It makes sense. It’s the natural order of things.
For most people.
I used to think I would be a wife too. I had daydreams as a little girl that I would be the mother to a little girl who looked just like me. We would play dolls, have tea parties, and bake cookies together just like the families in the movies I loved so much. My husband would come home and kiss us both on the forehead.
“It could be worse,” I say, tearing my eyes from the house next door. “At least I get Hawaii as a consolation prize.” And you never know. I might find my own Jason Momoa in Hawaii too.
I snort. “Keep dreaming, Jaxi.”
I head back to the kitchen, singing about staring at the blank pages in front of you, and feel my spirits rise.
Hawaii feels like such a stroke of luck. I kind of think it’s the universe’s way of giving me a fresh start, a break from a battle I feel like I’ve had to fight my whole life. First with my parents, then with Shawn and then my landlord when I finally started on my own.
I haven’t let myself think about it too much. There was too much to do, too many things to get rid of, too many plans to make to spend too much brain power on beaches.
But I’m ready for it. Lord, am I ready for it.
Just as I get to the sink, my phone rings.
“Hello?” I say, pressing the speakerphone button.
As soon as I hear the voice on the other side, I freeze.
The sound coming through the line, my eyes go wide.
“Libby? What’s wrong?” I say entirely too loud.
“Jaxi …” The single word is almost indistinguishable through the sobs.
I grip the edge of the counter. “What’s happening? Are you okay?”
“No.”
Her cries ricochet through the phone, landing smack dab in the middle of my heart.
“Are you safe?” I ask. “Where’s Ted?”
While this seems to be the absolute right question to ask, it also seems to absolutely be the wrong one.
Her sobs ease. The next words are clear.
“Fuck. Ted.”
“Libby …” My voice drifts off as I absorb the language my friend is choosing. This isn’t something Libby says—even when she’s super pissed off. “What’s going on?”
It takes her a few moments to get herself together enough to explain things. I pace across the kitchen and try not to rush her.
She’s alive. She seems well physically. And she’s mad at Ted, which seems like a fairly normal thing for a woman to be when it comes to her husband—at least sometimes.
Finally, after what feels like a million minutes, she sucks in a deep breath.
“It turns out,” she says, “that my husband has been having an affair with a woman in our neighborhood, Kimmy Curtis.”
I can’t imagine what Libby’s reaction was to this information because my world—as someone who doesn’t even particularly like Ted and doesn’t know the Curtis woman from a hole in the wall—is rocked.
My feet stop moving. I almost drop the phone as I try to process what she just said.
Ted? An affair?
My poor cousin.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
I roll my eyes. Stupid question. She even knows her name is Kimmy.
“Surely he wouldn’t tell me that if it weren’t true.”
“But I don’t get it. You said he begged you to go to San Diego with him. A mini-second honeymoon. He took you on a fucking romantic date last night, Lib,” I say, frustrated. “What the hell?”
She sighs. “Apparently, it was a last hurrah. Not even a test to see if things were better … than her.” She sniffles. “I guess he wanted a last memory or some shit.”
Fuck. Him.
My jaw clenches. “Okay. What do you need from me? Want me to throw his stuff on the lawn? Have the locks changed? I know this guy Leo now,” I say, surprised that I had the wherewithal to even remember that. “Does Kimmy Curtis have a husband? If so, I need to have a little convo with him—”
“No. I’m not doing that.”
My jaw unclenches and drops to the floor. “Do what?” I shake my head. “Look, Lib, I know you’re a nice person and all. Me too. Mostly. But all is fair in love and liaisons.”
“He did this to me. Not her.” She sniffles. “I honestly don’t care about her. She could live or die, and it doesn’t affect me. Him, on the other hand …”
“So, I need to have a little convo with him then.”
I imagine being face-to-face with Ted’s little pocket-protector-wearing ass. The pleasure I would get from sticking my fingernail into his chest, spitting words that I’ve cooped up through the last five years at his face, and watching him shrivel under the truth of the things I say that I know bother him in the middle of the night—
“This is still new,” she says, cutting off my thoughts, “so I might change my mind. But, right now, I want you to get the trunk out of my master bedroom and … take it somewhere. Maybe Boone will keep it for me.”
“I’m sure he would.”
“Ted is coming home tomorrow, and I’m going to my mom’s house in Vegas.”
I slow blink. “You’re not coming here?”
“How can I? I’m not seeing Kimmy, Jaxi. It’s the same reason you left Columbus. You don’t want to see Shawn, right?”
She has a point.
“But what about your things here? Your life? Your house? You’re not giving up all of this because he couldn’t keep his—well, you know.” I make a face. She doesn’t need reminded about where his dick has been. “I left Columbus because I had nothing to leave. You have all of this, and he doesn’t deserve any of it.”
“I guess … I’ll have to get an attorney. I don’t know. I just know I’m not coming there.”
My synapses stop firing a million times per
