“Yes.”
“Hell no.”
Andrew’s head swings in my direction so quickly I know his neck hurts.
“This is the best solution. We can sell your house and move into the condo until we can find a bigger place. I already have Jessica looking for something for us.”
“What about Ms. Kiely?” AJ asks.
Andrew glances down at his watch and fiddles with the band. “Kiely and I are ummm...over. We broke up a few weeks ago.”
At this, I laughed. I spent my morning laughing and kicking it with my girls, but I swear nothing has made me laugh as hard as I’m laughing right now. You would think Andrew was a stand-up comedian. I laughed so hard that I grabbed my sides. When I finally stop, I have to wipe the tears from my eyes.
“Let me get this straight. Kiely left you, and now you think you can just come back to me.”
“Kiely didn’t leave me,” Andrew shouts his face turning red. “I put her out.”
I cock my head to the side and stare at him. This man acts as if I don’t know him. Twenty-three years will teach you a lot about a person. It will teach you to know when he’s lying, nervous, and when he’s embarrassed. All of which he’s showing signs of right now.
“I was wondering why the last few times I saw you, you looked disheveled. Now it all makes sense.”
“It doesn’t matter what happened between me and Kiely. This is about you and me getting back together. You begged me to stay with you when I asked for the divorce.”
“Yes, because I was stupid and didn’t know the gift you were giving me.” I scoff. “You were right.” I let those words sit for a moment as realization dawns on me.
“For the first time since that divorce, I finally saw what you saw. You were miserable, Andrew.” He nods his head in agreement, a smirk slipping onto his lips. “But so was I.” That smirk immediately falls.
“You thought you were the only one suffering in our marriage? You thought you were the only one just getting by? I was drowning in that loveless, stationary marriage. And it took you disrespecting me in front of my family and friends and leaving us like we were trash for me to finally come to the realization of how miserable I was.
“But I have to thank you. I really do, because you leaving me forced me to come to reality and see that I had lost myself. I’d given so much love, time, and energy to you and the boys that I had nothing left for myself. In the past year, I’ve found my voice again. I found my confidence, my freedom. I’ve built my own community of friends who love and nurture me. I found my passion for life and baking, and I was reminded of the woman who had dreams. Dreams she put aside for everyone else.”
I take a moment to take in my own words. Yes, the divorce broke me. I don’t think I’d ever felt that low in my life, but thank God for it. Because it gave me the strength to rebuild and to come back stronger. It reminded me of the woman I forgot was buried inside me.
Placing my attention back on Andrew, I say with my full chest. “I don’t want you. Even if there were no Mitch, I still wouldn’t want you. I love myself entirely too much to go back to you.”
“I know that’s right, Baby!” my mom shouts from the hallway, letting me know she overheard the entire exchange.
Andrew leaps to his feet. His face is beet-red. “So that’s it, you’re going to run back to Mitch even though you were my ex-wife? Even though our son doesn’t want this and—”
I hold up a hand, cutting off his tangent just like he was doing me. I meant it to be as disrespectful as it had felt to me.
Turning to my son, I give him my full attention. “AJ, I love you with all my heart. You are my baby boy, and I will do everything I can to protect you. But you aremychild. I’m not yours. You don’t get to dictate my life. I understand this is a lot of change foryou. First your dad and I getting a divorce, and then him being engaged. And now me and Mitch.
“It’s not the most ideal situation, but I love Mitchell. I love him on a level that I never thought I’d experience.” Grabbing my son’s hand in mine, I squeeze for assurance.
“I respect your feelings. If this is too much for you to handle, and you don’t want to be around it, then I’ll let you go stay with your father, if that’s what you need. Because although I’m going to live my life, I will always make sure you and your brother are taken care of and feel safe. That won’t ever change. But don’t make me neglect my own needs for your happiness. I did it for fifteen years with your father; I refuse to do it again.”
My son’s eyes well up with tears that cascade down his face. “I want you to be happy too. I’m sorry.”
He wraps his arms around me tightly. I hug him back, happy to have him in my arms. It would have been hard having AJ out of the house, but I would have given him his freedom to decide.
“This is bullshit,” Andrew shouts, breaking up me and AJ’s moment.
I wipe the happy tears from my eyes. “This is reality.” I stand on my feet. “Thank you for bringing my boys over, but you can leave now.”
After walking over to the door, I opened it and pointed to the porch. The way Andrew’s eyes shot daggers at me made me look down at my body just to make sure I wasn’t actually bleeding. If looks could kill, I’d be dead and gone.
He storms over to the door with a sneer. “You’re going to run back to him, aren’t you?”
