Joe's POV
The next morning, I called Gia for the 5th time in an hour. I called her a few times last night but she didn't answer any of my calls. I wanted to apologize to her and tell her there was nothing going on. I thought I was doing the right thing by not exposing her to my drama, clearly not. It's not like I didn't want to talk to her in front of Gia. I just don't want her in that.
It was time for me to pack and head to the airport to go home but I figured instead of going home to Tampa, I'd head to Chicago to see if she was okay. I couldn't believe she wasn't talking to me. We had been talking everyday for the last 6 months and this just didn't feel right.
I got on the plane to Chicago and on the way, I just kept thinking about what I would say to her. I really couldn't think of anything but I thought my gesture of coming to Chicago in itself says a lot. I got my rental car and headed to her house. I sat in her driveway for a couple of minutes wondering what I was going to say. I still couldn't come up with anything. I took a deep breath, got out of the car and rang her doorbell.
Bria answers the door.
"Roman? Hi, what are you doing here? Gia didn't tell me you were coming by." She says with a confused look on her face.
"She doesn't know I'm here, Is she around?"
"No, she's not but she's on her way. You can wait inside if you want." she says.
"Yeah, that'll be fine." I walk in and sit on the sofa. "Could you not tell her I'm here. She might not come home if she knows."
Bria sighs, "Roman, what did you do?"
"Honestly, I thought I was protecting her by keeping her out of my drama with my divorce but I guess I wasn't. She got upset with me because I wouldn't call my wife in front of her. She thinks something is going on with us."
Bria sits next to me, "Oh Roman, you have so much to learn about my sister Gia. She's the type that likes to know any and everything. She doesn't want any room for uncertainty, she doesn't like secrets and she definitely doesn't like surprises. So, if that's how your situation really is, then I'm sure she's feeling very uncertain about things and thinks you're keeping secrets from her."
"But I'm not keeping any secrets. I thought I was protecting her." I say in frustration.
"If that's true, then just talk to her. Show her how sorry you are and prove to her that there isn't anything going on."
Just as she says that Gia walks in the door.
"Hey sis, look who's here?" She smiles at her.
Gia just looks at me with no emotion, "Roman, what do you want and why are you here?"
I stand up, "You aren't answering any of my calls. I thought I'd come here instead of going home. Are you okay?"
Gia says, "As you can see, I'm fine. You should've went home?"
I walk over to her, "But I wanted to make sure you were okay. The way you left yesterday, I got worried. Can we talk in private?"
She looks over at her sister, "Yeah, we can go to my room. Come on." I follow her into her to bedroom and I watch as she closes the door and puts her things down.
"What's up?" She says in an irritated voice.
I look around, "This is a nice house you have." I say trying to lighten the mood.
"Why are you here Roman?" She says looking at her nails.
"Are you serious right now, you're just done with me like this?" I ask.
"Roman, this thing or whatever we have going is getting too complicated. I don't see you enough and I'd like to be with someone that I don't have to hide. And I would also like to be with someone who I know I can trust. I don't know how much I can trust you." She says.
"What do you mean you can't trust me? There's absolutely nothing going on with us. I want to be with you. Galina and I are at each other's throats right now. We verbally and physically fight, I'm constantly taking my daughter, JoJo out of the house because of her drinking and sometimes violence. It's a toxic situation and I didn't want to expose you to that. I really thought I was protecting you. If you want on my days off, every other week, I can fly here. I have to see my daughter but I can see you one week and see her the other. I really want to make this work." I say looking down at her.
"Roman, this just isn't working out." She looks at me with a serious look on her face, still showing no emotion.
I say in disappointment, "Gia don't do this to me. You really don't know how much I care about you, do you? I don't mean to sound like this but you don't know what you've done for me in this situation. I know you don't know but I was so depressed when you met me and talking to you everyday helped me get over that. You were literally what I needed to get through that hard time. That's why I'm so invested. I'm always defending you, I never let anyone talk bad about you because I know what you did for me. No one knows why I act that way with you and they don't need to know any of that, that's between me and you. I'm so grateful for that and that's why I'm willing to do anything to fix this. I'm sorry Gia."
She sighs, "I want to be with you, I like you but you just have too much going on on your end. Once you get that straight then maybe we can start over. But right now, I don't care about your feelings or trying to fix this. I don't mean to sound harsh, I'm just being honest. So if you're done, I'd like to change my clothes. I have plans."
I look at her heartbroken for a minute not knowing what to say. I couldn't believe she just dumped me and wasn't even considering the things I just said to her. I just let her into my head and my heart and she didn't care. The only word that could leave my mouth was 'Okay' and that's what I said before leaving her house.
The flight home seemed super long since I had nothing but time to think about the conversation Gia and I had earlier. I really thought I could fix it and it made me upset that there was nothing I could do to change her mind. The whole situation was very heartbreaking to me. I had a failed marriage and now a failed relationship with someone I really felt I needed to be with.
I got to my house, well Galina's house now, I still hadn't talked to her since the pictures went public but now I have no choice but to face her. I texted her on my way over and asked her to drop Jojo off at my mom's so we could have this talk. As I walked through the door I thought to myself, "Here goes nothing."
Galina was sitting on the sofa when I walked in. I could see the steam rising off of her she was so angry.
"What's up? Were you waiting for me?" I asked.
With her arms folded and legs crossed, "Yes I was. Sit down."
I put my bags at the door and walk over to the opposite sofa and I have a seat. I was super drained from the flight to Chicago and to Tampa. I felt like I had been flying all day.
Taking a deep breath, "Okay, What do you want to know G?"
She opens her mouth to talk and I cut her off, "Hold on, before we get into this. I can see you're pissed and I see you've been drinking. As soon as you start going crazy, I'm leaving. So if you want to have this conversation then please refrain from violence and yelling. I'm not in the mood. I'll just leave."
She looks at me, "I'll try to keep my composure. So tell me who is this woman?"
"Someone I was seeing. Yes, it's the woman from Chicago. As you know now her name is Gia." I could see Galina her trying not to get angry.
"How long as this been going on?" She asks.
I hesitate for a second, "9 months"
She stands up, "Are you fucking kidding me? Almost a year? Is she the reason why you don't want to work anything out?"
"G sit down and no. She has nothing to do with us. I kept her as far away from our fucked up situation as I could."
I run my hands over my face. "But it didn't work obviously." I lay back on the couch and closer my eyes.
"Do you love her?" She asks sitting back down.
I sigh, "I'm not answering that. That has nothing to do with this."
"Actually, it does, I think it's a legit question to ask. I just found out my husband has been in a relationship for nearly a year behind my back." She takes a sip of wine.
"I didn't cheat on you. I met her long after we started having problems. I was barely talking to you, I wasn't talking to anyone. When I met her, she helped me, she helped me get through it, got me to realize I didn't have to go through this bullshit with you." I shake my head in disbelief that I'm actually having this conversation with her.
"And yes, I love her."
Galina didn't say anything for a few seconds. She was surprised I actually said it. I could tell she was about to cry, she had tests in her eyes.
"You love her and not me, your wife? This is so fucked up Joe." She starts crying.
"I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm just trying to tell you the truth. Gia has been there for me more in 9 months then you have in 10 years. So I'm sorry, she gave me what I was needing and I wanted to hold on to that. You don't know how this effected me. You don't know how depressed I was about this marriage. She came at a really dark time for me and she doesn't even know how much she helped me. You were too worried about yourself. This woman is the complete opposite of you. She knew I was going through something and she didn't even know me at the time."
Crying, "Okay, maybe I dropped the ball but why didn't you come to me? I thought you didn't want anything to do with me. I tried for as long as I could. That didn't mean go find someone else."
"I wasn't looking, it just happened."
"Where did you meet her?" she asks
"At a Meet & Greet in Chicago. None of this matters anyway we're not together anymore."
"Oohhh you're not together anymore." She smiles, "What did you do?"
Yelling, "I didn't do anything...It's this, This bullshit we have going on. You can't move on and I'm forced only to talk to you when she isn't around."
She laughs, "She thinks something is going on with us. Well that was easy. You broke up before I could break you up. Good!" She stands up and walks towards to kitchen, "You want a drink?"
"Yeah." she leaves to go to the bar a few feet behind me. I pull my phone out to text Gia.
Me: I know I was just with you but I really miss you. Are you sure we can't work this out?
Gia: I'm not going to let you cheat on your wife with me, I'm worth more than that.
Me: You are and I'm willing to do anything to make this better for you. My divorce is already in place. I'm sorry if I made you feel you weren't worth anything.
Gia: Joe just take some time. I still care about you and it's killing me to have to do this but get everything worked out over there. I still can't be with you.
Me: As soon as this is over we can be together?
Gia: Handle your business, don't worry about me.
I think to myself, "This is so fucked up. I really like this girl and the first time I said I loved her out loud was to my soon-to-be ex wife. In such a short amount of time I've really grown to love her. Honestly, I felt like I loved her the first time I looked into her beautiful green eyes.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Galina's voice.
"You should give it up, she isn't going to text you back." She hands me a glass, "Here, it's vodka."
"Why are you such a bitch?" I take the glass.
"Because now we can work things out without her being in the way. Like it should've been in the beginning."
"We're still not working anything out G." I say taking a sip of my vodka.
"Yeah, well, we'll see about that." She says.
"I'm going to drink this, then go to bed." I take another sip.
"Are you sleeping in the room?" She asks.
"No, right here on the couch. I just want to get this night over with."
"Okay, I'll be upstairs. Are you sure you don't want to come up?" She asks.
"Goodnight, Galina." I laugh and turn on the TV.
Later that night, I was asleep on the couch Galina came downstairs.
Calling my name, "Joe."
Waking up, "Yeah. Galina what's wrong?"
She says, "Are you awake?"
I turn the light on and I see her standing in front of me in a robe.
"No, I'm sleep what's wrong?" I sit up.
She sits next to me, "I've been thinking, if we can't get this to work can we at least have sex? I'm horny right now." She smiles.
"No. Galina go to bed." I laugh.
"I'm serious." She gets on her knees and tries to take off my shorts.
I laugh, "Stop. I'm trying to sleep." I push her hands off me but she tries again.
"Just let it happen." She says.
She starts giving me head and I let her. I don't know why. I really wanted it to be Gia but I guess Galina was the next best thing.
We had sex on the couch. When she was done, I pushed her off of me. I just wasn't into it. I kept thinking about Gia.
The next morning, I had to fly out to Boston. So I made sure I got up early so I wouldn't have to deal with Galina. I stopped by my mom's to see Jojo, then I headed to Boston.