Dishonorably Discharged: A Love Story Read online

  ***

  The next morning, I was on pins and needles. This had to work. Not only did it have to work, it had to work correctly. I had to make sure I ran into him, but make it look like an accident. I put on one of my favorite body hugging outfits, a tight black blouse with a thigh-hugging pencil skirt, and waited the day out at work.

  Work went by much faster than I expected. I don’t even remember what we did. I just remember walking in and walking out a nervous wreck. I trotted to my car repeating the same sentence aloud: “Don’t mess this up, Kate. Don’t mess this up.”

  I nervously inserted the key in my little Honda and left the parking lot, brimming with anxiety. He didn’t know I was showing up. His reaction is not going to be planned. While everything looked all right on Facebook, four months is a long time. I knew he still had love for me but I was about to find out if he still loved me… or so I thought.

  It took me ten minutes to arrive at the Burger Shack Justin was working at. After another ten minutes of talking myself into it, I finally got the courage to walk through the door. It was now or never. Sweat dripped down the small of my back. I was super nervous. I killed time with the hostesses at the front so I could get a peek into the kitchen. I couldn’t see him.

  I sat down, ordered, and played on my phone just in case he were to show up. I did not want to be caught looking for him. Twenty minutes later, my stomach was full, I was bored, and there was still no sight of my husband. I peeked in the kitchen every chance I could get. He wasn’t back there. The trip was a bust.

  I would repeat the same routine four times and not see Justin. It was beginning to irk me. Maybe his schedule was different from mine. Maybe I had the wrong location. Maybe I had bad luck. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be, I thought.

  That was until the fateful evening that changed everything.

  That evening I was driving back from the Burger Shack, once again frustrated I couldn’t find Justin. It was an average night. Not too many cars were on the road. It wasn’t raining or cold. It was a normal fall day.

  BOOM! BOOM!

  I must have run the car over something on the right side. I felt the car shake violently. This was just what I needed, a flat tire. I pulled over to assess the damage. The car was fine thankfully, but now there was the issue of the flat tire on the rear passenger side. It wasn’t fully flat but I needed to do something before it was. I didn’t feel like trying to change the tire by myself, so I decided I could drive it long enough to get to a gas station and buy some Fix-A-Flat. If I knew what I know now, I would have probably changed the tire. That singular decision changed everything in my life.

  I pulled over at a BP station. I’d never been to this specific location before. I forgot how I was dressed as I briskly walked through the automatic doors, cleavage bursting out of my white blouse from the black bra underneath.

  Then I saw him.

  The station attendant was a 6’3” tall glass of milk made right from the mold I like. He looked like a blue-collar version of Bradley Cooper with his chiseled jaw lined by dark brown stubble, his hair going every which way, and tight biceps peaking out of a white t shirt. In a weird way, he looked like Justin, if Justin really stopped grooming and had brown eyes. I knew it right then that this stop was going to be bad for my marriage.

  “Excuse me!” I yelled over to him.

  I caught him off guard, his back partly turned to me. I could tell my outfit startled him when he got a good look. I supposed he liked what he saw.

  “Can I help you?” he said as he leaned over the counter. Those biceps were going a good job of keeping him upright and I was enjoying the view.

  “Fix-A-Flat. Do you have it?” I asked.

  He immediately left the counter to join me on the other side. “Flat tire?” His voice was strong and filled with bass, unlike anything I heard from Justin lately.

  “Yeah,” I replied. It was time to play up the damsel in distress. Maybe Bradley Cooper would fix my flat and maybe some other things, free of charge.

  “Is that your car?” he said as he pointed towards my lonely Honda Civic. The streetlights illuminated it like a little white bean.

  “Yeah. I hit something on the road.” I said.

  “It just happened? Fix-A-Flat isn’t going to do anything if you’ve got a hole. Let me take a look at it and we’ll see what can be done.” We walked out to the car. The tire was completely flat now.

  Bradley grabbed his steel stubbly jaw with a perplexed look. I’m not sure if he was thinking about the car or checking me out in the reflection. Either way, I adjusted myself just in case. He broke the silence. “Do you have a donut?”

  “Yeah,” I replied. I beeped the car and hopped inside to pop the trunk. He looked through my trunk while I adjusted myself in my visor mirror. A moment later, he came to my car door. A little smirk was on his face. “You don’t have a jack? What’s the point of the spare if you can’t use it, young lady?”

  “I know. I lost it somewhere,” I replied.

  “I have one inside. Let’s get it. You don’t need to sit in the car alone at this hour.”

  We slowly walked back to the station. A manly confidence lulled in the air. He turned to me again with that sly little smirk. “Do you even know how to change a tire?” I could tell by the way he asked, he was setting me up.

  “No,” I admitted.

  “You gon’ learn today!” Bradley did his best impression.

  OH. MY. GOD. This white boy did not just break out a Kevin Hart joke on me. I think I felt my body temperature rise thirty degrees as he laughed at me with those bold brown eyes. I had to know his real name.

  “James,” he said confidently. He must get hit on all the time. “And who are you? You got a name, young lady?” he asked.

  “Kaitlyn. You can call me Kate though. Hey, this is a bit odd but has anyone told you that you kind of look like…”

  “Bradley Cooper.” He cut me off. “I get that all the time.” He drew out the word “all” to emphasize his point.

  He disappeared into the back of the store before reappearing with the jack. “Got it. Class is in session, girly,” he teased. This guy was a jerk, but wow was he a hot jerk.

  We went back to the car and I watched as James lifted it up on the jack and spun a couple of the lug nuts off. His back muscles rippled with every move and I stared with each moment. He turned back to me.

  “Come down here. You need to learn how to do this.” I grabbed the long tire iron and slid it on the fitting nut. I twisted the iron until the nut fell to the ground. James was silent the entire time. Perhaps he took the opportunity to enjoy the view of my cleavage bouncing about.

  I handed him the tire iron back and he changed the tire in a matter of minutes. He pointed out things here and there as he went along, but I was too distracted to listen. I just nodded as he did his thing.

  “You can take the bad tired to a tire shop. They might be able to plug it for you,” he said.

  “Thank you so much,” I replied.

  “No problem.” He smirked once again and started to head back to the store. I had to stop him.

  “Hey, James?”

  He turned back to me. That slick grin was still on his face. He already knew what the deal was.

  “Do you want to call me sometime?” I asked. This was a bit forward but I figured no one would know if I was rejected. It was just him and me.

  “Sure,” he replied. I quickly gave him my number and thanked him once more before heading home. I knew that I still needed to find Justin but in the meantime, a girl has to look out for herself. Besides, if my car ever broke down again I knew exactly whom I was going to call.

  4

  I waited four days. James never called. If only he had Rashon’s false confidence. A guy like James must have women galore to choose from. What did he need me for?

  That’s how I would have thought if I wasn’t in my situation. My estranged husband was impossible to find outside of Facebook, and my bestie
was trying to set me up with a guy with the personality of a banana peel. I wasn’t totally lonely but it was time to jump out of the frying pan and into the fryer, if you know what I mean.

  I sent James the first text on the fourth day. I never contact first but this was a special exception.

  “Hey what’s up? ”

  Four minutes later, he responded.

  “Hey!”

  “What are you doing?”

  It totally felt like high school again. Goodness, I hadn’t played the phone tag game in years.

  “Chillin.”

  I really wasn’t up for the one word text game. I’m sure he was sending these texts with that stupid aloof smile of his.

  “Do you know who this is?”

  I was trying to get conversation going. I was sure he would send a one-word answer. Two minutes later, my phone beeped.

  “Yes.”

  Darn it. I wasn’t up for this game all night but if he wanted to engage, I figured I’d see how far this would go.

  “Can you write more than 1 word responses?”

  Two minutes later, he replied. “Yes.”

  It was time to turn the tables.

  “I know you aren’t the brightest bulb in the box but come on!”

  “LOL” was all he sent back. I’m sure he wasn’t laughing anything beyond that stupid smirk. My phone beeped again.

  “Says the girl who can’t change a tire…”

  Finally! I got something out of him. I’m not sure how these things usually go. I don’t remember the last time I was texting someone I liked. I do remember not having to be the one courting though.

  “So what’s up? What are you fixing today?”

  “Nothing today. That’s two words.”

  “Technically five but no one is counting.”

  “LOL. What are you doing?”

  “Waiting for you to call me.”

  “Do you want me to call you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if I only say one word?”

  “I will hang up LOL.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “Try me.”

  “Ok.”

  “Call me in five minutes.”

  “Ok.”

  It was done. Texting was fun and all, but you don’t really know a person unless you can hear their tones and voice inflection. Besides, texting was taking too long. I was trying to do something fun to take my mind off work and Justin. Texting was not what I had in mind.

  Five minutes passed and no call. Maybe I was too desperate. Maybe he forgot. Maybe he just didn’t like me like that.

  Screw it, I thought. I’d pass time on Justin’s Facebook page. I still hadn’t been able to run into him since learning where he was working. Maybe I could get some new information. If I had his number I’d just call him, but he never had a cell phone. He always said they were a waste of time and routed all his calls to his friends or me and worked us like mini secretaries. That’s the thing about him. He was always walking his own path whether that be not having a phone... or dating a black girl.

  Back to Facebook. I logged in and quickly clicked to his page.

  Yes, this was now my life. On a regular Tuesday night when I should be enjoying the company of my lover, I was now making love to the illuminated dim from my MacBook. This was now an everyday occurrence to keep my mind off things.

  Bam! Got it. I found a photo of Justin at work with the caption “chilling on the noon shift.” He was making one of his patented childishly cute faces in the photo. I noted the time and decided I would pop up on him in a few days wearing my best freak ‘em dress. Then it happened.

  Ding!

  What was that?

  Ding!

  A little window popped up on the lower right hand side of the page. It was Justin, talking to me in Facebook chat. I totally forgot that you could talk to people in real time on Facebook. I almost never used it. However there he was, flashing in the little window on my screen.

  “Hey! What’s up?”

  I didn’t know what to do. Should I play it cool? Should I ignore him? Nah, I couldn’t ignore him because obviously he could see that I was online. Since he had no phone, I knew this was probably as close to a conversation as I could have with him for a while. I decided to keep my cool and be cordial.

  “Hey! How have you been?” I sent back. I could feel the excitement in my facial expression.

  “Chilling. What are you doing on here?”

  He pulled my card that fast. He obviously knew what was up. I played dumb regardless. The last thing I needed was for him to know I was e-stalking him.

  “Looking at some photos of my sister and the babies! What’s new with you. Long time no hear.”

  “Awesome. Killing time before sleep. Yeah long time ”

  There was that darn sad face. I sent back, “So how have you been? What are you doing?”

  “Working at Burger Shack. I’m sure you heard.”

  “Glad to hear that you’re working.”

  “Yeah. But I”

  He stopped. I pressured him on.

  “You what?”

  “I don’t know how to say this,” he started. “I realllllly miss you.”

  “I miss you too.” I sent back, tears starting to well up in my eyes. Why were we reduced to this? It was time to cut straight to the point. I continued.

  “We need to go out. Let’s do something,” I sent. It was worth a shot.

  “Yes. That would be good,” he sent back.

  We chatted for about an hour on there about life, our relationship, and random topics like Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. I always appreciated his perspective on things. His realism kept me balanced. I think it’s what made us work. We decided that we’d go mini golfing that weekend and that I’d meet him at his friend’s place before we left. I still didn’t know what to expect or how far down this road I was prepared to go, but it was time. Almost five months had passed and there was no other serious contender in sight. I didn’t care what my family or friends said. I was going to try to make it work again with my husband.