Page 12 of The Homewrecker's Fate

Mel and I both giggled at that. “Imagine the door not working for him,” she teased.

“That is what happens when locks get changed.”

I stood and moved toward the door as banging started all over again. “Avi, I know you’re home. Your car is in the parking lot.”

“Go away, Rich!” I called through the door.

“Avi, my love, let me in. I need to see you more than I need my next breath.” While slurring his words a bit, every single one he muttered was intelligible and they caused Mel immense pain.

I unlocked the door after disarming the alarm. Then I cracked it open, leaving just the slide chain lock fastened. “You need to leave. I hope you didn’t drive here.”

“Took a cab.”

“Good, then you know how to call another to take you somewhere else.”

“Where else am I going to go? Back to the wife I don’t love? The kids who hate me now?”

“So, you decided I was a good bet, since I couldn’t possibly be angry that you not only ghosted me completely but tried to trick me into leaving my sick mom to move 600 miles away to supposedly move in with you. You know, in the home you shared with your family, apparently. Oh yeah, there’s that too. The fact that you were married, with children waiting for you at home, and all the while playing happy families with me and telling me it would be a blessing to have a child with me.”

His head bobbed down, following eyes that trailed to my stomach. When his hands reached out, as if to hold me there, I slapped them away.

“You do not ever get to touch me again!”

“Avi, please! I needed to be able to get my family set up before I could come back to you.”

“I don’t believe you, and what’s more Rich, I don’t care. Did you think I was the type of woman who would be okay living as the other woman?”

He shook his head. “That’s why I needed to end things first, but then Mel was pregnant. We don’t even know if it’s mine yet.”

“That is not my business.”

“Don’t you see? She isn’t perfect. She cheated, too.”

“Months after she realized you were having an affair with me, Rich. She slept with a man one time in a moment of weakness, and I don’t blame her. The fact that she hadn’t kicked you out before was a miracle because had I been in her shoes, you would have been history the minute I realized what you were up to.”

“Avi, don’t be like that. You know what happened. We worked together, grew closer, and then fell in love.”

“Only because I thought you were available to fall in love with, you asshole!”

“Avi, please, let me in. I miss you so much. We have to talk about the baby. Our baby.”

“You can go to hell! We have absolutely nothing to talk about.”

“You’re going to keep my baby from me?”

“I would do no such thing. That doesn’t mean you get access to me. When the baby is here, we will work something out, but what’s done is done between us. There is no going back.”

“Aviva,” he whispered my name so reverently I wanted to scream and cry all at once. “I love you so much. Please, just let me explain. Let me try to make you understand.”

“You can go straight to hell and explain it to the devil who might find entertainment in what you’ve done. I want nothing to do with you.”

“Where am I supposed to go, Avi?”

“Literally, anywhere but here.”

“And not home either,” Mel finally piped up and showed herself. She had been standing just beyond the door where he couldn’t see her and her phone was held in her hands in a way that I could see she recorded all of that.

“Melanie?” He asked, her name a shocked inhalation of breath.She sidestepped a bit more, so that he could see her hovering just beyond my shoulder. “What are you doing here?” His voice was frantic as he glanced between his wife and me. “Are you okay?” He asked as his eyes met mine again, laced with concern that his wife might hurt me.

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