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His eyes were so dark they didn’t even look human. His gaze felt demonic as he stared at me with raw hate. In a room full of people, it was like I was the only person there in the worst possible way. It was like I was nothing to him. It was like I was the reason everything had gone wrong… as if it legitimately was my fault each and every time something happened to him.
What had I ever done to make him hate me like that?
Right in the bedroom we had used to share, on the bedsheets I had picked out and washed every week with lavender fabric softener, Ryan had happily fucked someone else. Is this why he never wanted to look me in the eye for months when the two of us had been doing the deed? Was he picturing her?
Now, in that same bedroom, I was on my hands and knees scrubbing cake smears off the carpet. I had gotten most of it out—it was just that the beige was still a darker shade. If I didn’t get that spot out, it would be a constant reminder of Ryan’s naked ass as he was hammering into that little blonde from his office who always spoke like she was trying and failing to recover from a sinus infection.
Not that I wanted him anymore, but it still stung.
There was something about seeing my husband thrusting so vigorously he couldn’t even notice a crowd forming in the room, when he’d spent the last year fucking me with the enthusiasm of wet pasta…
I gave him six years… doing everything for him.
Six years of cleaning his house and cooking gourmet meals for him.
Six years of spreading my legs whenever he’d wanted me. However he’d wanted me. Bending myself over backwards to please him… all while he treated me like I was diseased.
Six years.
Now that man wasn’t my problem anymore. And everyone knew it.
All the worry I had about how to go about ending the relationship with him… the guilt for choosing another man—it was no longer weighing me down. I had rehearsed breakup conversations in the shower. There was a long document in my notes app where I tried to work out what to say to him through text. If I had any money saved up, or a credit card in my name, I would have already left.
But I didn’t want to go. My lover was here.
In the end, none of it mattered. I hadn’t even had to say any of it.
Ryan had ended up packing a bag and leaving on his own. A few hours later, he sent a simple text.
we should probably get divorced
yeah
TWENTY-EIGHT
JAX
Before the weekend was out, Dad got a notice from HR about the incident.
He was lucky not to be fired outright, something about his long tenure and institutional knowledge. But he was being relocated to a new location, a different branch in another state. Effective immediately.
His affair partner was not moving.
It was the topic of a lot of their recent fights on the messenger app.
Dad didn’t try hard to convince me to move out with him. Obviously, I was going to stay with my stepmom. How could I abandon her when she was pregnant?
I was surprised he had the balls to even ask me while my eye was still swollen shut. Especially not after I went back to school. Mrs. Smith took one look at my busted up face and immediately sent me to the guidance counselors, and submitted a report to Child Protective Services.
I’m an adult and nothing will come of it, besides horribly embarrassing my father. Between this and the police report documenting my black eye, the old man had no chance of custody of Delila’s baby. The lawyer said there was a good chance that he’d be denied visitation once the little one came.
The divorce was proceeding smoothly. It wasn’t hard to get footage of the affair. All it took was a hint about Delila not feeling safe, and something about evidence for a restraining order, and I got sent multiple videos showing everything.
I saw a lot more of my dad’s dick than I had ever wanted to see. No wonder it was so easy to seduce Delila, if that was my competition.
Delila had all the evidence she needed for the infidelity clause. My father never thought that anyone would find out about his cheating, and that his little prenup would stand.
Not one, but three videos said otherwise.
