Arsen: a broken love story - Asher Mia (читать книги онлайн бесплатно серию книг .txt) 📗

So, I wait.

“How is the baby?” She smiles. She’s stalling as well.

“Baby is great. She’s moving so much. Sometimes I think I have a future gymnast growing inside me,” I laugh lightly, resting both my hands on my belly. I love feeling her move and the guessing game of which part of her precious body is sticking out. “She particularly kicks after I’ve had ice cream or chocolate to eat. Oh my God. Here!” I grab Crystal’s hand as I bring it to rest on the left side of my stomach.

Looking at me with smiling eyes, Crystal asks, “That’s so nice. What am I feeling here?”

I smile and move her hand with mine following the trajectory of Nadia’s limb.

“I think that’s her butt. It could be her leg for all I know, though. I told you, she loves to move, especially when I play Taylor Swift.”

Crystal lets go of my belly and sits back on her chair.

“I’m so happy for you, Cathy. Four more weeks, right?”

“Yes. Four weeks.” I swallow hard as I fight to stay on the bright side of optimism, not going near to the depths of fear. “Four more weeks until I can rest easy and truly believe it, you know? Of course, my suitcase has been packed since last week, and all of her clothes are washed. Amy bought her the cutest going home outfit; and—” I smile bashfully as I straighten the hem of my dress. “Am I doing it again? Talking your ears off about baby stuff when you’re supposed to be picking my brain?”

“It’s okay. I’m here to listen to you talk.”

“It’s just…I can’t stop thinking and talking about her. My whole world has become this little girl growing inside me. Nadia is my miracle. Even though sometimes I still can’t believe it. Like, I wake up in the middle of the night and my hands go straight to my belly, and I just lay there, willing the baby to move so I know she’s fine.” I look down at my stomach and caress it as I speak to Crystal. “Dr. Pajaree says it happens sometimes. Women with my condition get pregnant and are able to carry full term without any explanation. I’d like to think it’s magic.” I shrug my shoulders and smile.

“I’m very happy for you, Cathy, but I think it’s time we address Ben and Arsen…” She lets the words hang in the air.

“Yes…I think I can do that,” I answer, fidgeting in my seat.

“Why do you think you cheated on Ben? Why do you think your marriage failed the way it did?”

“Oh, wow. You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

Laughing, Crystal shakes her head. “No. We’ve made a lot of progress in the past months. I think it’s time we spoke more in depth about Arsen and Ben. So tell me, Cathy. Why?”

“Um…well, I know it all started going downhill after the third miscarriage. And after that, when I couldn’t get pregnant, well…the strain it put on our marriage was lethal. I withdrew from him, from everything, but Ben couldn’t see it. He continued to pretend that everything was okay, that we were going to be okay. It got to a point that his positivity felt like it was choking the life out of me.”

“Go on,” she encourages me.

“Whenever I tried telling him how afraid I was that we were never going to be parents, to tell him about my fears, he would just sweep them under the rug, saying to stop worrying about it, so I stopped trying to talk to him about it. I grew to hate his perfection, I think. Here I was, broken and lost, filled with hatred and jealousy towards other women who could get pregnant by having their husbands just touch them. It was just too much. I felt like I was not woman enough. It was the loss of my dream, the loss of ever becoming a mom that completely shattered me. I wanted to cry, scream, curse at God…I don’t know. And then…”

“There was Ben.”

Yes. Oh, how I wish…

“Yes. Perfect, loving Ben. Not a crack on his exterior, always the optimist. I hated that. I couldn’t talk to him anymore. The more he pulled, the more I pushed away from him. But then I got pregnant for a fourth time after so long, and I thought it was our second chance at happiness.”

“Do you think it was a mistake not telling him any of this?” Crystal asks.

“Um, yes. It was a mistake. I know that now. My friend Amy tried talking to me about it. She asked me if I was prepared just in case I lost that baby as well.” I laugh and look up at the ceiling. “I knew I was putting all my philosophical eggs in one fragile basket, but I really didn’t want to think about it. I knew my marriage was on shaky ground and that all it was going to take for it to fall apart was one soft blow to the core. And it did, although I wouldn’t necessarily call it soft. When I lost th-hat baby, I think I lost my mind as well.”

I touch my belly once more. “I grew to hate everything around me…even Ben. Particularly Ben. I hated when he touched me, I hated when he kissed me, and I hated when he told me that we were going to be fine. I hated it. I truly hated it.”

“Why didn’t you tell him all this?”

“Because by that point, I didn’t care anymore. I-I think I made myself think that I didn’t love him, that I hated him. I did try once…”

“Why did you hate his touch?”

“It made me think of getting pregnant. It felt like work. I resented it. I resented him. I mean, now that I’ve had time to think about it…I don’t know. It’s too late. What ifs are just life’s regrets.” “Do you think all this would have been solved had you opened up to him after your third miscarriage? Do you think talking to him would have, somehow, stopped you from growing apart?”

I think hard for a moment, finding the answer deep within me. “Yes. I think…I mean, I don’t think I would be divorced right now.”

“But how about Arsen? You mentioned you grew to love him.”

Tucking a piece of hair behind my ear, I turn to look at the window once more. It’s still sunny and beautiful outside. Funny how the sun reminds me so much of Arsen.

“I’d like to think that had my marriage been in a better place, had Ben and I been in a solid marriage with open communication and not so much resentment from my part, that I would not have turned to Arsen. That I would have enjoyed his light flirting, admired his beauty from afar, but that’s it. Never taking it to the next level and actually cheating on Ben. I mean, I remember how crazy I was about Ben during our honeymoon stage. I didn’t even notice other men in the same room. In my world, only one man existed. Ben. I never looked at another man or wondered. Never.”

“But you told me you were attracted to Arsen, very attracted to him before you actually slept with him for the first time?”

“Yes, I was. But there was this huge gap in my life and one day Arsen showed up and filled it. He made me laugh, he listened to my darkest fears, he brought color back into my life.” Turning away from the window, I stare at her. “I don’t think anything would’ve come of it had I not lost the baby, but I’ll never know for sure. When I cheated on Ben with Arsen, he made me feel alive again. He made the pain go away. Whenever I was with him, I felt euphoric. He made me feel beautiful, perfect, and less broken.” I pause and run my fingers through my hair. “Every time I was with him, every time we were together…I was able to forget. The people around me…my friends…my family...I didn’t care about them. All I cared was about getting my next Arsen fix.”

“Do you think that justifies the cheating?”

“No. Nothing can justify what I did to Ben. Nothing will ever justify the cheating. But I cheated, and it’s too late to do anything about it. As cliche as it sounds, all I can do is learn from my mistakes.”

“Tell me since you didn’t answer before. How about loving Arsen? Do you think it was love?”

I blow air out of my mouth. I think that Crystal really wants to kill me. It’s not like I can think about them without feeling the scar that has just begun to heal rip wide open again.

“Okay, this is going to be a long one. Trust me, I’ve given it a lot of thought.”