Chapter Four
When I showed up on her doorstep in tears, Megan didn’t understand at first.
“What?” she asked dumbfounded. “He said what to you? No. Are you sure?”
“He was pretty fucking clear,” was all I could say, as I pushed past her inside.
Megan followed me down the hall to her living room. “But- but- you guys have been together for ages!”
“You don’t need to tell me that,” I said. I threw myself down on her couch and buried my head in my hands.
“Hang on,” said Megan. “I’m getting provisions.” She went in to the kitchen and I could hear her slamming cupboard door, moving things around, and the ping of her phone as she received texts. I didn’t even care who she told at that moment. All I could think about was that my life was over. My happy family- shattered. Everything I thought I knew about my husband was a lie. He wasn’t who I had married. Maybe we had been too young when we’d first married, but we had been so in love! It had been bliss for the first few years. Maybe he had changed. Or maybe I had. Maybe we both had. Maybe-
“I hope you don’t mind, I asked Courtney and Becca to come over,” said Megan. She set down a bottle of wine and two glasses on the coffee table. “I don’t have any ice cream in the freezer and this is the only bottle I have on hand so they’re going to pick more up on their way over.”
“I don’t need that,” I protested weakly.
“Shut up, yes you do,” said Megan. She poured wine into one of the glasses, filling it almost all the way up. I gave a little yelp and made a ‘that’s enough’ motion, but it was almost completely full when she handed it to me. “Drink up.”
Numbly, I accepted the glass and leaned back into her sofa cushions. “God, you are so lucky,” I said, looking around. “You have your own place. You can do whatever you want whenever you want. If you want to sleep in on the weekend, you can! You don’t have to make sure people have clean clothes for school and lunches packed and all that. You can just do you.”
“You need a break, girl,” said Megan. “You need to just get away.”
“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t just leave Henry and Olivia; especially after Bradley tells them he’s divorcing me...they’ll think I’m leaving them. I have a photo shoot lined up for next week. I can’t just take off a moment’s notice.”
“Yeah, I don’t mean leave everything and go to the airport tomorrow,” said Megan. “But seriously. You need a trip away. Just forget him! You were planning to go away with him anyway later this summer, just go by yourself instead. Or we’ll take a girls trip. Blow off some steam. Light your wedding pictures on fire.”
“We can’t do that,” I said, horrified.
“Why not? It’ll be cathartic,” said Megan. “We can have a bonfire on a beach somewhere. Throw all his shit on the fire. Maybe we could go to New Orleans. Or Miami. Or, like, the Virgin Islands or somewhere. No, I’m serious. I really think we should do a trip somewhere. What do you think? Vegas, that’s what we should do!”
Just then Ashley and Becca showed up, laden down with shopping bags full of ice cream and cookies and chocolate and wine. “Oh, Jules, I’m so sorry,” said Becca as soon as they came in. She dropped her bags on the floor and crossed the room to give me a hug. “I know you felt something was a little bit off, but I never imagined he could do something like this to you. What an absolute jerk!”
Ashley pulled a bottle of wine out of a shopping bag and picked up a wine glass from one of Megan’s side tables. “Can I just say something?” she asked, pouring herself a big glass. “I’ve never liked that asshole. No, I’m serious. I’ve never, ever liked him. He set off my creep-o-meter. Even when we were in high school, he had this air to him that he thought he was so much better than everyone else and that he was the specialist snowflake there ever was. Everything was always about him. Remember when you got the chance to travel to Washington DC for that public speaking competition? Remember? He would go on about how proud he was of you, but you’d miss his final soccer game and that made him sad. Remember that? He never asked you to stay home but made you feel so guilty that you decided to not go on your own. He manipulated you into not going! He wasn’t even any good at soccer, either, even though he talked about it like he was. He’s always cared about himself more than anybody else. No, I have never liked him.” She shook her head firmly. “I have always kept my mouth shut because I love you, Jules, but believe me when I say this is probably going to be the best thing that ever happened to you.”
I had to look down before I started to cry again. I didn’t want to hear that, even if there was a slight ring of truth to some of the things Ashley was saying. It was true; he had gotten so upset that I would miss his final soccer game of his high school career to go to a public speaking competition in Washington DC. I’d never been one for joining clubs and activities, but I liked the confidence I got from making speeches. I’d felt on top of the world when I found out I’d qualified for that event, but in the end I’d chosen to be with Bradley. I remembered how he’d picked me up on the soccer field and kissed me after our team had won the championship. Back then, to my eighteen-year-old self, that kiss had been worth the competition I’d given up. Now I couldn’t help but wonder what the experience in Washington DC could have done for me, but it still hurt to hear Ashley say those things about him. I was torn between wanting to defend him and picking up my pitchfork to go after him as well.
“Ash. Really,” said Becca. She sat down next to me with her arm across my back and gave Ashley a dirty look. “Now’s not the time for that. Julia, we care about you and we’re so upset that he did this to you.”
“He’s a piece of shit,” said Ashley definitively.
“We were just talking about how Julia needs to take a break,” said Megan, attempting to steer the conversation away from what a piece of shit my husband was. I hadn’t even told them about Nikki yet. “A girls trip is in order. Where to? New Orleans, Miami, Vegas, Virgin Islands? Somewhere else?”
“Not the Virgin Islands,” I protested. “I could maybe do a weekend away. Somewhere close.”
“Sure, when I want to cut loose and have a good time with my girlfriends after my dipshit husband announces he’s divorcing me, Pittsburgh is exactly where I think of,” said Ashley sarcastically. “Go big or go home, Jules.
“I don’t know,” I hedged.
“It doesn’t have to be the Virgin Islands,” said Megan. “I was just suggesting, you know, somewhere warm and sunny where we could lie on a beach and drink cocktails all day. Somewhere relaxing.”
“She doesn’t need to relax,” argued Ashley. “She needs to drink her face off and dance on a table somewhere, while looking smoking hot in a brand new dress.”
“It might be nice to get a change of scenery for a bit,” said Becca, her arm still around me. “What do you think, Jules?”
Ashley was already refilling her wine glass. “I say we stop by her house and key his car,” she announced.
“Ashley, cool it,” said Becca. “We don’t need to get arrested. Then we really couldn’t go on vacation. I know he’s a jerk, but it’s not like he cheated on her.”
I took a deep breath. “Actually-“
“Oh, hell no,” said Ashley.
Megan’s mouth gaped open. “He cheated on you?”
“He swears he didn’t,” I said hurriedly. “He swears nothing physical happened. But he told me he’s in love with someone else. Some girl at work.”
Becca gasped. “An emotional affair,” she said. “When you start talking to someone else the way you might to your husband or wife, you can’t stop thinking about them...it’s almost worse than having sex, in some ways. Emotionally cheating. Oh, I can’t believe he did that to you.”
“I can,” Ashley snarled into her wine glass. “You know what? We should find you someone else, too. You’ve been with this douchebag your whole life. You need to go out and have revenge sex with someone else.”
“I can’t,??
? I said, overwhelmed. “I can’t. Even with what he said, I don’t hate him- I don’t want to ruin his life- I don’t want to sleep with someone else- I just want to wake up tomorrow and have this all be a dream.”
“That’s okay,” Becca comforted me. “Guys, don’t overwhelm her. She just found out hours ago! She’s barely had time to process things. It’s okay to feel like that,” she added, speaking to me instead of about me this time. “It’s okay to be in denial, or go through the grieving process, instead of going straight to revenge.” She gave Ashley a pointed look.
“Well, I might go over and key his car then,” said Ashley. “God, do I ever hate him now! What’s her name?” she asked me.
I pressed my lips together, trying to keep it all in. It couldn’t be real, could it? Just this morning, I’d been happily married and organizing my daughter’s birthday party. Now I was crying into my glass of wine and listening to my friends plot out various revenge strategies. Sex with random men? Trips to Miami to drink my face off? Keying his car? I just wanted to wake up from this nightmare. If I said her name out loud, it would be real.
They were all looking at me, though. “Is it someone you know?” asked Megan gently. “Did he bring her around you?”
I shook my head slightly. “I might have met her at the office Christmas party. I don’t really remember. He says it didn’t start until later- January, February- when they worked on a project together.”
“What’s her name?” Ashley repeated. She pulled out her phone. “Tell me her name.”
“Nikki,” I whispered, so quietly that she asked me to repeat myself. “Nicole Wilson.” There. It was out there.
“Is she from here?” asked Megan. “Did we go to high school with her? I don’t remember her.”
Ashley was furiously scrolling on her phone. “Um...give me a minute. Nikki Wilson. I think this is her. Oh, fuck him. He’s Facebook friends with her. She liked a picture of your kids! I can’t. Who does that? Oh, excellent, she’s an idiot too. Her page is completely open.” She started typing.
“What are you doing?” I asked her, alarmed. Ashley was on her third glass of wine at this point, and when she drank, she could go a little crazy. As if she couldn’t go crazy enough on her own without alcohol helping her along.
“Just commenting on some of her pictures,” said Ashley. “Calling her a slut. Homewrecker.”
“Ashley!” I protested. “Don’t. This girl is going to be- be my kids’ stepmother or something.” At that thought, I burst into tears again.
“You have to do something,” said Ashley. “You cannot just sit back and let everything happen to you.”
“But I want to take the high road,” I sniffled.
“The high road?” Ashley rolled her eyes. “The high road is another word for being a doormat. You can’t let him just go do whatever he wants while you sit there and wait for his lawyers to tell you how much you’re going to get in child support. You need to do something. Okay, maybe you don’t need to go out and have revenge sex with the first bathed man you see. But you need to do something. Megan is right. We need to take a vacation and get away from all this and just get your mind off things. Look, I can take time off anytime. I’m a self-employed real estate agent. As long as I don’t have any showing booked, I can take off whenever. As long as it’s a couple weeks out I’m clear. Becca, you finish school in a week or two too, don’t you?”
“Next week is our last week,” confirmed Becca, who taught third grade. “We have a couple days of meetings after that, but then I’m free too.”
We all turned to look at Megan, who worked in accounting. “I’ll have to request the time off,” she said. “I’ll have to see Monday at work what dates I’m free.”
I almost told them not to bother. I almost told them it was okay, I’d just stay home and cry under the covers all day while Henry and Olivia were at my parents’. But just as I was opening my mouth to tell them no, don’t bother, a very small “okay” popped out instead.