These Are My Confessions

I almost made it to the stairs but Josh’s hand caught hold of my arm. “Anna, is everything ok?” He asked as he turned me around to face him.

“No.” I shook my head. “I mean yes.” I shrugged and looked up at the confused expression on his face. “I don’t know. I wanted to talk to you about something but I find that every time I see you, I start thinking it doesn’t matter because it wouldn’t really change how I feel.”

“Well,” He slipped his arm around my waist and motioned to his still opened door. “Why don’t we go inside and talk about it? It’s better to say it and get it out than to stress about it.” I nodded and let him lead me to his apartment.

Once inside, he closed the door and then he walked towards the living room, looked in then turned to smile at me. “What was that?” I asked him as I took off my boots.

“Just now?” He asked he looked a little embarrassed. When I nodded, he ran his hand through his hair and smiled. “I was double checking.”

“Double checking what?” I asked as I joined him, peeking around him at the living room.

He chuckled, “I wasn’t sure I cleaned up before I went to bed last night. Jess had made a mess the other day and I didn’t want you to think I was a pig.”

I stared at him for a moment. “Are you serious?” He nodded again, and there was a definite red tinge to his cheeks. I glanced around the living room, “Well, it looks like a kid lives here.” The place wasn’t messy, it looked lived in, and I had no problems with that. I made my way over to his couch and sat down; he started to come over to me but stopped, said he’d be right back and went to the bathroom.

While he was in the bathroom, I did a quick look around but didn’t get that far. When you come in the front door, there was a closet on one side and on the right was the kitchen. You could walk through the kitchen into the dining area which opened into the living room. There was a door between the dining area and the living room which leads out onto the balcony, glancing out the window in the door told me that no one had been out there for a while; there was a foot of snow covering the entire thing. If you came straight in the front door, next to the closet was a storage room, which was fairly full of unopened moving boxes. Damn, I’m nosy, I thought as I closed the door. Across from the living room was the bathroom, the door faced the wall of the storage room, not the living room. Down the hall there was a closed door, and there was light coming from the right, maybe his bedroom? I went to start down the hall when I noticed one of the toys that were on the floor, it was one that I saw every day at work, a trailer with farm animals in it. I was pressing the different animals making them make their noises when Josh came out of the bathroom.

“Playing with Jesse’s toys?” He came up beside me, slid his arm around my waist and kissed my cheek. Hmm minty, I thought as I smiled up at him.

“He won’t mind, will he?” I pressed the cow’s head and grinned as it mooed.

He shook his head, “No, he’ll just be upset that he wasn’t here to play with you.” Josh took the toy from my hand and placed it on the little play table nearby. Taking my hand in his he led me to the couch and pulled me down next to him.

I turned to him, frowning. “Where is Jess?”

While I was asking the question, he had lifted my hand to his lips; he kissed my palm before he answered. “He’s with his mom. I don’t get him until tomorrow.” He sighed, “That’s what I hate about joint custody; its great when I have him but when I don’t it really sucks.” He was quiet for a moment, then he smiled, “But I get him for Easter holidays and for the summer, so I’m really looking forward to that.” I must have sat there staring at him for too long, because he frowned, “Anna what’s wrong?”

I couldn’t believe it, in one sentence he totally banished all my fears, and I didn’t even have to ask him about it. “I didn’t know.” He asked me what I didn’t know and I told him how I didn’t know he was divorced.

He gave me a funny look, “Anna I wouldn’t be here with you now, if I was still married. I’m not that kind of guy.” He held up his bare left hand. “I would still be wearing the ring.” He looked at his hand, and then looked back at me. “I thought you knew.”

“No, I didn’t know for sure. I mean, I didn’t think you were that kind of guy, there were just things that sometimes made me wonder if I was being stupid.” I knew what I was saying wasn’t making sense. “Josh, you kept leaving abruptly and Carol visiting me at work yesterday didn’t help.”

I’m not sure which made me madder, the fact that I thought he was still married and fooling around with me or the mention of Carol coming to see me. “What did she want?”

I told him everything that she said, including the name calling, I told him how she grabbed my arm and showed him the bruises she left. I also told him that she pushed me, how I fell and about being off work for a couple days because of it. Then finally I told him about seeing her pregnant belly and how she made it seem like the baby was his. And that’s when he finally lost it. “Son of a -” His hands balled up into fists, he was shaking.

“Josh?” I went to touch his shoulder, but he jumped off the couch and started to pace the room, mumbling to himself. I watched him for a couple minutes then called his name. “Josh?”

He stopped pacing and stopped mumbling. He looked at me and started to laugh, “You know, I knew she hated me but never did I think she would…argh!” He fell down on the couch next to me, leaning forward he rested his forehead against his fist and shook his head. “She’s the one who left me, she’s the one who found someone else and didn’t want to be with me anymore. I never did anything to hurt her, not even when we were going through the divorce and she was trying to say that the baby wasn’t mine.” He turned to me, “She was 4 months pregnant with Jess when she left.” My jaw dropped when I heard that. He sighed, “Yeah, it wasn’t pretty and I don’t like to talk about it that much. Jess is obviously mine; he looked like me when I was a baby from the day he was born.”

I lifted my hand to his shoulder, and leaned against him. “He looks more and more like you every day.”

Josh grinned, “Yeah.” He turned to me and pulled me into his arms, “Honey I’m so sorry that I brought this on you. I never thought that anything like that would happen. I promise you, it won’t happen again.”

“Josh you can’t control what she does. I’m just glad that she’s full of it.” I kissed his cheek. “Because I have to tell you, the thought that you might be married didn’t really stop me.”

He laughed, “No, it didn’t, you little minx.” He lowered his head to kiss me and I met him halfway.

We were laying in each others arms talking and kissing when his stomach started to growl. Laughing, we decided to make some grill cheese sandwiches for breakfast. Josh was at the fridge pulling out margarine and cheese slices when there was a knock on his door. He glanced at me and frowned, “Were you expecting anyone?”

I gave him a funny look and laughed, “Josh this is your apartment, who would be looking for me?”

He shook his head, “Oh right. Here,” He passed me the margarine and the cheese then kissed me on the lips. “You get started and I’ll get rid of whoever’s at the door.”