…and only one earbud in my ear.
I grabbed my empty ear for the missing earbud, wishing for it to appear before feeling around my sweatshirt and retracing my steps back to the car.
There it was…about ten feet away from my car. Oh good. It looked undamaged. But wait. Why was there a crowd gathered around my car? Administrators, teachers, and even parents from other cars had gotten out and were coming close.
My face burned as I approached, and I was positive I would be publicly flayed for violating the car-rider line protocol.
“I’m so sorry…” I scooped up the missing earbud off the ground, taking the other out of my ear and tucking both safely in my Christmas pajama pockets. No one was paying attention, and there weren’t any snarky remarks or even dirty looks.
Grace’s and Aliya’s voices blared from my open car door through my car speakers like a female-centric, girlfriends-giving-it-to-you-straight style podcast.
“So let me get this straight…” Aliya was ramping up. “A stripper named Amber Saaavory,” she drew out the name with exaggerated, comedic enunciation, “tempts your husband into an affair, tells him she won’t fuck him unless he leaves you?—”
“Aliya, there’s no need to be so crass,” Grace countered.
“Girl, there is some sketchy shit of what defines sex going on there. He’s getting something from her besides a coffee date.” Aliya didn’t do tame or censored when she got going. And she was just warming up.
I scrambled toward my car and tripped past the wide-eyed administrator, afraid of what would come from Aliya’s mouth. Maybe I should have mentioned that Amber was the beloved PTA president and knew everyone in the school and neighborhood.
It also would’ve helped if I hadn’t had their voices broadcasting out of my car speakers.
“Kelce. Let Savory Amber have that pencil dick,” Grace said.
I rounded the car, almost face-planting when I misjudged the step off the curb.
I dove into the car and started pushing all the buttons on my dash, trying to disconnect my call. “Do we need to come down there?”
I grabbed my phone and pushed multiple buttons before it disconnected, and then I closed my car door to lock out the world.
Cue the horns and shouting from the parents behind me.
The entertainment I provided to liven up their morning was over, and now, I was Kelcie Byron, the pathetic woman whose husband left her on a promise of sex with the PTA president—and I was ruining the car-rider line.
I needed caffeine. I needed a new life.
2
Kelcie
The repercussions of the drama in the drop-off line hit hard and fast.
James came home in the middle of the day, not just to abscond with more small appliances, but to ream me out for publicly humiliating Amber.
Our broadcast made it through the halls of the middle school quicker than wildfire. Being PTA president, Amber was volunteering and spent the morning in the teachers’ lounge, crying.
It was my fault.
I’d humiliated her.
After all, it wasn’t her fault my husband fell in love with her.
It wasn’t her fault our marriage failed.
Because, after all, she wouldn’t have sex with him if we were together. She had done the right thing. She wasn’t an adulteress or anything.
I didn’t say a word. I just crossed my arms and leaned against the wall while he listed how I had behaved immaturely and explained how this didn’t have to be filled with so much drama.
“I’m sorry if you’re hurt or if you have unresolved feelings for me, Kelce, but don’t take them out on her.”
