Page 3 of The Other Woman

She’s never said a bad word to my face, and I’ve heard whispers about her shutting down any talk about the affair. Apparently, she’s not mad at me because she doesn’t even know me, the snooty bitch. It’s all pretense, I’m sure of it. A last-ditch effort to guilt Doug into feeling guilty, which worked in the beginning until I showed him what he would be missing if he and I broke up.

He still gets to see his son, and his daughter is getting to the age where we can have her overnight as well, so until I’m ready to have kids of my own, that’s essentially like having the best of both worlds. The stupid bitch didn’t even fight him on seeing the kids, which, if I had been thinking at the time, I would’ve made him go for fifty-fifty.

But back then, I was only thinking of our freedom. But as the months went by and his son still hasn’t really warmed up to me, I’ve rethought my position. I need her out of the picture completely.

I’ve been racking my brain for a way to get Doug on board, but since I no longer have anything to hold over his head, it’s proving to be difficult. He refuses to see things my way, still stuck on his guilt for hurting her, which is starting to piss me off.

I’ve done the research, and since she hasn’t done anything, there’s no way a court would take the kids away, but that’s easily rectified. When the time is right, I’m sure I can come up with something to get rid of her. In the meantime, I’ll just keep showing her that the best woman won.

BASTARD

I could feel my heart racing as I made the turnoff to my old neighborhood. It hadn’t done that in a while, and I wasn’t sure how to feel. I haven’t felt settled since the day before, and I have so many questions. Like when did Rachel and my friends get so close?

They seemed way too familiar for just a casual acquaintance. I almost ran over the curb when I saw Jacob exiting the house where I was expecting Rachel. “Jacob, what are you doing here? Where’s Rachel?”

“She had a last-minute errand to run and asked me to wait here for Kevin.”

“Hey, little man.” He greeted my son, who seemed happy to see him as I got out to take him out of the car seat.

“Where’s Sarah?”

“She’s asleep; that’s why Rachel asked me to come over.”

He picked up my son and kissed his cheek before walking away. He didn’t even acknowledge Wendy, which I knew was going to set her off again. I watched him disappear with my son, and that bad feeling started up in my gut again. As expected, Wendy was steaming, but at least she kept her mouth shut and didn’t say anything to make the situation worse.

“I bet you anything she’s in there. She’s just playing games.” No sooner had the words left her mouth than we saw Rachel’s car turning the corner. I wasn’t sure if it was okay to beep the horn or not, and I so badly wanted to turn around and go back there, but I knew that wouldn’t end well, so I kept driving.

The thing is, I was pretty sure Rachel saw me, but she didn’t even look in my direction. At least, I don’t think she did. I white knuckled the steering wheel all the way back to the house that Wendy and I were renting while looking for our forever home, as she calls it.

For the first time, I walked through the doors with an emptiness inside. I missed my son already and I was missing most of my daughter’s life. Why did she call Jacob? I’m Sarah’s father. If she had an issue she should’ve called me, I would’ve been more than happy to help.

But Rachel hasn’t asked for my help with anything since I confessed. How had that gone completely over my head? How had I not realized that, except for talks about our kids, she had completely cut me out of her life like an incision from a surgeon’s scalpel?

It's the way she drove past me just now. I know she recognized my car the same way I recognized hers, but she just drove by as if I wasn’t there. She never let her eyes shift, not even a little bit. This is the woman I had loved for ten years.

We have children together, and yet she’d just blown me off as if I were nothing. She didn’t act like that yesterday at the party. She didn’t go out of her way to talk to me or anything, but she didn’t freeze me out, either.

I only now realized that she usually acts that way when the kids are around. She always smiles and acts happy when our kids are in the vicinity, but other than that, she hasn’t really talked to me since the divorce. Something else that had gone over my head until now.

When had it started? When had she pulled away so completely? And why do I feel this void, like I’m standing at the door to the abyss?

HOMEWRECKING SKANK

I’m so mad I feel like my body is going to explode. As soon as we got back to the house, I pulled off my clothes, the new outfit I’d just bought, and threw myself down on the bed to have a good cry. Doug didn’t even come to check on me, so after fifteen minutes, I went out to see what he was doing.

He was playing around on his phone at a time like this, and that just pissed me off even more. How could he not know what I was feeling? “Aren’t you mad?” He almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of my voice and put his phone away.

“Mad about what?”

“Doesn’t the court say something about her having to be there for the handoff?”

“I don’t recall seeing anything about that, and besides, it was one time, so what’s the big deal?” I stomped off to the kitchen because he wasn’t getting it.

He disappeared into the room that he’d turned into an office, which was perfect because I needed some alone time. I got on my computer and sat up in bed facing the door, so I would know if he was coming.

I scrolled through her social media, something I do every once in a while just because I could. She hadn’t really posted anything much lately, but there were pictures from the party the day before. I felt that same adrenaline rush I get whenever I’m about to take a peek into her life without her knowing.

Everyone was there, the family that was supposed to be mine by now. His parents and siblings were beaming in all the pictures, and so was she. I’d never really looked at her before in the past, except to compare our bodies, but now I noticed that she had lost the baby fat.

---