“It was me. I started this. I did this, not Camilla.” He tries to reach out and touch me again. Getting up from the chair, I start to pace the room. Thoughts running through my mind. How did I not know? How did I not suspect? Was it because I was too tired for sex? Was it because I still needed to lose the extra ten pounds that I had lingering on me? Was it because I was too tired at the end of the day to even talk to him?
Stopping in my tracks, I look at them. He has now stood up and so has she. A desk still separates them. “We had sex last night,” I tell him, and he doesn’t continue to look at me; instead, he looks at her.
“It was the last time. Kind of a good-bye kind of thing,” he says, now looking at the ground.
“A good-bye thing.” I now raise my voice. “A good-bye thing?” I shake my head. “How long? How long has this been going on? How long have you been sleeping with your student’s married father?” My voice is firm, anger starting to rush through me.
“Lauren, let’s not—” he tries to say, but I don’t give him a chance. I yell, and this time loudly, “How long? How long have you been sleeping with her and coming home to me? How long have you been telling me you love me and lying about it? How fucking long, Jake? How much of my life is a lie?”
They both look at each other. “Seven months,” he answers right before there is a knock on the door. The principal sticks his head inside “Oh. Mr. and Mrs. Watson, is everything okay?” The poor man doesn’t see anything coming.
“Oh, we are totally fine.” My voice starts to rise, while my hands start to shake. “I’ve come to attend my son’s parent/teacher conference only to be told his teacher is fucking my husband. Looks like in addition to tutoring her students in math, she also offers sex ed lessons to their fathers! She deserves a raise.” I laugh humorlessly. Maybe I’m having a stroke. Maybe, just maybe, this is all a dream. “But other than that, I would say everything is perfect.”
I walk to the chair that I have been sitting in, picking up the purse that fell off my shoulder while my life fell apart. Grabbing it, I turn to walk out as Jake grabs my wrist. “Lauren, wait.”
I yank my wrist away from him, the force shocking both of us. “Don’t fucking touch me,” I hiss before I walk past the principal and right into the hallway, where I’m greeted by the president of the PTA, Colleen.
The tears have now started to freely fall down my cheeks. “Oh, honey, I just heard.” I look at this woman who I thought was actually my friend. I tilt my head to the side. “You knew?” I don’t really need her to answer, since she puts her head down to look at her hands she is wringing together.
I can’t stop the angry laugh that bursts from my mouth. I’m that oblivious spouse who everyone makes fun of. I’m that wife who said it would never happen to me. I’m that woman who they all feel sorry for. I’m her. That poor, clueless woman who can’t seem to keep her husband from falling dick first into a sexy, twenty-something woman. I look around to see who else is looking at us.
The secretary, the principal, Colleen, and four of her posse, who are there trying to get parents to join the PTA, Jake, and her. “Does everyone know he was having an affair? Was I the only one who didn’t know?” I throw my hands out to the side, turning on my heel as I walk out of the school, vowing never to return.
I get in my car and make one phone call to Kaleigh, my sister. I don’t know how much she understands between the sobs and the yelling, but ten minutes later when I pull up to the curb of my perfect house, she is there throwing Jake’s clothes out of our bedroom window. They land right in the front of my house on the lawn.
It takes her a full five minutes to toss everything out. I stand there, still in shock, still in a daze, looking at the mountain of his clothes. Clothes I bought him. Clothes I picked out. Clothes I washed, ironed, and put away. I don’t see Kaleigh come from the side of the house with the gasoline container in her hand. I just see her pouring it all over his clothes. She walks over to me, handing me the packet of matches. “Let’s burn this motherfucker down.”
And we do. Till one of the neighbors calls the fire department, who rush out, three full trucks, lights blaring in the night, an EMT, and one police cruiser. I sit there on my lawn, watching the flames rising up from the pile of everything that he owns before the whole mess is drenched in water.
The second alarm sounds, bringing me out of my trip back into that nightmare.
“Gabe! Rachel! Time to get up, guys! Mommy starts her new job today,” I yell up, hoping they hear me. I take another sip of my coffee before I make my way upstairs to get ready for my new job. Yay me.
Chapter 2
Lauren
I look at myself in the mirror, smoothing the front of my skirt down. What a difference six months make. Gone is the extra weight that had been lingering on my petite frame for the last six years, thanks to some cardio at the gym and the fact that I stopped eating. You would think that your husband leaving you would have you drowning your sorrows in carbs, ice cream, and cheese, but it was actually quite the opposite
