The Other Woman

“Tell her,” she stood firmly.

“I can’t,” his words crawled out in a breath.

“Tell her,” she repeated, this time more forcefully.

“Look, I can’t!” He whispered again. “Not now. Not yet.”

“But why not?!” She shouted.

“Shhh.. She’ll hear you.”

“She won’t hear me,” she dismissed in regular volume and rolled her eyes.

Jeremy let that go, paused for a moment, and then continued in his whisper, “Look, I can’t yet… but I’m going to, okay?” He peered toward the cracked door of the den they stood in, listening for creaks above. “I just need a little more…time.”

“‘A little more time’? You mean like two years, Jeremy? Two whole years you’ve been together, and that wasn’t enough time?! In all your time together, you mean to tell me there hasn’t been one good time?!?”

“I really can’t talk about this right now, Shayna” he whispered with more emphasis.

“And why not?!”

“You know why not.”

“No, tell me. Because, from my end, it seems like as good a time as any!”

Jeremy sighed, “Shayna… You know she’s right upstairs, asleep.”

“And? It’s never a good time to talk about it. She’s always around. I’m always around. If you just go ahead and tell her, there won’t be anything left to talk, whisper, or even worry about.”

“Look,” he pled. “It isn’t that easy. It hasn’t been an easy thing to bring up… And now...“

“Now…” Shayna interrupted, taking the lead on where she figured he was going, “she’s moved in. A week into us all living together, and you still haven’t found a way to tell her—”

‘Look, I’m going to, okay?!? It’s just… It’s hard.”

“Hard? How is it hard.. What’s so hard about it? I mean, you have to tell her eventually, Jeremy. We’re literally all living under the same roof now.”

“I know!” Jeremy exclaimed quietly.

“You can’t have it go on like this forever.”

“I know!” The boom of his voice topped hers before he could catch himself, and his eyes again shot up towards the ceiling, still silent, and then back at her. Her eyes widened, also startled by his sudden pointed and blaring response.

“I know,” he repeated but more calmly, returning to his previous whisper.

“Do you?”

“Yes! You don’t think this has been killing me?” His voice elevated again, and he tried to bring it back down as the next words left his lips. “That it’s been haunting me nearly every day of those two years she and I have been together?! I want to tell her every damned day. Every minute, every second. Sometimes, it’s all I can think about!!”

“And yet, you still haven’t. And yet still, somehow, after two years…she still has no clue!”

“Look,” he continued in his calm, “If you remember, I tried it with the others. I tried to tell them. And none of them ‘got’ it. None of them understood what you and I have.”

“Well, that’s not my problem.”

“I’m not saying it is. I’m saying… it’s a problem. My problem. One I have to figure out, and it’s not as easy as you say. It’s going to take time.”

“Jeremy, wouldn’t you want to be with someone who accepts all of you? Every part, everything that matters most to you? I think it was for the best that it didn’t work out with those others. They didn’t deserve you. I don’t even know yet if she does…”

“Shayna, this isn’t…”

His words trailed off as he heard in the background a shower turn on, now competing with the growing sound of his suddenly fast-thumping heart. He felt himself short of breath. Was this what he’d have to look forward to until he told Calissa? Forbidden conversations with Shayna in the far corners of their home, each filled with words of shameful whispers; constant glances over his shoulder for the slightest sign, even the slightest whiff of perfume, of Calissa nearby? Living in a constant state of fear, panic, and paranoia under his own roof?

Soon joining the sound of running water in the distance was the melody of some music. Rap music. He knew then that wasn’t Calissa but one of their neighbors in the townhouse next door. His heart slowed, and he found his breath and continued.

“This isn’t something about someone that people usually have to accept…or even know is a thing.”

“Well, maybe more would, if more people like yourself would just be more brave and honest about it. Honest with themselves and honest with everyone else."

Jeremy sighed. For the first time since they started this conversation twenty minutes before, he didn’t have a response. It was the first 30 full seconds of silence that had been allowed to exist since they had began.

Finally, she resumed, “How?”

“‘How’, what?” he asked. 

“How could she not know? How could she not see it? And after all this time?”

His eyes still on her, they then veered off into the distance, settling on the view outside a window nearby. “I don’t know…”

Jeremy thought for another moment and then answered, “I mean… Yes, we always spent a lot of time together, but…this is different. Now, we’re living together. I could hide it before. It won’t be so easy to now—”

“And that you would…hide me…all this time. How, Jeremy? How do you think that makes me feel?!?”

“I know… I know… I don’t want to hurt you. I love you, Shayna. I need you. I’m not ready to let you go.”

Those words caught even Shayna by surprise. He had told her he loved her many times before, but somehow, this time, it sounded different. It felt different. This time, along with those other words, it tugged at a part of her she didn’t really want to feel at this moment. She found herself softened…softening, thinking about what those words meant. Reflecting on their many years and their countless sweet, shared memories together.

Shayna soon snapped out of it, willing her quickly Jello-ing heart back to its bold fury from just a few minutes before, determined to hold him to the fire.

“‘Ready’? That sounds like something that might change one day. Do you think you might be ready—ready to let me go—one day, Jeremy?” she asked and then immediately wondered whether she really wanted to know the answer.

“No!!” he promptly shouted, not thinking about his volume this time. “No, Shayna... I’ll never be ready. You mean so much to me. You always have, and you always will. You were there when no one else was.”

Shayna exhaled, in twisted relief. Part of her was happy, elated even, to hear he wasn’t ready to let her go and would never plan to. She certainly wasn’t ready to let him go. But another part wondered if he should. If she should. She reflected for another moment and then began, “If you remember, Jeremy… This was your idea…”

“I know…”

“We were friends for so long, and I was okay with us just being friends.”

With his shoulders hunched over, Jeremy’s eyes closed. Sensing where Shayna was going with this, he couldn’t help but nod.

“But you wanted us to be more. And you wouldn’t stop until we were. And somehow, some way, you made me love you. You made me fall in love with you… I mean, it was hard not to, being there for everything, every day, along the way… But still, you made sure…it happened.”

“Shayna… I know."

He knew she was right. From very early on, Shayna was there with Jeremy for almost literally every moment of his life, no matter how big or small. His first paper cut. The first time his mother pushed him on the swings at the park. His first day of kindergarten. The first time he was bullied by a bigger kid in his third-grade class and came home crying. His first middle-school research paper, on the topic of childhood imagination, and the “B-“ he received for it and was pretty proud of.

Shayna was there for his first real heartbreak. It was in high school and a situation that was especially hard for her to stand by and witness for several reasons—one being a conflict of interest. Things had already begun escalating in their friendship long before then. She was already falling, as he had been. So, to then watch him also fall with and then be hurt by someone else—someone who didn’t even know about Shayna… It felt like one of the first in what turned out to be a series of hurts she would experience in loving him.

Shayna was there the day Jeremy walked across the stage to receive his college diploma… For his first big job out of college… Even when he and his friends took his first adult trip abroad, to Cancun, later that same year.

She had seen everything, been through everything--every bit as much as as he had been through. She had been there—laughing, celebrating, crying, supporting—as he needed, all along the way.

"And yet, I was never enough," she continued. "It could never be 'just us'. You always had to have someone else, even as much as I tried to make me--to make ‘us’--enough."

“But Shayna," he looked up. "You know why..."

"I know why, but still. Doesn't make it hurt any less."

Jeremy's head lowered again.

Shayna sighed this time and spoke in an unconfident whisper, “This would be so much easier if we were still just friends. But I couldn’t even go back to that now. I don’t even know what that would look like now. Maybe…” she hesitated and then again tried to follow through, “We should just cut our losses and just…not be anything.”

“No!!” Jeremy yelled out, again startling both of them but not enough or him to be more conscious of his volume this time. “No, that isn’t what I want.”

“Well, then what the fuck do you want?!?” her voice raised again.

A few more moments of rare silence permeated the room. And then, creaking stairs and a fresh voice punctuated the silence, shaking Jeremy out of the intense moment.

“Jeremy?” Calissa called out, her voice sounding close.

“Ohh… Yes, Calissa?” this line delivered in a lighter tone of seeming non-concern. Jeremy's body departed from the slouched stance that had taken over for most of his conversation with Shayna, as he raised both his chest and the corners of his lips.

“Where are you? Who are you talking to?” she asked, as she quickly grew closer.

“Oh, nobody,” said Jeremy. “I just was…rehearsing what I’m going to say during my work presentation tomorrow.”

Calissa walked through the den door and over to Jeremy, shortly greeting his lips with hers.

“Hey, babe!” her words sang with glee and openness.

“Heyy… That was a quick nap. I hope my rehearsing didn’t wake you?”

“No, it was just a little pick-me-up. I have some work I have to do. And just wanted to make sure you were okay down here, because it sounded like you were talking or even shouting at someone! What kind of speech is this? It sounded so…impassioned!!”

“Oh, ha ha…” Jeremy nervously laughed, glancing over in Shayna’s direction. Standing near the armoire nestled in the corner of the room, she remained quiet. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. "I’m sure I’ve just been in here being a bit over-the-top…really trying to sell them on what I’m saying, you know? Sorry if I was loud.”

“No need to apologize. I’m glad you’re really feeling and getting into it. I’m sure it’ll pay off once you do the real thing.”

“Yes, babe, I’m sure it will. Thank you.”

Shayna rolled her eyes. Jeremy didn't need to see her to feel it.

“Sooo… Are you going to let me hear it?” Calissa asked anxiously.

“Oh.. Yeah!" Jeremy feigned some enthusiasm. "But not just yet. Give me a bit of time, and I’ll come share and practice it with you. That sound okay?’

“Yes, baby, whatever you want. However I can help.”

“Thank you,” he smiled--this, genuinely. He appreciated how always so loving, understanding, and supportive Calissa was. How patient. He didn't want to ever lose that. He didn’t want to lose her.

“In the meantime, what I’m going to do,” she continued, “—what’s going to help me—is to go grab a quick little snack… and then get started on my own work.”

“I’m not mad at that,” said Jeremy. “You go ahead and go do your thing… and we’ll connect again in a bit. Cool?”

“Okay, cool,” she brightly cheesed again and walked back over to him to plant an exit kiss. “See you in a bit, babe.”

Calissa left the room and towards the kitchen.

Shayna sighed.

He waited a few beats, to try and make sure Calissa was definitely out of earshot, and then whispered, even lower than before.

”What?” he asked. 

“You could’ve told her.”

“I could’ve told her what?!?”

“You know what!! You could’ve told her just now, Jeremy. I mean, you could’ve told her literally any other time in the past two years, but at the very least, you really could have told her just now.”

She continued. “Seriously, Jeremy, how do you think all of this makes me feel? Is what I’m feeling not real? Does it not matter to you at all? Do I not matter?”

“Yes, of course your feelings are real. Yes, you matter…”

“It feels like I don’t.”

“Babe,” Calissa suddenly called out from the kitchen, but Jeremy was again sucked in by Shayna’s words, trying to reassure her.

“You do…” he said, “I’m trying….”

“Jeremy, you have to do more than try. Point-blank, the fact is, you’d already had a girlfriend, a lifelong partner—one who far surpasses her, far surpasses anyone, and who loves you more than anyone could ever dream of, let alone would ever actually do…”

“Babe”, Calissa continued more assertively in the background, the sounds of cabinet doors opening and slamming shut as she called out.

“But…because, I get it,” Shayna kept on, “She and I are…different… we offer you different things—I won’t ask you to choose…”

“Babe! Where are the pretzels?” Every word of Calissa's question was as clear as freshly squeaky-wiped glass, yet also muffled, like a beautiful mountainous view lost in a morning's fog.

“If you want both, I will respect it. But then, she still needs to know that I exist, Jeremy. I exist, my feelings exist. ‘We’…exist.”

“Shayna,.. You know there’s no replacing you. You’re my original heart. I love you. I’ll always love you and will always need you in my life. We go so far back, it’s crazy. No one is ever touching that. That isn’t going anywhere, no matter what anyone knows…or doesn't know....”

“….Jeremy?” Calissa now stood in the room again, her eyebrows scrunched and her eyes following the direction of Jeremy’s, which seemed to only lead to their armoire in the corner. “Who’s Shayna?”