More lies.
TABITHA: Stop by the bakery tomorrow.
Even if my short relationship with Nate didn’t work out the way I wanted, at least he introduced me to Tabitha, Winnie, and Anessa. Katy too.
ME: Will Nate be there?
I’ve been locked away the last two days and I’m not sure what they know of Nate and my break-up situation.
TABITHA: No, and Ridge says they have handled the situation with the storage.
ME: Em and I will stop in the bakery tomorrow.
It will be nice to get out and see other people again. I forgot how boring it is being locked away indoors all day.
A knock infiltrates the quiet of my apartment and I rush to open the door so the loud banging doesn’t wake Emma. There isn’t much time for my heart to wish it’s Nate pounding on my door, but in the split second it takes me to get there, I do.
I don’t waste a second checking the peephole because if another knock wakes Emma I’ll be furious. And if it is Nate, I don’t want to wait. There’s no reason to give him time to reconsider and run away.
The door swings open and I have a huge smile on my face that drops the second I see who’s on the other side.
It’s not Nate.
14
“Josie, can we talk?” she questions, acting as if I hate her enough to send her away.
I should. Any woman should have the right to say no and slam the door in the face of the person who broke up her marriage. I consider doing it, but then she sniffles and runs a Kleenex underneath her eyes, smearing her mascara. It’s obvious she’s been crying hard even before she made it to my door.
I step back giving her room to come in. “Sure, Lindsey. What’s wrong?”
I don’t even feel guilty that for a split-second I hope she is here to tell me that Barry was in a horrible car accident and was decapitated in a gruesome fashion.
Okay fine, I feel a little guilty about it. He’s an asshole, but he is Emma’s dad.
The skinny tall beautiful blonde who only makes me want to rip out her hair on occasion sits down at my dining room table like my house is a casual place and we’re two best friends having a drink. She lays her hands down on her arms sniffling a few times.
“I think Barry is cheating on me.”
I widen my eyes to look shocked and resist the urge of replying, “That wouldn’t surprise me.” The truth is, it wouldn’t. Barry cheated on me with her. Why would she expect anything less from him now?
But even though I’ve spent countless nights lying in bed hoping for Karma to get them both, I’ve been in her shoes right now and it sucks. You love someone and trust them with your heart only for them to throw it on the ground and do a little tap dance over it. No one deserves that treatment from another human.
“What makes you think so?”
She sniffles letting her head hang. “He’s worked late every night for the last two weeks. He keeps telling me he’s hanging out at the bar with his friends or watching the game, but it’s not true because…”
My head tilts the side. “Those are the same excuses he gave me?”
She nods. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t even listen to me, but I had nowhere else to go.”
My head wobbles like my neck can’t keep it up. Her apology doesn’t make up for all the pain she caused me in the past, but it’s more than I ever thought I’d get.
“Josie, I don’t know what to do.”
To be nice, I sit down in the chair across the table from her. I don’t get why she wants to do anything except break up with him, but it’s not my relationship. “Have you confronted him?”
Once I confronted Barry by standing at the end of our bed screaming, he spent a few minutes denying them, but he crumbled quite easily. He should never go anywhere near a witness stand.
