Saturday Separation

Saturday morning.

Joshua was on his bed, it used to be their bed, but Carly was not there with him anymore. He shifted up and leaned on the bed head, looking to his side where Carly used to be there. He sighed and caressed her pillow.

"I'm sorry Carly, I didn't mean to hurt you, it was only one sentence after all, how could you take this kind of decision just based on one stupid sentence that I said?"

He covered his face with his hands and sobbed into his palms.

His phone rang, it was an alarm. He saw the label on top of the alarm and saw that it was 200 days after Jade's death. Will there be any commemoration for this? In their culture, there are a few commemorations of someone's death, but as he was aware of it, there suppose to be 100 days and then one year. But he decided to go to Carly's parents' house anyway.

It'd been more than a week that he was forbidden to go there and visit Carly. Because everytime Carly's parents picked up any phone call from Joshua, Carly would be throwing fits in any form. But this time Joshua wouldn't tell anyone that he was coming, he would just show up there and show her that he actually cares.

***

Joshua parked his car in front of the house gate and walked in. It was not locked, both the gate and the front door, he could see it half open too. He could also see pairs of shoes in front of the door, which indicate that there were guests, whether they were family or friends. He took a deep breath and pushed the gate open, walked in, and pushed it back to close it. Joshua sighed, walking along the terrace towards the front door. He was so nervous about how Carly would react seeing him come out of nowhere. 

Getting closer to the front door, a guy showed up, a bit taller than him, skinnier, and a bit darker. He was the husband of Carly's best friend, Alesha.

Joshua slightly gasped as he didn't know who it was at first, "Oh, so it's probably only her friends that are here, means no commemoration," he thought, having a slight relief.

"You better not go inside, dude," the guy said.

"Why, what's wrong, anything happens, Dev? But I don't hear anything," Joshua wondered and started feeling nervous.

"Carly has been talking to Alesha, and she's been crying the whole morning and even got a panic attack earlier, she almost fainted," Devon explained, his voice very low, almost whispering.

"Almost fainted?" Joshua couldn't believe it, it had been quite a while now, and Carly was still behaving that way. He thought it was a bit too much. 

Joshua pulled Devon's hand and took him outside the fence to talk alone. He took out a pack of cigarettes and held it out to offer him one. Devon took one and they lit the two sticks.

"Don't you think it's too much, Dev?" Joshua started, blowing the smoke into the air, seemed to be stressful.

"What is?" Devon replied with a question.

"Carly. It's been more than half a year and she's still acting that way," his voice was calm but Devon could notice desperation there.

"You know I can't answer that, Josh," both looked up to the sky and blew the mist of their cigarette, watching it fade away.

"You know Carly the most, Josh. She was longing for the baby very much. She prepared things, even influenced Alesha and made her excited too. And the way you told her that you can make another baby just sounds… mean. I understand what you meant, but you said it in a successfully wrong way. It's not like she's a baby factory," Devon shrugged and shook his head. He felt upset actually, Joshua could probably notice the tone of his voice.

Joshua was about to defend himself more when both of the guys heard footsteps coming toward them and looked around. It was Carly, she noticed that Devon was not in the house and asked Alesha where he was. Alesha didn't know and Carly started to sense something and apparently she was right, she saw Devon outside and caught a glimpse of Joshua next to him. 

Carly stopped and stood in front of the guys. Her face was red, swollen eyes looked still a little bit wet, showing that she was still crying until not long ago. Her deep eyes pierced at Joshua, and an arm flung all of  a sudden, landing a loud slap on Joshua's cheek. Joshua was stunned as his skin felt the sting.

"How dare you show your face here?" her voice was cold and stern, leaving everyone who was there witnessing it speechless and frozen.

"Carly, I…" Joshua couldn't finish his sentence, he didn't know how to answer a furious woman like Carly at that moment, everything that would come out from his mouth would put him in guilt.

"We have to divorce soon, Josh."

Alesha and Devon looked at Carly in surprise. They both knew how much  Carly was a love slave to Joshua, and now divorce?