“Someone else comes around now,” she said ...

(this story began here)

I stared back at her. My initial reaction was to explode with anger but I somehow managed to control myself sufficiently to suppress this urge. My vision did blur for a moment, but that was all. I placed my hands beneath the table and slid them between my crossed legs, then leaned forward and said as gently as I could, “Someone? What are you saying?”

“Just a man. He comes around now…” she replied into her cup.

“What are you talking about? What man? When did he…”

“Today,” she said, suddenly looking desperate. “J, you must let me go now.”

But I wasn’t stopping her from going anywhere. I glanced up at her window and then looked back at her face. “Today? When? You never said anything. Who is he? Is he there now?” I looked up at the window again, almost standing, ready to rush up there and cause mayhem.

“I have no idea. He must be,” she said meekly, “there is a light on now.” She looked directly at me for the first time. “Please sit down J.”

I sat. I was stunned, and to illustrate this to her I spread my hands wide and then slumped in my chair. “And what? You’re leaving me for him?”

She shook her head as she looked down into her hot chocolate. I heard her whisper to herself. She sounded exasperated. I felt as if I was missing the fundamentals of something huge and obvious. Then she looked up and spoke to me, talking as if she didn’t believe a word of what she was saying, trying to explain the unexplainable, something incomprehensible. Words came both slowly and deliberately, or burst from her in spurts, a desperate need for them to be free of her body. She book ended each sentence with irresolute pauses. It was all I could do to not interrupt. I just wanted her to get to the end of the story because it was ridiculous and it made no sense. It was insulting.

this will continue sometime ...