I looked around one more time to make sure no one was looking our way.
“Look. We don’t know what the future holds. He could decide to leave. He could want to move back to where his parents are. We have no idea.”
“Not everyone leaves, babe.” Erica’s sympathetic look didn’t help me.
“Yeah, but almost everyone I know has left at some point.” I hooked a thumb at Alexa. “She went off to college and I stayed here. Don’t even get me started on my family. My parents left the moment I walked across my graduation stage, leaving before the candles were blown out on my eighteenth birthday cake, and even before that I never saw them. I wasn’t a priority to any of them, just some kid who came around at the wrong time. My sisters moved away and never kept in contact, and then one time they tried to it was to persuade me to watch their kids while they went on a spa retreat. My brothers, well, I hear from Eric sometimes, more when Alexa was with Adam, but I mean, it wasn’t consistent. Jim is god only knows where and no one seems to care to find out. So, how can I expect Greg to stay when all of that has happened?”
“Lilly.” Alexa’s eyes pleaded with me to stop battering myself.
“It’s the truth, though. The only person from my family I still talk to is Eric and even then it’s only when he isn’t busy with work, with that she-devil of a wife, or the kids.” I sank back down into the booth, admitting defeat.
“None of that is your fault.” Alexa got out of the booth and pushed me further in my side so she could sit next to me. “I left for Adam, not your fault. Your parents had you at an older age, again, not your fault. Your whole family not contacting you, not your fault, either.”
“She’s right, you know.” Erica nodded her head towards Alexa. “And just for the record, I’ve never left you.”
“True, but what happens when you find the right man and fall in love and want to have kids and then want to move away or get a different job or even?” Erica reached across the table and held her hand over my mouth to shut me up.
“Clearly someone let out the insane Lilly today.”
“Oh, shut up.” I shoved Erica’s hand away, scooted into the farthest corner of the booth and continued to devour my sandwich.Food. Food always helped.
“But seriously, Lilly, what’s going on?” Alexa’s face went from bright to dim as she saw how I was retreating. “You got married and now you’re getting a divorce, but I feel like there is more to it than that…”
“Well, aren’t you insightful.” I cringed at my sarcasm, knowing it wasn’t the time for it. I hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, but this just wasn’t the conversation I wanted to have today. I huffed out an exasperated breath and began the quick tale of what exactly had happened to Greg and me.
“We got married on your wedding night.” I pointed towards a surprised Alexa and then continued. “The next day I tried to get it annulled but the chapel had been too quick in their paperwork process and they couldn’t file the divorce for us since we weren’t residents.”
I took another sip of my tea as the girls waited to hear more.
“When we got back to Atlanta, I set up an appointment to meet with a judge to grant the divorce and that backfired. Now we have to go to couples counseling twice a week until the end of the month and at the end of that, if one of us still wants a divorce, then she will grant it.”
“That’s not bad at all!” Alexa looked hopeful.
“I also kissed Greg.” Both girls looked at each other like they weren’t surprised. “And we slept together.”
I let the last part hang in the air, because I hadn’t even admitted to myself that we had been together on our wedding night. That’s why this made it so much harder. We had consummated this relationship and I wanted it over with already.
“I didn’t know we were telling people yet, Lilly.” The stern voice came from behind the booth and I spun around to see Greg looming over me.
“Greg.” Now it was my turn to plead with him. The hurt in his eyes told me I had fucked up. We couldn’t figure out a way to even tell his mother what had happened, and here I was spilling the beans in a public sandwich shop.
“Don’t.” He snapped his eyes away from me and looked towards the girls. “It was nice to see you ladies.”
He focused his attention back to me, but only briefly.
“I’ll see you Wednesday.” Greg walked out the door and didn’t look back. He left us sitting in the busy restaurant alone.
I turned back towards the girls and waited for someone to say something, but when neither of them did, I knew it was bad. I put my head in my hands again and ran my fingers through my hair.
It was going to be a stressful 48 hours before this first counseling session, and I was going to have to see Greg each day leading up to it. Now that the girls knew, it was just a matter of time before Max, Chase, and Jack knew about it, too. It wasn’t just because they were co-owners of The Ink Well with Greg, but because they were also his best friends, and Jack was Greg’s brother. But not just his brother, his twin. Clearly, there was no running away from this now.
“Fuck.”
