Chapter 1: Apocalypse

Apocalypse

KENYA POV

Gosh it hurts.

It hurts so fucking much.

I thought to myself as I clutched my stomach in a tight grip and groaned as the muscles of my now empty stomach jerked up and kicked whatever that was remaining of food in my stomach.

The sound of my best friend gagging into the phone speaker had me chuckling after I had thrown up a fair share into the toilet, then dropped to the floor and wiped my puke-smeared mouth before groaning out loud.

“Seriously girl, you need to get up and go to the doctor. That’s one hell of food poisoning you got there.” She accused into the speaker, and I breathed slowly through my nostrils as I searched for the discarded phone on the floor with my left hand.

“Only if you tell me why the hell you are gagging that side.” I countered dryly, feeling so drained all I wanted was to curl up in a ball and just sleep.

I was so tired. So spent.

“You’ve been throwing up for the past three hours. That’s so damn unhealthy and yes, I could smell all that puke through the phone.” She hollered, causing me to chuckle softly as my stomach growled once again.

I winced at the slicing ache that flared through my entire belly, dizziness clutched my brain and I pinched my eyes shut.

Whatever it was I ate, had to be banned across the world.

No one deserved this kind of torture.

“I will ask Royal to take me when he gets here.” I murmured into the phone, clutching my stomach for the umpteenth time.

“It’s eleven, Kenya.” She informed like I didn’t know.

“Thanks for reminding,” I responded dryly, trying to focus on her voice instead of the angry growling of my stomach.

“You’re not getting it. It’s 11, almost midnight and your husband isn’t home? Need I remind you that it has been raining  cats and dogs the entire evening?” Her voice was loud. So damn loud that it rang painfully in my ears.

“What are you trying to say Ann?” I asked slowly falling onto my side and curling myself in embryo position against the cold bathroom floor. I couldn’t move a muscle. Everything hurt, even breathing felt like my lungs were ballooning in my chest and cramping against my ribs.

“What I am saying is Royal has been acting up. And I know you love him, friend, but this is completely out of character.” She accused, and my mind instantly caught up on what she was hinting at.

But not today. I would think of it later, just not now. I was so fucking drained I could die if I exhausted my mind any further.

“He lost his job, Ann. Anyone who was laid off without much of a reason does go crazy. Plus I am barely making enough to cover for the living. We have mortgage and renovations expenses up our necks. Of course he’s losing his shit. Cut the man some slack.” I felt inclined to defend him, yet a part of him was starting to believe that something was awfully wrong.

Everything he has been doing lately was just so not like him.

It has been a little over a month and for the past few weeks, he was just not himself. He was here, yet he felt so far away I could barely feel his presence. It was as though I was living with the ghost of him, and that a part of him had died. So what if he lost his job?

Did that make him any less of a man he was?

Fuck no! Yet I was living with a stranger in my own house, sleeping with him on the same bed and waking up to empty, cold sheets.

He was a stranger because the man I loved and got married to was the kind to sob on his woman’s chest and hide from the problems of this life. Not disappear into the night and come back reeking of alcohol. But Anna didn’t know that. No one had to know that, at least not yet.

My family’s problems belonged to me.

“If you insist, friend. But all I am saying, don’t ignore the red flags.” She said after a long moment, and I nodded as though she could see me.

We stayed silent for a moment longer until she cursed out so loud I felt like my ear drum had exploded.

“Fuck this shit.” A few rustling sound.

“I am coming to get you.” She said, and I believed her entirely.

“You gotta be in bed An. Roy will take me to the doctor when he gets here.” Between Anna and I, I don’t who exactly needed the reassurance. But I wasn’t going to have Anna drive 45 minutes on this rainy night from her place to mine just so she could take me to the doctor’s. She had a lot of shit on her plate to be dealing with another woman’s meshuga.

I had a husband to deal with all of that.

“Where the hell is he? You are dying there on the floor.” She thundered, and this time, I actually smiled.

“He’ll be here in a minute.” I mumbled, then closed my eyes and summoned sleep.

If he didn’t come, then he’d find me dead on this floor.

Anna spewed out a few colourful words and I soothed her each time, then decided to end the call because hearing me breathing as though I was on life support wasn’t helping the situation. Her reluctance was palpable, but at the end she succumbed and bid me good night.

I was just about to fall into slumber when the door to our bedroom creaked open, then followed by my name.

Hope blossomed in my chest and I willed myself to get up from the floor before scream a weak ‘in here’. The sound of footsteps approaching was heard before the door was ripped open, then Royal stepped into the bathroom looking even more drained.

His eyes found me on the floor and he swallowed audibly before pushing his hands into the pockets.

“I don’t feel so good.” I said the obvious and then fumbled with my clothes before attempting to get up.

“Kenya, we need to talk.” He said dryly, his eyes looking anywhere than my face. His tense shoulders, his unruly hair that looked like he'd been raking his fingers through, the heavy stench of alcohol...

Something was totally off.

The sirens went off in my head so loud that they overshadowed the pain and cramps in my stomach. I found myself fumbling for answers, totally forgotten about the pain.

"What is it? Is everything alright?" I asked and then thanked the heavens when I finally made it to my feet. I took a step towards him, then halted when he took a defensive step backward.

Royal gulped audibly before hanging his head between his shoulders.

"Just... Come to the living room." with that, he spun around and walked out of the bathroom, leaving me gobsmacked and even more perplexed than I had been.

I stayed glued in one spot asking myself bazillion questions.

Just what had gotten him so haggard? Were we going to lose the house? The cars? He had already host his job and I understood he could not afford to lose anything more. But he had me, and he would be dressed in a sack, I would still choose him over everyone else.

"We are okay. We got this." I repeated the mantra and wobbled to the living room. My thoughts were dispersed, my body feeling like I had just gotten off one-on-one with The Rock, and all I wanted was just sleep. Nothing else. But what option did a girl have when her man walked up to her looking like he had just risen from the dead?

I entered the living room and frowned.

Royal was perched on the couch with his head cradled in his hands, and a white envelope on the coffee table infront of him. The rhythmic drip drip of the rain against glass suddenly sounded like a tune from the horror movie, and the dark room translated the dreary atmosphere, making me want to run and hide.

"What's going on, Royal?" I don't know if I was ready for the answer. Whatever that was happening was the literal apocalypse because the man I married has never looked anything like this.,

He remained unmoving for a few heartbeats before straightening up, then grasped the corner of the envelope and raised it towards me.

Reluctantly, I reached for it with shaky hands then watched him for a minute too long before focusing on the envelope.

"Royal you are scaring me." were we really losing the house? Or was he being shipped to Mars where I wasn't going to see him for the next 30 years? I mean that had to be the reason for his haggard look and locked-out self.

"Just open the damn envelope Kenya." he thundered, causing my heart to leap into my throat. In our two years of marriage, not even once has he ever raised his voice at me. Yet here he sat, looking like he would rather be anywhere in the world than in five mile radius with the woman he swore to spend the rest of his life with.

A lot of curse words danced in my brain but I swallowed them down with the rising emotion then wrestled with the seal of the envelope with my trembling hands.

I fished the papers out, and the bold, letters that stared right back at me stole the air from my lungs.

Reality blurred, and for a good minute, I felt like I was floating in thin air.

My eyes couldn't move passed the words DIVORCE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT that were written in the biggest most darkest letters I've ever seen in all my life.

"This..." I wanted to scream, to curse out, or maybe to hit something. Heck, I wanted Royal to burst out laughing, and tell me it was a joke, then pull me into his arms and kiss  me. It had to be a joke right? Or a dream. A long cruel dream of me acting and the man I loved more than I loved my own life was divorcing me.

"I have already signed my Part. It is stated that you can keep everything. I'll finish off the mortgage and the renovation..."

"Royal, you aren't making any sense. What the hell is all of this about?" I could hear him speak but none of his words were making sense. The entire room was suddenly too hot, too hot that I felt like my upper body was hooded in a furnace.

"Don't make this complicated Kenya. Please. Just sign the papers and.."

"No! " I chunked the envelope onto the coffee table before clenching my fists so tight that my nails dug into my palms. Pain flared into my system, and I focused on the physical sting than the grand canyon that was suddenly hollowed into my chest.

"I know you haven't been okay since you lost your job, and I know you feel bad for not being able to provide, but I love you, and I know you love me so I am just going to forget that all of this is happening and go to bed." I don't know when I had started crying, but at that point unbidden tears were pouring down down my face like summer rain pour.

Royal didn't respond, instead, he sighed and dropped into the couch and folded his arms across his chest, impatience dripping off his every pore.

“You can’t be serious…” I shook my head drastically, trying to shake off the fog that was slowly clouding my brain.

“You don’t get it do you? All of this was a mistake. We married young, Kenya. And yes we love each other but love alone is not enough to keep us going. Look at us…” He waved his hands around, and my eyes fell on the plastic covered wall on my right that was recently brought down.

“We could barely afford ourselves, or even this house we are living in. And you think its okay? How are we going to live off those….” His face scrunched up in a disgusted look. “-those peanuts you make working at a grocery store? None of it is enough to sustain all of this.” His voice was a 100 octaves higher, and the floodgates opened to even a heavy downpour.

“You don’t mean than.” I breathed out through tears. Something was failing inside of me, like it was shutting off and I didn’t know what it is.

“I know you think I am being unfair but its time we stopped living this day dream and focus on reality. We are bad for each other. All of this was not supposed to have happened…”

“We are bad for each other?” I exploded. I don’t know where the energy came from, but something in his words made me feel like I could conquer the whole world. The audacity of him to insult me in my own face.

“Sorry, need I remind you that I dropped out of college so I could support your dreams? Need I remind you that I stayed with you the night of your exams just so I could support you? Need I remind you we paid off your student loans with the same peanuts I earn from working at the grocery store? I sacrificed so much for you and this is the reward I get? Who the hell are you? Because the Royal I married is not this ungrateful piece of shit standing in front of me.” I roared. Nothing else seemed to matter.

After everything I went through with this man, and he told me all of this crap?

“Then it was your fault investing in the wrong person.” He got up into a standing position, then glared at me with so much hate I thought I was seeing things.

Blood roared in my ears at the sound of my heart break, and I watched as he beelined me and walked towards the door.

I spun around and called out behind him:

“If you walk out that door, Royal, I swear you and I are over.” I screamed. Not knowing what it was I was saying. All I could feel in that moment was pain. So much pain that it numbed my brain. Royal halted for a single heartbeat, and hope blossomed inside of me.

That hope was short lived because he squared his shoulders, then ripped the door open and exited with a loud bang.

Leaving me alone, cold, and achy in our living room.