However, even in anger, Eden’s ears worked well. She could hear a mouse piss on cotton just as loud as she could hear a drunk man stifling a sob. Her eyebrows furrowed as she listened to him trying to hide the breakdown he was experiencing.

She was still very much stunned by his attack on her character, but she knew she couldn’t dwell on it. In the grand scheme of things, his outburst was a small fish in a big pond. But no matter how small, it eventually would be addressed.

“Get out of your feelings. He said what he said. Add that slick comment to the list of shit you’re about to make him regret. Let him clear his so-called conscience. His somber ass is about to give you some news you can use.” Eden thought.

“Jermaine what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. How can you be mad at your mom? I know you were just a boy when it happened, but baby, it’s not like she left you for another man. She died. We can’t control the day we leave this Earth,” Eden said soothingly.

She spoke with the tenderness of a mother telling her young child the bandage would fix their boo-boo before placing the call on mute and biting into her cheesy Gordita crunch. She was starving. Pretending to be a concerned wife and acting as if she gave a fuck about his feelings or his dead mother, had her as hungry as a 1000-lb Sister. Making a mental note, Eden jotted stress eating and weight gain on the list of things she planned to hold Jermaine responsible for when the time was right.

The act of revenge was so sweet she could taste it. The punishment for his betrayal would not be swift. No, Eden planned to drag it out and prolong his suffering for as long as humanly possible. His pain was pleasing to her. She relished the moment when she could stop with the games and break her foot off in his backstabbing ass.

Jermaine chuckled, a dry humorless chuckle. “That’s just it Edy. My mom could’ve controlled her death by watching the company that she kept. She didn’t die. She was murdered. Murdered by my father.”

An unchewed piece of the crunchy taco slid down Eden’s throat making her choke. She coughed excessively trying to get the piece of chip dislodged from the wall of her esophagus. Eden knew that if she didn’t clear her air passages, she’d be joining Jermaine’s mother.