AFTER SORRY

Omowunmi Felix

Sally picked up the phone with a sigh. She felt her chest tighten.
       Hey!’ she answered.
       Ahmed didn’t respond.
       He always does this, she thought.
       ‘What’s up?’ she repeated as she chewed the inside of her mouth until she drew blood.
       ‘I saw your post. Congratulations.’
       The word sat between them like something rotten.
       ‘Ahmed ...’
       ‘I hope he is everything I wasn’t.’
       ‘Ahmed … Don’t do this, please.’ She raised her hands to her temple and thought how trifling his pettiness was.
       ‘Do what?’ Ahmed replied sharply.
       It surprised her.
       The kettle on the stove started to wheeze loudly. She hated that thin, rising cry. The last time she saw him, he had been packing, shirts folded hurriedly. He hadn’t looked at her, and the kettle had been making all the noise she couldn’t.
       He sighed and quietly asked if they could talk.
       The kettle was screaming now. Sally reached for it aggressively and grazed her finger against the steam. ‘I am sorry. I can never say this enough, Ahmed, but I can’t do this. Not today.’
       ‘Not ever?’
       She turned the stove off and ended the call.

***

I called my lover today knowing I shouldn’t.
       ‘Hey!’ she says softly, carefully, as though to shield me from breaking.
       I tell her congratulations because it is the smallest knife I can manage.
       ‘I hope he is everything I wasn’t.’
       For a minute, I want her to lie. To say it was always me. That I was always enough.
       ‘Don’t do this,’ she says.
       Steam hisses through the line. Then her voice follows, this time steadier.
       ‘I’m sorry I can’t do this.’
       For a second, I want to tell her all the things that words haven’t allowed me to say in the past. To tell her that for all the times I have spent with her, all the prayers I have made, she was the elixir that gave me the answers
       I want to tell her, also, that I am the most sorry, for a love lost and mishandled.
       The line went dead.
       For a minute, I held the phone tightly, hoping and waiting.