Page 16 of The Regrettable Mistake

She had a lot more faith in her son than I did. It was good to know that she not only believed me, but that it seemed I had an ally where Den was concerned. I hoped with all my heart that it continued because the one thing I didn’t want to have to do was break my promise to Denmark because I was forced to.

As far as I was concerned, nothing would change for the two of us. He was still my boy and I would always be his Momma Steph. Moreover, he would soon be the big brother to the little surprise sibling I was cooking up for him.

Monica came back down waving my phone at me. “It still has a charge, but I brought this as well.” She had my charging cable in her hand and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that there was one in the office, living room, and a few other places around the house because Ollie couldn’t be separated from his phone long enough to allow it to charge in a different room from where he was. Now that his affair was in the open, I guessed he had other reasons for not leaving his phone unattended.

There was a time when he would separate from the device, but in big work crunches on accounts he managed, or during the last few months, the device had been chained to him in his every waking moment and put out of sight somewhere when he managed to get some sleep. I also didn’t tell her that when he did sleep at home, it usually hadn’t been with me. At least, not in the past three months.

That was when everything in our so-called relationship had gone to hell. That was when I started making excuses for his behavior even though somewhere deep down I knew what those signs meant.

When Monica handed me the phone, there were quite a few missed messages. I ignored all of the ones from my husband as my mother-in-law frowned at me. I skipped to the text from Hutch.

Hutch: DO NOT GO ONLINE!

Hutch: I’m headed to your place as soon as I get off the phone with Ollie’s lawyer.

Hutch: Please, don’t go online until I can get to you.

“Well, as far as warnings go, that wouldn’t make you do the opposite,” Monica scoffed. For the first time since this whole nightmare started, I laughed and my beautiful mother-in-law joined right in.

“Why are men so stupid?” I asked.

“Honey, if you figure that one out, be sure to clue the rest of us in. I swear it has to be in the DNA because I taught my boy better.” She seemed lost in thought for a minute. “Honestly, I think he did know better at one point, but that woman ruined my boy and made him a man that is absolutely lost.”

It was my turn to scoff. “I think you’re giving her too much credit. He made his choices and in doing so made his priorities clear.”

“Are you going to look at them?” She finally asked after we sat ruminating over her son’s poor choices for a few minutes too long.

I shrugged my shoulders. “It doesn’t feel like he’s going to tell me anything I don’t already know, so what’s the point?”

“To hear it from him?” She asked.

“Honestly, Monica, I don’t want to hear from him right now. I don’t want his side. I don’t want his reasonings because what do they really matter? What’s done is done. Maybe he didn’t love me, maybe he didn’t even like me enough to care how his actions would affect me. Maybe he is such a shit person that his son’s well-being never entered into the equation.”

“He could be riddled with guilt,” she interjected.

“And what does that change?”

“Nothing,” she whispered.

“Absolutely nothing,” I confirmed. “The damage has been done. The reasons for pushing us all down this hill don’t really matter.”

Despite my stance, I couldn’t stop myself from looking at the last message he’d sent, the one sitting at the top of my notifications.

Lying, Cheating Bastard: I love you. No matter what else you believe, remember that. I will fix this.

The problem was, I didn’t believe that. Not anymore, and even when it had been a belief I held dear to my heart, it had been a lie I told myself. My husband never loved me. Having him make the declaration for the first time only after hurting me the way he did and humiliating me publicly only proved it that much more.

There were texts from my parents as well as some of the teachers from work and a few of my old college buddies who knew the truth and were asking what in the hell was going on. They all offered to speak up on my behalf, but I couldn’t answer a single one of those texts.

“This is humiliating. Even when I have people offering to tell the truth for me, it comes on the heels of knowing that I’ve been cheated on. I’m the wronged party, but all I can think is that they’re wondering what was wrong with me that he had to go back to her. Then again, she’s gorgeous even with the addition of the scars, so maybe no one is asking that.”

“That woman is ugly as sin!” Monica snapped. When I gaped at her, she shrugged her dainty shoulders. “It’s true. She’s never been truly attractive. Sure, she’s classically beautiful for the camera, but it also takes a lot of work to make her look the way she does. All she has going for her is good bone structure because the woman is rotten underneath. Pure rot.” The way Monica spit the words out made me believe that she truly felt that way.

“Unfortunately, people don’t bother with the truth. They see an actress with several movies and a couple guest spots on their favorite TV shows and she wins their hearts, especially with her sob stories.”

Monica sighed. “I’d like to refute that but we both know you’re right. My son says he’ll fix it, I have to believe that he will.”

I didn’t want to argue with Monica. She was one of the people still in my corner and I wanted to keep her there. Constantly telling her what a piece of crap liar her son was would only push her away. While I loved my mother-in-law, and respected the woman, I bit my tongue so that she would remain in my corner and hopefully help me keep in contact with the boy who I thought of as my son.

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