, in her living room. Celeste gave herself a facepalm. Non of the boxes had labels on them, and they were all the same looking. She went over, and started peeling apart the tops of each box she could reach. Going through them like a madman. One after the other. She lowered down each box that was stacked on top of the other, and looked through every one with precision.
As she got to the last box, her phone started ringing in her pocket. She stopped searching, and pulled her phone out. The number across her screen, was one she recognized right away. It was her ex. 'Not now, I'm busy.' She thought to herself.
She clicked the phone off, ignoring his call, and went back to her searching. Laying the phone down on the ground beside her.
A few seconds later, her phone went off again. She looked down, and seen the same number again. She ignored the call again, and continued her search. It kept ringing, and ringing. She pulled her hands out of the box, picked up her phone and answered it.

"Hello? Celeste?" Said a very soft male voice.

"Hello, Mark. How are you?" She asked.

"I'm good! Just trying to cook dinner right now. Kinda pissed about this whole coronavirus-thingy! I had dinner reservations today for a very nice restaurant! But I guess I'll have to wait... What about you?! How are you doing?"

"I'm good, Mark. Just finished having dinner with a friend. Now I'm in the midst of making dessert, I'm searching for my baking pans, to start it." She said.

"You actually left your pans here!" Mark said. "You were in such a rush when you left... you left them behind... Actually, you left everything behind."

"Yeah I did... I was in such a rush to leave..." She said, feeling foolish.

"Yeah you were sweety... Listen..." Mark let out a deep sigh, and continued speaking. "Listen... That I'm finally talking to you, I just wanted to say, I'm sorry for what I did to you... I was an idiot, and hurt you... I hurt you big time! And I know I can never take that back, or change what I did, or what happened... I cheated on you, and there is no excuse for what I did... I'm truly am deeply sor--"

"It's okay. Don't worry about it." Celeste said, as she cut him off. "Please don't feel bad, I really hop--"

"Now stop that!" Mark fired back, cutting off Celeste mid sentence. "Let me finish little missy!"

Celeste stopped dead in her tracks, and froze. Shocked over his firing back. But she took a deep breath and listened.

"I don't want you to blame yourself... This was my fault, and only mine. You're a damn amazing woman! And any guy would be lucky to have you! You're smart, witty, funny, you got an amazing personality! And you're beautiful! If I was straight, I would've wife'd you down in a fucking heartbeat, sista! But I'm not, and I can't... I wasted almost a year of your life, when I should have just come forward and told you... But I was scared... And I thought it was a feeling that would go away on its own. But as you can see it didn't... And instead of telling you, because I know you would've been understanding.
But I didn't realize it at the time. I just went and jumped into bed with your best friend... And we both hurt you, bad...