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I take a sip of iced tea, “Are you sleeping with him?” my mother asks, which causes me to spit out the liquid in my mouth all over my shirt. I grab a napkin and try to blot up the mess, but it’s no use.
“Mother! How can you ask that? I have to change,” I escape to the comfort of my bedroom, wanting to kill JC. My mother has never been this straightforward about sex. Maybe she has progressed, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to admit I slept with Jordan. I’m an adult, and it’s not something I want to discuss.
When I come back outside, they’ve moved on to something else. I breathe a sigh of relief as my embarrassment fades. The night passes with a dinner of steak, burgers, and hot dogs on the grill along with my mother’s famous potato and pasta salad. Our neighbor lights off fireworks, and the children play with sparklers.
I make sure to get to my bedroom before my parents corner me for another round of questioning. It’s just after ten, and I thought I would receive a text from Jordan, but there is none, so I text him.
I hope you had a good flight and things are going well. I wish you were here.
I don’t get a reply and change for bed, hoping Jordan will send me something for my dreams, but I don’t get anything back. I settle under the sheets telling myself that he’s probably busy preparing for things. He mentioned he had a meeting on the morning of July Fourth, which is weird, but maybe high powered business works differently.
Chapter 19
I’m back at work, but I’m uneasy. I haven’t heard from Jordan since July third. It’s now the fifth. I had a lovely holiday with my family. We had a block party, and several of our neighbors shot off fireworks. After it was over, we loaded everybody back into the SUV and went back to the city.
Angie breezes in two minutes before nine and gives me a sympathetic look, which I have no idea why.
“How are you doing?” she asks.
“Fine. Why do you ask?”
“You haven’t seen them then.”
“Seen what?”
“The pictures on the internet. The gossip sites.”
“Angie, make sense. Why would I look at them? You know that’s not my thing.”
“You’re going to want to see these,” she taps an address into the search bar, and up comes one of the gossip sites. The headline is about the opening of the new film, Feral, starring Natalie Salas. As Angie scrolls through the pictures of the premiere party, I spot several of Jordan. In a couple, he looks quite cozy with Natalie. I immediately feel nauseous.
“That doesn’t mean anything. They dated for a while, and Jordan told me that their friends.”
“What about this one?”
It was taken at a restaurant. Jordan is speaking with Natalie, and his hand is firmly flat on her tanned upper chest. I’ve seen the look on his face before when he’s wanted to make love to me. It’s one of desire. In another, they’re lip-locked, and it’s obvious they thought they weren’t going to be caught. Whoever took the picture did it from a distance.
“I don’t know what to say,” my voice hoarse.
“Have you spoken to him?”
“Not since the third. He hasn’t answered any of my texts or calls.”
“I’m sorry. I just thought you should know. Are you going to be okay?”
“I think so.”
Angie clicks off the site and settles into work. I feel like a vise is squeezing my chest. I’m finding it almost impossible to breathe. Jordan cheated on me and did it in a very public fashion. I feel like an asshole. He fed me some bullshit, and I ate it up like a fool. I was just a holding place until he got back together with Natalie. It just proves that I was right. I’m not for him. All the doubts I was having about our relationship have come true.
I spend the rest of the day trying to hold it together, waiting for the privacy of my apartment to cry it out. I’m on the verge of tears, and as soon as I enter my place, I sink to the floor and fall apart. I wish Nathaniel were here. I need his comfort.
No communication from Jordan confirms the pictures. I don’t need to hear it from his mouth because the photos don’t lie. By Friday, I’m almost cried out and ready to tell Nate. I call him on my lunch hour, hoping that he’ll be awake. I haven’t heard from him either, and I’m not sure of his schedule. When his cheerful voice comes on the line, I start crying again.
“Baby girl, what’s up?”
“Nate, he cheated.”
“Who? Jordan?”
