Talk
After Jude put the girls to sleep she spent the rest of her night working up a sweat over Sean coming over to talk. She never would have guessed he would ever make her feel anxious like this, and in some respect it wasn't him, it was thinking about what she was going to say to him, what she wanted to ask him.
It severely depressed her that they had to sit down and talk about something like this, but she knew it had to be done regardless of where their relationship was going. A conversation was a step forward they had to take.
She contemplated on whether it was wise to have some alcohol before he came. She had one glass of wine whilst working on one of her art projects in the kitchen and then decided it was best to stick with water.
She sat her paint brush down when she heard a knock at the door, getting up and heading through the house to let him in. She wasn't quite sure why she had put on one of her favourite dresses and made an effort with her hair. She most definitely wasn't trying to impress him and she certainly didn't have a standard to keep for him. He'd watched her push a baby out.
"Hey." Jude said, opening the door, noticing he was holding some flowers for her.
"Hey." Sean nodded, "I know you like these ones." He handed her the bunch, stepping into the house.
"They're lovely." Jude nodded, wandering through to the kitchen as he followed.
It felt strange to be in what he still viewed as his home, yet it felt so wrong and unfamiliar. Like he had to be invited into certain rooms, like a guest.
"Are the girls in bed?" He asked, walking into the kitchen where he watched her begin to cut the stems off the flowers to put in a vase.
"Yeah, of course." Jude said, "Mirren told me you let them stay up past their bed time." She turned to him.
"I told her not to tell you." He scoffed as Jude turned away from him and smiled a little.
"I'd appreciate you not making me the boring, uncool parent." Jude said as he laughed a little.
"You're anything but boring, Jude." Sean shook his head quietly, walking over to the kitchen table as he looked at the project she was working on, "Is this for anything in particular?" He asked as she turned around.
"Just an exhibition I'm entering." Jude said, "I was supposed to work on it at the weekend but it's impossible to do anything with my sisters around." She shook her head as Sean nodded.
"I bet you guys had fun, though." Sean said.
"Yeah we did." Jude nodded, arranging the flowers into the vase. She could tell he was watching her. If it was any other man she would feel uncomfortable but she always enjoyed the way he watched her.
"I'll start cooking." He announced after getting lost in a trance watching her fix the flowers.
"Better be delicious." Jude nodded seriously, watching him get out some pots and pans, beginning to cut up some ingredients. She knew he would make her favourite Mexican dish. It was very predictable of him.
"So how has work been?" He asked.
"Are we really gonna do this? The small talk?" She asked. One thing she wasn't going to do was stand here and pretend everything was fine. Pretend like nothing had ever happened and they were just a happily married couple making dinner. Because that wasn't the case.
"It's better than silence." Sean said, "And I'm genuinely interested. I miss… hearing about all the stuff you're doing. I miss watching you doing your projects." He nodded honestly. There was so much he missed his wife for, mostly her creativity and passion.
"I've not done much over the past few months." Jude said, "And I think I'm the talk of the academy amongst the teachers. I confided in one person about what happened and suddenly everyone was smiling at me with sympathy the next morning." She shook her head, "So… thank you for that." She added, taking some cutlery over to the table whilst Sean kept his focus on dinner.
"I figure I'll say it countless times tonight but I am sorry." He said, "For everything. For completely changing our lives overnight. I hate myself every day for it. You have no idea." He shook his head.
"It's gonna take a long time before you hear me say I forgive you. A long time." She clarified, "Bringing me flowers and cooking me my favourite dinner isn't going to make it all go away. I know you're smart enough to know that." She said.
"I know." He said.
"I'll be more receptive to talking when I'm fed." She said, half joking and half being serious as he smiled and nodded.
Theo got home later on after spending majority of his day in his office. He closed the door behind him, hoping he was home in time to see Chase before he went to bed.
"Daddy!" Chase yelled excitedly, running out from the kitchen in his pyjamas.
"Hey, buddy!" Theo yelled just as excitedly, sitting his keys down and picking Chase up for a hug, "I thought I'd catch you before you went to bed."
"Mama was letting me wait on you." Chase told him as Theo walked through to the kitchen with him where Cassie was making herself some coffee. Her shoulders were tense and she looked unhappy. Normally he found it hard to read his wife, but he could see there was something wrong with her.
"Hey, I told you he'd be home soon." Cassie smiled forcefully as Theo looked at her with confusion. He watched her shake her head and then say, "Do you want daddy to read you a story before bed?"
"Yeah." Chase nodded.
"Ok." Cassie smiled, "Well you better go pick a good one, huh?"
"I will." Chase said eagerly.
"Say goodnight to mama first." Theo told him, putting him back down on the ground as he ran over to Cassie to hug and kiss her goodnight, "I'll be up in a second." He told the six year old who ran off to pick his book.
As soon as Chase was gone he turned to Cassie worriedly, "What's going on?"
"Just go read to him and then we can talk." Cassie nodded.
"Are you ok?" Theo shook his head.
"I'm fine." Cassie assured him, "Just go see to him and then come back down." She told him as Theo nodded wearily, leaving the kitchen and heading upstairs to get Chase to sleep.
Cassie stood in the kitchen waiting on him to come back down. She paced angrily, furiously around the kitchen between sips of coffee. She wasn't sure she'd ever been this angry.
Around fifteen minutes later, Theo came back downstairs, walking into the kitchen apprehensively, "Ok, talk." Theo nodded.
"I was just emptying Chase's bookbag earlier from school. I wanted to make sure he ate all his lunch and that he didn't have any other homework he was forgetting." She explained as Theo nodded, not sure where this was going.
"Ok?" Theo said in questioning tone.
"And I found this in his bag." Cassie said, lifting the bookbag onto the table, taking out the piece of paper which had a word written on it, showing Theo who stared at it for a few seconds.
"In his bag?" Theo clarified.
"I pulled it out of his bag." Cassie nodded angrily.
"Is there anything else written on it?" Theo asked, walking over to her and taking the piece of paper which had a racist four letter word slur written on it.
"No. I searched his entire bag, tipped it upside down. Nothing else." She said, "Theo, six year old's don't know that kind of… language or hatred. This was not a kid." She shook her head, convinced of it. Horrified and sickened by it, "This is a hate crime. Against a child."
"Did you ask him about it?" Theo turned to her.
"Of course I didn't." She said, watching as he crumpled the piece of paper up and threw it across the kitchen, beginning to pace just as she was earlier when she had found it, "We're going to the school first thing in the morning." She made clear, "Ok?"
"I'll go." Theo said, "It's better I go."
"Why? We should both go." Cassie said, "I feel sick knowing someone put that in his bag. Physically sick. We'll move him schools if we have to-"
"He's only just started-"
"I don't care." Cassie said, "God, I'll home school him if I have to." She shook her head, pacing around the table whilst he stood at the opposite side, keeping his hands on one of the chairs, "I mean… really?" She shook her head in disbelief.
"Look, I've dealt with situations like this. I'll handle it." He nodded as she looked over at him.
"What do you mean you've dealt with situations like this? At work?" She asked as he looked at her, shaking his head.
"No, in life, Cassie. I'm hardly the white man next door, am I?" He shook his head.
"Theo-"
"I can go to the school and deal with it." He assured her, "You go to work and… get ready to possibly file a damn hate crime report." He shook his head angrily, running his hand through his hair as she walked over to him.
"It's not something you've really talked to me about." She said quietly, "This is our son." She said with tears in her eyes as he nodded, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her close, "If you find out whoever it is, don't tell me."
"I do miss you cooking." Jude admitted once clearing the plates away, sitting back down at the table with Sean, "I can never seem to get anything right. The girls hate my food."
"No they don't." Sean shook his head.
"They do." Jude insisted.
"I could meal prep for you." He teased as she looked across at him.
"What is it we're supposed to talk about exactly?" She asked, having been trying to figure that out all night. There was so much emphasis on them having a conversation, but now they were here together, she wasn't really sure where to start or what to say.
"I guess maybe where things went wrong-"
"I was never under the illusion that things were going wrong. If they were, you never told me." She stared at him angrily, "Believe me, I've been racking my brain for months trying to figure out if I shut you out. Then I wondered if I said something to you, something awful, without realising." She said, "Then I wondered if… maybe I just don't do it for you anymore-"
"Jude." Sean shook his head, "None of that is true."
"I know that." Jude nodded confidently, "But that's what this is doing to me. I'm torturing myself because I need to know why but… I'm never gonna know why, am I?"
"I don't even know why." Sean shook his head.
"We slept together the night before." Jude recalled, "How can you go from that… to cheating on me. People cheat because they're unhappy. Because they want more. Because they want something that they're lacking in their current relationship." She said, "So did you get that?" She questioned, folding her arms.
"We weren't lacking anything." Sean shook his head, "I wasn't on some quest for… something different or whatever." He said, disgusted at the idea.
"Who made the first move?" Jude asked bravely.
"She did." Sean nodded truthfully, "She kissed me and I just felt… I felt like I wasn't even me anymore. Like I was outside of my body or something." He said as she rolled her eyes a little, "And I know that it all sounds like garbage to you, but I'm here telling you that I love you and I… I made the worst mistake I'll ever make in my life. I just… lost my mind. Maybe I was frustrated with the case I just got dropped from. I can sit here and tell you it was all these different things but it won't change what I did." He said, "All I can do is tell you how much I regret it, every single second."
"I thought if you could stay with me after being raped, stick by me throughout all of that, then there's no way you could ever hurt me. Because I wasn't easy to stick by back then. Even I know that." She shook her head, "But you stayed."
"Because I love you. I loved you from the first time we danced on our first date." He said as she looked over at him. She desperately wished she could go back to that moment. Go back to the woman she was back then.
"So I take your word for it? That it was some foolish, psychotic mistake you made? Then what? I let you back in and I wait for it to happen again? I wait to be made out a bigger fool than I already am?" She asked.
"It's never going to happen again." He shook his head, "I promise you. I will never do anything to hurt you like this again. I could never-"
"So once you could do but twice you draw the line?" She questioned.
"C'mon, Jude. What do you want me to do? I'll get on my knees. I'll do anything you need me to do to make this right." Sean said.
"You don't get it. Nothing will ever make this right." She said, "We're never gonna be the same, Sean. Never." She shook her head.
"We can be-"
"God, how couldn't you have thought of me?" She stood up angrily, "When she kissed you? Why didn't you think about me? Why didn't you think… this isn't the girl I'm supposed to be kissing. My wife. Jude. She's the one I kiss." She said, walking away from the table, turning back around, "Don't sit here and tell me how much you love me. I would rather you sat there and told me all the things you hate about me. All the things that made you want to cheat on me-"
"Jude." Sean stood up.
"No… no, it's fine. You can tell me." She nodded, "Did she fuck you better? Or… Or does she understand you better because you're both cops and I… I'm just an art teacher, what the hell would I know?" She laughed a little, "And I bet she doesn't go to therapy." Jude nodded, "What about her family? Are they like mine? Does mental illness and addiction run in it?" She asked.
"Just stop." Sean sighed.
"Just give me a reason." Jude cried, "Was it my excessive worrying I do? Was it all the times I sat doing projects when I should have been with you-"
"It was nothing you did. Stop it." He said, "This was all my fault. Stop trying to get me to… to say something so you can blame yourself. It was on me. All of it."
"No." Jude cried as he placed his hands on her arms to calm her down.
"I did this. If we're never the same again it's because of me. Entirely." He said, "Please, don't." He sighed, wiping her wet face as she leaned her head on his chest, sobbing into him as he wrapped his arms around her.
