Why Didn't I?

Author's Note: In this story there are themes of abuse, much cursing, and traumatic experiences. Please read with caution before going on with this story. Thank you.

“I should’ve known.”

Four simple words. Idiotic words belonging to a sentence of doom. Bringing forth wrath I could have never before have foreseen. But it wasn’t my own rage, no, not at all. I like keeping a calm head. Staying above the crowd in status, but remaining blended in, with no possible way to be the sore thumb walking around. Yet, once those words were spoken to me, my soul craved redemption. He had been everything to me. My sweet Dexter. My baby boy, only sixteen years old and claiming to me I am a whore, making him a son to a bitch. For never being there, for never once staying when his father left with that wretch. A true whore.

“I should’ve known.”

It’s three years before Dexter’s birth and the betrayal of my husband, and I’m standing before him. Samuel.

Oh how the times were then. Standing at the bus stop in my classy stretchy striped shirt, covering my butt in blue jean shorts and leaving me nearly exposed with how thin the material was. But I didn’t care. It was freedom. Liberation! A long lost cause to the emo soul. Black and white was and always will be my trademark.

But, oh, the moment I heard those words, I acted surprised. As if I had not seen him walking down the street, crossing the road to come up behind me. How could I not notice Samuel Ramirez? Only a year higher than me in school, Samuel had been the far more pleasant pick of boys in school. Messy undercut of hazelnut brown hair, close to a red in the sunshine. Lanky school boy muscles while he stood before me in baggy jeans. A tight green tee, never marked with a favorite band for some reason, but I loved a good guessing game.

I had to play the wild card, marking my dominance with a silly push of my loose hair behind my ear, and like any school girl crush, he fell for it instantly.

“Mary Willis?” He cooly asked, nodding his head as I nodded in agreement, offering him a pearly smile. “Yeah, I remember you. Freshman?”

A horrible way to get my attention, honestly, but I was twirling around my silver cross like that alone would have served cunt. My enthusiasm was a virus, and he was a plague I was willing to die for. In minutes we went from casual chat to walking onto the next bus and riding off to the sunset in that smelly chariot. In three bus stops, I was playing around with my beanie hat and batting my eyelashes at his stupid football puns.

If I could stay in that moment, I would have lingered on his charms. How pleasant he’d been to talk to. Even if all his jokes were nothing short of stolen lines from a used library book. How horrible that cologne of his was, but it was far better than the bus odors. And there was no other man in the world that could outmatch my Samuel.

“Whore! You’re a fucking bitch!”

Dexter had thrown the vase, shattering our mother’s day flowers he had bought. How the day turned so sour I could not blame myself. I yearned to tell him that the traffic had been slow, or the boss was up to old tricks keeping me late, but they were all lies. Dexter was so much like his father. Without the bank teller suit and classy buzzcut, my boy was a splitting image of his father, green eyes, black raven hair, and so much anger in a small package.

Failure, I was a failure. It’s all I knew myself to be. No loving words, no tender care from momma could bring my baby boy back to me. He ran out that day, the neighbors had called the police and days later I was being tossed out the building for the mess my boy had delivered upon the carpet floors. There was no use in telling them how terrible I was, how stupid I feel to be a the shell of a mother any poor excuse wretch could be than myself. Walking down that dreadful sidewalk outside my building, Ms. Cratchen’s blueberry pie carried its delicious scent to me.

“Two slices or one?”

“Just the one!”

Three weeks after that bus stop ride, we shared a pie slice at Francis'. A sunny day it had been, with the white chairs out at the tables we sat and indulged in the pie together. Gooey, warm, and so flaky.

“I love that necklace of yours.”

I look down at my cross. I never go anywhere without it. With a small giggle, I look up at his marvelous dark brown eyes.

“It belongs to my grandmother!”

All I could shout as my husband steals my precious cross away from me and storms out the house, leaving our baby boy to howl with large crocodile tears. He roars, telling me he wouldn’t have any of it. Silver was silver. It can be pawned.

I slammed into him, beating my fists into his back and forced him to look at me. I grabbed it away from him, retreating back to my house, locking the door behind me and reminding myself he had not grabbed the keys.

“So, this is our stop.”

“So it is.”

I don’t understand it. Why in those seconds before my father’s old house, that I hadn’t talked Samuel in. Why didn’t I just tell him to spend the night? Allow him entry to my private chambers of woman decency. I could see it as I do now. Two young adults milling over crap no one would ever care about in a million years before or from then. And then a kiss, a small thing before we shared passion no mere mortal or human could intervene in and allow our young minds to possess.

“Next week?” I asked, holding his hands.

He squeezes my hands and grins.

“Of course, if you’ll have me.”

I giggle. “Always.”

I should have known it wasn't meant to be.