Come Full Circle
"I don't know why you're hurting me Daniel."
He didn't know why either. But he knew why she hurt him, had even expected her to, knew she wouldn't take it. So he wasn't even surprised when he came home to find her missing, her things gone, a thick wad of letters on the coffee table.
She wanted a divorce.
Reason: irreconcilable differences, even though the real reason was that he had cheated on her with enough models to go from A to Z - he forgets how many exactly though - and she had found out.
So he signed it and sent it off. Because before this they had been friends, good friends ... best friends ... and the person he had been then would have never hurt Betty, and the person he was now could still remember that. He had hurt her and this was the only way to fix it. So he signed it.
X
"Don't do it Daniel. You're making a mistake, go tell her you're sorry, that you won't do it again."
He looked up at Alexis and shook his head, "but I will do it again." Alexis' frown deepened, she reached out a hand to grab his arm but he shook her off and went inside the court.
He wished he had listened to her now.
X
Betty looked tired, her eyes were red, a clump of tissues were fisted in her hand.
"Hey," he smiled at her and forced back the habit of leaning down to give her a kiss.
She smiled wanly at him but couldn't keep her eyes fixed on him for long. "Hi Daniel."
"Listen - I just … we can still be friends right? Like we used to be?"
Startled, she shot him a surprised look and her eyes immediately filled with tears. Looking furious at herself, she lifted the tissues to her eyes and scrubbed at them then fixed him a hard look, "I don't think so," her voice began to quaver, "I think it's best if we - just …" she softened her tone and this time let the tears drip down, " end it here."
Daniel was so shocked he just stood there, watching her leave with her family huddled around her as if to protect her from him.
He had never thought he would lose her.
X
It was hard at first to get used to being alone again. No one greeting him when he got back from work with a brace filled smile and undercooked empanadas. No one hogging the covers and shouting at him to wear socks because his feet was so cold. No one singing along to Milkshake without knowing what the words meant or trying to convince him into buying a puppy by promising that if he did so she would never cook again. He had been awfully tempted.
For the first two to three months he would keep ringing home to tell her that he would be late, to give her some made up excuse about why he couldn't come home tonight. Late meeting, mother, sister, work to do. And he didn't bring anyone of them home, kept forgetting that Betty wasn't there, she was back in Queens with her family, apparently looking for a job in another magazine company. Maybe to be someone else's assistant. He fired his own just in case.
She didn't phone him, didn't text or e-mail, didn't even come down to the apartment with the movers to collect the rest of her stuff. She sent Justin and Hilda instead. They both glared and mumbled about him under the breaths so he decided it was best if he didn't ask them how she was doing. So the anger set in, she really did want to end things, and after all they had been through, after the friends they had been.
Screw it.
His next marriage lasted four months, and two months into it he had started cheating on her. The divorce settlement was rather hefty and he didn't even ask if they could remain friends, they hadn't been friends to start with, he had hardly known her before they had tied the knot.
The next one, another model, lasted one and a half months and ended when she found him in bed with his PA, a bendy blonde with a tiny waist and a brilliant boob job.
When his fourth marriage ended after a mere two weeks Alexis took him aside and punched him, she still tended to hit more like man then a woman. Then she thrust her car keys into his palm and told him to go talk to Betty.
So he did, drove down to her father's house in Queens and then sat in the car wondering what he was doing here. They came out, all laughing, dressed to go out somewhere special and he was surprised at the changes in them.
Mr Suarez looked older, greyer, more wrinkles lined his smiling face and he was more stooped then Daniel remembered. Justin; older, taller and skinnier strode forward with his stick thin legs encased in tight jeans, a flamboyant periwinkle top and a violet hat perched at a jaunty angle. God, he wasn't even a boy anymore. Hilda surprised him, she had always been pretty, but now age had begun to leave its mark; a few wrinkles here, love handles there and greys strands of hair that had obviously come through the dye.
Betty, the last to leave the house, stopped to lock it and then ran down the stairs to join her family. She had grown her hair a little longer, had grown out the fringe too, she wasn't wearing braces anymore and had changed the glasses as well, they were thick rimmed still but were now a dark green colour and a different make, rounder looking. He found himself missing the red ones. She had filled out a little and she too had the beginnings of wrinkles and grey hairs ... proof that years had flown by. Years he had missed.
Daniel couldn't help it, he began to cry, the tears just streamed down his eyes and he made no move to stop them. Four marriages and all he had been trying to do was recreate his first, had even fucked them up just as he had done the first. He should have listened to Alexis and begged her not to leave him, sworn that he would never look at another woman ever again. Sworn that he would never hurt her again.
"Daniel?"
He swivelled round to see her curious face peering through the car window at him, feeling both excited and fearful he lowered the window and peered back at her. She had many laugh lines just like he had always known she would.
"Hey Betty."
Her family hovered behind her, glaring disapprovingly at him but he ignored them.
"What are you doing here?" Her voice wasn't as young and excited as it used to be.
"I came to see you … I came … I missed you."
She looked sceptical at that, after all it had been years, they hadn't been in contact with each other since she had walked away from him after their divorce had been granted. She hadn't called ... but neither had he. "Daniel-"
He cut her off and began speaking, he told her about how he had missed her for months after she had left, how he had hoped that she would phone to tell him she was doing okay and how her day had been. How his other marriages had begun and how they had ended, how he had never had a friend like her since she had left.
How alone he felt.
Her face crumpled into tears, she reached through the window and hugged him. He reached back out the window and hugged her back.
"Maybe we can be friends," she whispered into his shoulder, her tears wetting his shirt. "Like we used to be."
He nodded and held her tighter, feeling life finally coarse through him again.
'And maybe, after that, we can be like we used to be again, more than friends.' But he decided to keep that to himself for now.