Us by Kelsey Jones

We sat in silence at our little dinner table in our one bedroom luxury apartment that had a beautiful view over the city of Atlanta. I gazed up from my plate once or twice to see if there was still life in his eyes; to see if maybe he were enjoying the spaghetti I had made, or to see if maybe he would tell me something about his day. But instead there was nothing but complete silence. He never looked up, well unless he did when I wasn’t looking. I could hear his fork scrapping against the edges of his plate. I picked up my glass of water and as I took a sip I looked at my husband to see if he were still the same man I had married so long ago. I sat my glass down loudly as to catch his attention. It startled him and he looked at me with surprise and confusion. “Sorry.” I said calmly as if I were his child. He continued on with his dinner and so did I. I wasn’t concentrating on my spaghetti however, I was trying to figure out a way to start a conversation with a man I had known for so long. But I was nervous for some reason. It was like we were back on our first date. I could see, out the corners of my eyes, him twisting the stringy pasta around his fork and placing it in his mouth. He used to slurp when I first met him but I had rid him of that terrible habit. I continued on with my thoughts when I was interrupted by the loud dropping of his fork against his plate. I stopped eating and looked up at him with confusion this time. He had placed his elbows on the table and had his head buried in his hands. He looked sad and confused. “Honey,” I began “What’s, what’s wrong?” He began to shake his head slowly. I was worried now. “Dammit Thomas, Talk to me!” I said excitedly. He looked up and placed his fist on the table. He looked at me like he had never looked at me before. It was a looked of sadness and regret. “I don’t know…” he began, “I just don’t know how this happened.” “What?” I asked, “How what happened?” “Us Ree! Us!” I stopped and my mouth dropped. I was startled and really confused. “What about us? What do you mean you don’t know how ‘us’ started! We’re supposed to be in love dammit!” I was angry, but I realized I had gotten a little out of control so I calmed down. He began a slow quiet chuckled. I looked at him as if he were crazy. “In love?” he began, “Really Ree? Is this what you call love? Not even speaking or looking at each other at our own damn dinner table.” My eyes began to water. He was right. Our love had faded. It was no longer the same. I just sat in silence and looked down at my plate of half eaten spaghetti. That’s when I heard it, those horrible words. “I can’t do it anymore.” He began. I looked up at him again. “I can’t continue to just be in this relationship.” I began to shake my head. “Be?” I began, “what, what are you trying to say Tommy?” I knew what he was saying but I needed to hear it clearly. “I,” he paused, looked down, and took a deep breath. “I want a divorce Ree, I don’t love you like I used too anymore.” The words were quick and deadly. They went through me like an arrow. My eyes began to water again, but this time even more. “No,” I began. Now the tears began to run down my face. I couldn’t believe his words. “No, Tommy. Please no. We can work this out!” He just shook his head violently like he didn’t want to hear me. “No,” he interrupted me at first. “We can,” I continued on with my pleas. “No,” he began quietly at first then getting louder. “No, No, No, No! No Ree! We can’t work this out. It’s been going on for so long and we haven’t fixed it yet!” “It’s out jobs isn’t it?” I asked “I mean with my new promotion and your busy hours! We hardly have time for one another! We just both need to take some time off. Let’s try that okay. Let’s try that before this. This is a bit extreme, don’t you think?” He looked at me, but I could tell he hadn’t taken anything I had said into consideration. “I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore.” He said calm yet strongly. “But,” I began chocked up with tears, “But I love you.” Those words touched him. I could tell, but they weren’t enough to change his mind. He looked at me dead in my teary eyes and replied with, “I don’t love you anymore.” I looked at him and didn’t move for about two seconds then I burst into a loud cry followed by many tears. I banged the table hard with my fist and got up and ran to my bedroom.
We had met in college, Thomas and I. He was a philosophy major and I was journalism. He wanted to be a lawyer; I wanted to be a reporter. How we met was awkward. It was our sophomore year and me and my friends were having the time of our lives. Partying, hanging out, and drinking. We didn’t care, we just had fun. I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend. It was the last thing on my mind. “I don’t wanna be tied down.” That was my explanation. Kim, my best friend in college, agreed with me, but she always seemed to find herself headed into a relationship. “So who’s this one?” I asked her one day after hearing her end a very flirtatious phone call. “What eva,” she began, “His names Thomas, but everybody call him Tommy. He’s kinda tall, brown skinned, nice body you know what I’m sayin girl!” “Yeah, yeah, go head though.” I replied. “And he smart, he got a job and a car! He’s 20 and he’s really, really sweet.” “Uh oh!” I began. I was kind of fake seeing that most of her first descriptions began like this. “Sound like you found one this time girl, but brown skinned? Getting away from those high yella boys huh? Tryin to be like me! You know I love brown skinned men!” We both laughed. “So what kinda car he drive?” I asked. “Um, I think it’s an impala, a red one.” She answered. I paused and thought, because things began to come together in my head. “Red impala? And what you say his name was again?” I asked. “Tommy, well his real name Thomas.” “Thomas! Girl I know him, he’s my homeboy in my economics class. He’s real cool and cute. He gave me a ride one time too!” I was jealous now that I knew the guy she was talking to was actually a good guy, one that I had had a small crush on. She didn’t deserve him. She didn’t really care about guys, which was fine if they were just regular old niggas, but Thomas was different, he was a good one. We all began to hang out more. We would all joke and have fun. The more I got to be around Thomas the more I realized how much we had in common. We would laugh and joke around the whole night. I could tell that Kim was getting mad at me and probably a little jealous. She would try to flirt hard with him, real hard, but as time went by he began to not return her flirtatious advances. One day I was on campus and I was walking back from the school store when I saw him. “Thomas!” I was always so happy to see him. “Hey whats up girl.” He responded. “Where you headed to?” he asked as he began to walk with me. “Oh back to the house.” I responded. “You?” “Same, same. So what you getting into tonight?” “Um, probably nothing, you?” I asked. “I don’t know. Probably the same. I might go hit up this little party Terry throwin, but I don’t know,” he answered me. “Oh yeah, I heard about that,” I responded. We walked and talked until we came to the spot where he had to go right and I had to go left. We both stopped and looked at each other to say bye or see you later. “Well alright then guess I’ll see you later on then.” I said. “yeah, I’ll see you around,” he said. We both turned and began to walk in our separate directions. “Ree!” I heard him say just as we had walked a few feet away from each other. “Let me get your number,” he finished. I was happy, although I wouldn’t show it. I gave it to him and we both said goodbye again. After we traded numbers it was over. I think Kim had already caught on to our connection and they never really got to talk for real anyway so it wasn’t like I stole her man. Plus she had already begun to make her move on another, a tall light skinned guy named Ken. Thomas and I never immediately began to talk or date. It was still just a close friendship for a while. We could talk and laugh about anything. He became one of my best friends. We got so close that I almost lost my small bit of interest for him because I thought it would ruin our friendship. One day we were at his house watching a movie when we began to joke around. We began to play fight and I started to tickle him because he hated that. Some how in all this “playing around” he ended up on top of me on his bed. He was holding my arms down above my head so that I couldn’t tickle him anymore. “You are so silly,” he said to me. “What ever,” I began, “Let me go stupid.” We were both giggling. He slowly stopped laughing and his smile disappeared from his face and morphed into a more serious look. After seeing his expression I stopped laughing too and had a more concerned look on my face. “What?” I asked. He answered me, but not with words. I leaned down and gently kissed my lips. I was shocked at first,l but happy later. From there on we bloomed. He was unexpected, but a good surprise. We fell in love in no time. Everyone knew us as “the” couple. We stuck together all through grad school and even throughout his law school. Our wedding was great. I couldn’t have been happier. I was so in love with this man. He completed me. I got to wake up to him every morning and go to bed with him every night. We were still very much in love after all these years. It was great. Life was great. He was the man of my dreams and of my reality.
Somewhere along this path of happiness we hit a bump. My career was finally going in the direction that I wanted it too. I was beginning to get recognized. Thomas had a job working in a great law firm. Our hours of work increased and we didn’t get to see each other as much anymore. We stopped going out on dates and doing little things with each other. We could both feel it. One night there was a small social event hosted by his law firm. I felt happy for the first time in a long time. I was on the arm of my handsome and brilliant husband. I was in front of his colleagues and co-workers. I felt like maybe everything was okay with us. This feeling was however dropped when I noticed something. He and another young woman had been exchanging quick glances at one another. I wouldn’t have never noticed him if I hadn’t noticed her. She was more obvious. She was doing it purposely to tell me I better watch out before she snags my husband. After seeing her glance at him, I looked at him and noticed that he had glanced back at her. I got a little upset and he noticed this. That night we had a huge argument. He denied having anything with her and said she was just paralegal with the firm, but I knew, I could tell. Maybe nothing did happen between them physically, but at work I could tell they had more than just a simple working relationship. This is why I further separated myself from him for a while. I took on large assignments and even thought about having a side friend myself, but of course I didn’t. I was too in love with Thomas. After everything I couldn’t help but still love him. My idea to emotionally separate myself from Thomas backfired. I was trying to make him realize how much I meant to him and how much we belonged together. It was meant to hurt him, but it hurt our entire relationship. We had little arguments more frequently now, about small and simple things. We could tell that we were having troubles, but neither of us would admit it therefore we couldn’t fix it. We weren’t friends anymore, we were just a couple. Nothing was holding us together. All of this led up to the night he told me he didn’t love me. We finally fell apart.
At the meeting where we discussed the divorce settlement we didn’t even look at each other. We didn’t argue about anything. We mutually agreed to everything. This made the procedures go by faster. I hesitated to sign the last line on the papers. Before I did I paused and looked up at my husband. We shared a look that affected us both, I could tell. I then continued on and signed the paper. After everything, I went to the bathroom and cried in one of the stalls. I felt as if my entire life was over. I didn’t understand how this man who was so perfect for me was no longer mine. He had been mine for so long that it felt strange to not have him anymore. He was free to roam and find someone else. I felt that as soon as the divorce was final that he would run to that cute little paralegal I had seen at the party. I still loved him. I always would. He was my first real and true love. He was my best friend and we had been through so much. I finally dried my eyes, although they were still poofy, and walked out of the rest room. As I opened the door I was startled to see Thomas standing in the hallway. I quickly stuffed my tissue in my coat pocket and walked passed him with my head down. “Ree!” he said. I stopped. I was shocked to hear him call me back although I knew that he had been waiting for me in that hallway, but I never thought he would actually say something. I wasn’t ready to speak to him or confront him. I turned around and looked at him with my red puffed eyes. “Yes?” I answered, showing no emotion in my tone. It was more of a business tone. He slowly walked to me with that sexy walk that he always had possessed. Not to mention that I loved the way he looked in a nice suit. He came and stood in front of me and looked me in my eyes. We hadn’t had a real conversation since that night. I don’t know if I was prepared to actually have one now. “I know,” he began. “I know how much this has hurt you, and I just wanted to say, with no interruptions, that I am really sorry.” He paused and fidgeted his foot a little and then looked back at me and continued. “I didn’t really mean what I said and how I said it. I, I just was tired and I couldn’t see us going anywhere.” “Well it’s in the past now so…” I said as I began to turn to walk away. He then reached out and grabbed my arm. “Ree wait.” He began. I got emotional now. “Why?” I said with a weeping tone as I turned back around to confront him. “Why? Its too late now for discussion, what else is there to say, it’s all in the past now.” “Because!” he said loudly, then realized that he was a bit too loud. “Because I do still love you Ree. I always will and you know it. I mean you could see how bad it was getting.” “But you gave up on us Tommy!” I responded. “Only because I thought you gave up on us a long time ago.” We both paused with nothing to say. “In there, before you signed the papers you looked at me and I could tell that you really did love me and it made me realize how much I still loved you. I didn’t say anything because I thought it’s what you wanted.” He stepped closer to me and placed his hand against my face. He gently brushed his thumb against my cheek to wipe away a tear. I placed my hand over his. “Tommy, I just don’t…” I began before he interrupted me. “Tommy?” he began, “you never call me Tommy. Remember what you said in college.” I giggled a little. “Tommy,” I began then I looked at him in his eyes. “Tommy is for everyone else, you’ll always be my Thomas.” “That’s right.” He said softly. “Always be your Thomas.” He then leaned down and kissed me. It felt so right. I had missed that. It had been so long since he had kissed me like that. We started over that day. After the divorce was final we continued to date for a year and work things out. After that we remarried. My experience taught me a lot about life. You never know what life is going to throw at you. You have ups and downs but everything happens for a reason, like love.