Not once did he ever let on that he was no longer satisfied, and I had made peace with the fact that I would never have the great love my parents and sister had with their partners. I convinced myself that I could live without the wild, crazy passion they had in their lives and make do with what I had.
I’d long locked away that part of me that had been so brutally shattered when Julius turned me away that last time. My heart was safe from harm, and though I didn’t love him with a deep passion, there was enough there for us to build on. I know now that I had been lying to myself.
The relief I felt when I found out about the affair was proof of that. But it started long before the revelations came. From the moment he started talking about the new girl at the office, I knew something was up. I didn’t let on; I just sat quietly and listened to him talk, day in and day out.
There was a point where I even expected him to tell me that he wanted to call it quits to pursue her. I’d been honest with him always, after all, and expected the same from him, but that conversation never came.
To make matters worse, he introduced me to her; she smiled in my face the few times we met. We socialized at a few of his company's soirees, where some of his colleagues knew me and knew that we were in a relationship. It was this point that made me do what I did.
The fact that these two imbeciles thought they could play me for a fool just rubbed me the wrong way. I wasn’t sure how far they had gone when I started putting my plans in motion, but I knew it was only a matter of time. I didn’t miss the subtle flirting, even when I was present, or the secret looks between those two.
And then the whispers started in our friend circle. It wasn’t fun pretending to be dumb, deaf, and blind to what was going on around me, but I knew I had to play it right. If I made a scene, it would hurt me more than them, I was sure, and I’d end up looking weak. I couldn’t have that.
Once I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach, I knew that there was more to the whispers than conjecture and speculation. That’s when I sat down and thought about the situation. Now, if Dale had come to me like a man and broken things off so he could go on with his life, I would’ve respected that. But he lied to my face. You only lie to fools and people you don’t respect.
So, after a full weekend spent looking inward, I decided to play the game. I wanted out at that point, whether the affair was an actuality or not, but I was still giving him the chance to come clean; I thought I owed us that much, at least. He’d stayed with me all those years, knowing that he wasn’t the love of my life, and I told myself that I was willing to let him go if he’d found that with someone else. No harm, no foul.
But then Charlotte, the side piece, started acting cute. This chick was smirking every time she saw me, like she knew something I didn’t. It was her behavior, more than anything, that set me on the course of action I took.
One day, just out of the blue, it was as if something switched off for me. You see, I was being soft because of the fact that I wasn’t in love with Dale and had never been. So, I couldn’t very well begrudge him finding his one true love if that is what this was, but the difference is I was upfront and honest with him from the very beginning.
It’s not my fault that he convinced himself that he could make me fall in love with him, but still, we had been there for each other, and we were a team. But when that switch happened, I started looking at things a bit differently.
Had I not been honest with him from the start, his actions may have been excusable. But the fact that I had been and he had accepted changed everything. What it boiled down to was the fact that he was playing me for a fool.
Not only that, he and his side bitch were basically laughing at me behind my back, whether literally or figuratively. That is the point where I decided that even if they had not yet crossed the line, they had done enough to warrant my wrath.
So, what did I do? I weighed the pros and cons of the situation. I paid attention and kept my eyes and ears peeled. Once I was sure that it wasn’t just my imagination, I put my plan in motion.
You see, I had decided that since those two wanted to play me, I was going to destroy them. They may have forgotten, but I didn’t, that there is such a thing as a fraternization clause at their company. But that wasn’t all I was after. Dale and I shared the same friends, give or take a few.
I was damned if I was going to lose any of them to these two morons. Friendships I had cultivated over the years will not be lost because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. I was not about to lose anything, least of all my dignity, and definitely not my tribe.
So, I went into stealth mode. The game had been set in play. I no longer wanted the man, but that did not mean some smarmytwit with more tits than brains was going to muddy my waters. At some point, I developed a real hate for this girl, Charlotte. She not only broke girl code, but that twit smiled in my face and pretended we were, if not friends, then acquaintances.
So, while those two thought that they had me fooled and had pulled the wool down over my eyes, I was moving in the shadows. I started making excuses whenever there was anything to do with his job. Those dinners I once attended with him, the get-togethers for the company, any and everything, I begged off. I smiled whenever I ran into Miss Hot Pants, never once letting on that I knew what she was up to.
When he had to go out of town on business, I sent him on his merry way without a doubt. Of course, I cut back on all bedroom activities, not that he noticed, since he was getting it elsewhere. I gave them all the space they needed to do what they did.
I pretended not to see when I saw. Pretended not to hear when I did. Each late night at the office, that was really him running off to see her, was documented. He never knew about the tracking device on his car or the listening device I’d planted in the apartment.
Then I sat back and watched and waited. A part of me was hoping that I was mistaken, that it was all innocent, even though I knew deep down that it was happening.
It was my pride more than anything that wanted it not to be true. As much as I wasn’t in love with him, I did love him in my own way and thought he felt the same. Not to mention, who the hell wants to be jilted?
He'd been so careful, though. Always covering his tracks, to the point that I was almost ready to convince myself that it was all in my head. Until I found that phone last night, I was ready to laugh at myself for being paranoid.
Even though I expected it, it still came as a shock when I found it, cracked the code, read all their little message to eachother, and saw their whole relationship played out in words. It seems like all the space I gave him paid off after all, and he used it voraciously.
I sent every last word to my own phone to go through later. I’d seen enough to burn them, both professionally and personally, among our friends; he didn’t know that yet. He’d gone to great lengths to keep me in the dark, no doubt weighing his options with every sleazy meeting those two had.
I know him; he wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. My family’s prestige isn’t something he would’ve given up that easily, not even if he had fallen in love with this girl. The doors that had been opened to him just by his association with me weren’t something an ambitious turd like him could give up that easily.
I would’ve left them open had he only had the balls to be honest with me. People fall out of love every day, and we’d had enough respect for each other to be upfront and honest. But what burned more than anything was the fact that by cheating on me with her or anyone else, he was basically saying that she was better than me; bitch, what?
JESSICA
The next few days were a whirlwind of chaos and what I call normal Thornton madness. I wasn’t allowed to do much of anything except laze around my parents’ place, eating everything that wasn’t nailed down while sucking up all the love of my family, who seemed to have made some sort of pact with each other to keep tabs on my every move.
