AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With my brows furrowed and my lips parted, I’m torn between what I should do and what I want to do.
“It seems important,” he starts as he begins to step away from me. One foot behind the other, he makes it impossible to think rationally. “Answer it.”
“Uh…” I stare at my phone and then back at him. “Give me just a second.”
I swipe the screen, answering the call. Miley is babbling in the background, and I hear someone saying my name.
“Miley?” I ask into the phone, trying to simultaneously keep my eye on the man currently escaping. “Don’t you want my name? My number or something?” I ask him as I pull the phone from my ear.
“Come on. We’re the last romantics in this fucking city,”he shouts as he keeps walking, his arms outstretched. “We’re either destined or doomed to meet again.”
The person on the other end of the phone tells me to come pick up my drunk best friend, and I watch my stranger walk away, wondering how I still managed to evade getting laid tonight.
CHAPTER THREE
IMPERFECT
PRESENT
Ihaven’t been touched in so long, every time I pass a mirror, I pick myself apart.
If I weren’t so tired, if I didn’t let motherhood and work become my whole life, maybe he’d look at me the way he used to.
Maybe he’d yearn to touch me the way he used to. Maybe he’d look up from his phone and tell me how beautiful I am. Or smile just long enough for it to take up his whole face the way it used to.
Years of these thoughts were enough to drive me over the edge.
Is the tepid love I’d endured the last few years worse than hate?
How does someone who was once your safe space turn into a stranger in your bed?
And one day, I decided I didn’t want to live like that anymore.
I plant my feet firmly in the present with a shake of my head as I stare back at my reflection in the mirror next to my desk.
Long dark hair sways with the movement and I glance past my reflection at the clock on the wall.
“Fuck,” I mutter, snatching up my purse, phone, and keys as I scramble to leave the office. Miley’s back in New York and I’d sent my assistant home early, wanting to sit alone with my thoughts.
Except I’d sat there far too long and I’m now running late picking up my girls from school.
I groan as I walk out into the heat, pissed because I am once again a victim of the tumultuous New England weather. This morning was cold and miserable and sometime between now and then, the whorish sun decided to show its ass. As I get in my car, I yank off my long-sleeve shirt, thankful that I have a tank top underneath.
Traffic is light as I maneuver my way to the private school they attend, frustrated that the stay-at-home Stepford wives are probably going to look at me with pity.
Did you hear they’re getting a divorce?
Poor kids.
She’s hardly on time as it is.
Fuck them.
I brake hard as I pull up to the massive brick building where we pay entirely too much money for my daughters to get a decent education, thankfully not as late as I thought I’d be. I put my car in park at the end of the line at the curb and hop out, ready to grab Penny and Jilly and get the fuck out of here.
In a sea of kids they’re nowhere to be found, and I feel the pressure of scrutiny from the faculty that are lined up at the doors. Even if I’m just imagining it.
“Sabrina?”
