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“It was easier to end it and stay friends than it was to work on our marriage. And I realized how I rushed into marriage with her. Not because love and attraction weren’t there but because I felt like I was on a time clock. I know it sounds sad and pathetic, but that’s the essence of what happened. It’s not that I don’t love her or that she doesn’t love me, but we don’t want to be together anymore.”
Miranda could understand that. She’d broken up with plenty of people throughout her years, most notably her fiancé. She broke up with him because she saw no way that it would work out in the end. What they wanted were two entirely different things, and she wasn’t willing to lose her identity by marrying him. But that didn’t seem to be the case for Siena and Tori.
“I won’t make the same mistake twice,” Siena murmured. “And I don’t think Tori will either, despite her aspirations to find a soulmate.”
“Are you coming?” Aili called from her office.
Miranda looked down the hall at the daycare director. Aili stared at them, a stern look on her face. They were being called to the principal’s office. The real question was why. Saying nothing to Siena, Miranda started down the hallway.
Aili held her hand out for them to take a seat and shut the door, that stern look never leaving her as she sat in her rolling chair and crossed her arms. “You all are pathetic.”
“Excuse me?” Miranda nearly choked. This wasn’t about Rebel. And her stomach sank as soon as she figured that out.
Aili shot Siena a look, her lips playing at a smile. “You and Tori. I swear if I have to see her moping around here one more day, I’m going to lock the two of you in a closet.”
“A closet?” Miranda said dryly. “I hardly think that’ll solve anything.”
“Oh, it will,” Siena chimed in. “And Aili isn’t wrong. Do you want to know the one thing I really learned since my divorce?”
Miranda did, so she remained silent in the hopes that Siena would continue.
“No woman is an island.”
Frowning, Miranda folded her hands together and crossed her legs. “I don’t understand, I’m sorry.”
“I’m not surprised,” Siena answered with a smile.
Aili chuckled lightly.
“No woman is an island. In other words, we all need someone, a family of sorts, a village. We can’t do this alone. Especially when we’re raising kids. Especially when we’re women in this world. We need that support system, and you need one just as much as Tori does.”
“Tori has a village.” One filled with her exes. That had never been more clear.
“Yes, but you don’t,” Aili chimed in. “And we want to give you one. Today.”
“Tonight,” Siena corrected.
“I don’t think I understand.” Miranda was being ganged up on, there was no doubt about that, but she still wasn’t sure she understood what it was all for. Tori and she weren’t anything to each other, that much was clear, especially with the last time they had been together. “Tori has a support system,” she repeated.
“She does, but we think you need to be added to it,” Siena stated, as if that was obvious.
“That’s amusing.” Miranda rubbed her lips together. “We haven’t talked in a week. No real conversation in weeks. So what are you proposing? That I can come to you both about problems with the perfect Tori?” Miranda blinked, her mouth not quite closing as she wondered where that had come from.
“Tori is amazing.” Aili nodded, a small smile touching the corners of her lips, “But she isn’t perfect. No one here thinks that.”
“Except maybe you.” Siena’s face crinkled in a less subtle smile.
“Fine.” Miranda had expected the word to leave her mouth in a snap, instead a rawness filled the office. “But it doesn’t change the fact that she’s off dating other people, searching for her soulmate, not thinking twice about me.”
“And yet she’s actually at home, pining for you, wondering if you are her soulmate and if she’s missed the boat entirely.”
“What?” Miranda’s eyebrow lifted. She flicked her gaze from Siena to Aili.
“She is,” Aili agreed with a nod. “It’s actually been pathetic to watch her walk in here and haunt these halls. She wasn’t even this bad after her divorce. No offense.”
“None taken.” Siena shrugged. “She loves you, Miranda.”
“She doesn’t.” Miranda shook her head, wanting their words to be true but knowing they couldn’t possibly be.
