“Leave.”
When Troy finally pulls his pants on and leaves my house, I am overwhelmed with feelings of anger, sadness, embarrassment and remorse. I drop like a sack of flour in the middle of my bedroom floor and cry until a phone call zaps me out of my one-woman pity party.
“Adrienne?”
“Hey, Dena.”
“Are you ok? You sound off.”
I try to quietly sniffle away from the phone.
“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me. Something is up.”
“Well, you will not believe this.”
“Try me.”
“I just caught Troy in bed with another woman.”
There’s a moment of silence between us. She’s probably just as stunned as I am. We both believed that I had finally found a good one.
“Well, damn, that is definitely not nothing.”
“I know,” I whisper painfully.
“Aww, Adrienne, I’m so sorry. I know you loved him.”
It feels so weird to hear my best friend talk about my fiancee in the past tense already. An hour ago, I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. Now, it’s almost as if Troy is dead. Actually, I guess a piece of my life did just die.
“I do… I mean I did love him.”
“Do you think that maybe you could forgive him in time? Human beings make mistakes. I suppose Troy is human like the rest of us.”
“Absolutely not,” I affirm. “They were in my house and my bed. I could never respect myself if I got back together with him.”
I tear up again, and a frog in my throat forms.
“Then it’s done.”
“Yeah, it’s done.” I sniffle.
“The best thing for you to do to get over a man is to find another one to lie under or on top of,” she suggests. “Don’t wallow by yourself at home, especially tonight.”
“Dena, it just happened.”
“Which is exactly why you need to get out of that house. Hell, it probably still smells like sex in there and you might do something crazy like burn your own damn house down.”
I glance over at the crumpled bed sheets and almost vomit.
She’s right.
There’s no way I’m ever going to even be able to sleep in here tonight.
“I think I’m going to burn these sheets.”
“And maybe you should in a very responsible and contained way, but not tonight. Tonight you should go have a drink or ten. Get shit faced. You know I’d join you but I’ve got that meeting tonight and I’ve already rescheduled it once, but I mean I can if you really need me.”
