Saved By Your Love

13. Love Is a Complicated Thing

And look what happened.

I guess what really pissed me off is that people just couldn't give the man a break, right next to the obvious fact that our evening together ended so early and all I wanted, more than anything, was for it to work. Was that so much to ask?

I stared at the telephone and it rang so hard I could've sworn it was rattling. Maybe I should answer. I don't want him to get worried about me. But I don't know what I'll say to him. I sighed and picked up the receiver before the incessant ringing would wake up my daughter.

I tried to sound normal. "Hello...?"

He bombarded me with a billion questions, "Sheri? Oh, thank God you're here. Are you okay? Why did you leave like that? You had me so worried about you, girl. Bill and I looked all over for you and—"

"I'm fine. I was just a little shaken up. You didn't seem like you'd ever make it outta that crowd so I left," I said.

"I tried telling you to wait for me. How did you get home?"

"I took the bus back,"

He let out a sigh of relief in the background as if he took the receiver away for a second. "God, I was worried. Did you get back okay? You weren't followed, were you?"

That sounded frightening, but he said it so casually. "Should I have been?"

"I-I don't know. It happens sometime..."

I rubbed my eyes. "No, I wasn't followed, um..."

Silence.

"Sheri? Are you there?"

"Yeah," I quietly replied, "still here."

He stuttered, "you sure you're okay?"

I opened my mouth to give some sort of reply to him, but a soft wail from the next room interrupted me. Should've picked up the phone earlier.

"Listen, Michael, I gotta go,"

"You don't wanna talk?" he said.

The crying got louder.

"It's not that I don't wanna. I can't. Joy needs me. I gotta go."

I put the receiver down took the telephone line off the hook for the promise of silence before I checked on my daughter.

II wondered if that was the last time we'd ever have a phone conversation. But I lost sleep that night knowing that if it wasn't for the date, I could have been there for Faith when she needed me the most.

***

The next day...

I stayed at home all day long. I wasn't expecting any visitors, but in the afternoon, Faith turned up at my doorstep. She was holding a destroyed, flaky tissue to her nose, which she dabbed at her red pleading eyes. I silently let her in and pulled her in for a hug, comforting her and letting her know that everything would be okay. She wasn't crying much anymore, which was good 'cause I don't know how to react around crying adults.

She sat on the couch, sniffling often, while I made us two coffees. Faith told me in detail everything that happened: the time of day and everything that she saw, and what she did after. She entered Carl's office at around one p.m.; he forgot to lock the door. The blinds were drawn, and there he stood behind his secretary with her panties around her ankles, both of 'em seconds away from the act. Faith admitted that she made a total scene; she screamed the place down, trashed his entire office, tore down his calendar from the wall, threw his neatly-stacked paperwork off his desk and ended up damaging their framed photo in the process. Carl told her beforehand that he was to be ambushed by masses of paperwork, even during his lunch break, so she couldn't go and visit him. But she braved to go anyway, by herself. Maybe if I went along, his office could've at least been spared.