Page 30 of Crashing Without Justice

“You’re calling everyone on my contact list, you’ve harassed my mother, you’ve threatened Trista’s children, have posted all of our private business on social media, and even sent me pictures and a video of you having sex with one of my friends, and you’re seriously asking me about a fucking honey-do list?” he squawked. “Are you fucking serious right now?”

“You’re still my husband, Harding,” I pointed out. “You’re still my husband, and that means that you still have responsibilities towards me and our home.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he muttered under his breath.

“Well, you do,” I insisted.“Iam still your responsibility, Harding.”

“You stopped being my responsibility the second that you started dragging innocent people into this mess, Paige,” he fired back. “All I’d wanted to do was the right thing, and you went and turned this into a…a…Christ, I don’t even know what to call it.”

“Do not put this on me,” I snapped. “This is all your fault, Harding. Yours and your whore’s.”

“What I did does not excuse your behavior, Paige,” he snapped back. “You called Trista’s parents and pretended to be the police. You used Gil, and invaded his privacy in a way that’s actually criminal. Christ on The Cross, you filmed someone without their knowledge, Paige. How do you think that you have a right to do all the things that you’ve done?”

“Because you betrayed me for another woman!” I yelled.

“Yes, I did,” he bit out. “I’m the one that betrayed you.Me.I’m the one that hurt you, Paige. Not my mother, friends, co-workers, or anyone else. I’m the one that did this, so I’m the one that you should be dealing with, not everyone else that we know.”

“Are you going to fix the showerhead or not?” I asked, not wanting to hear him defend everyone but me. “Things need fixing here, and now that you’ve decided to spend our money on a hotel room, I can hardly afford to hire someone to do it.”

“Paige, will you listen to yourself? I mean, seriously.”

“Did you just call me to argue with me?” I snapped.

“No,” he replied with a sigh. “I called to ask you to please back off. I called to ask you to stop with everything that you’re doing and to deal with this like an adult.”

“Oh, the way that you did?” I sneered. “Had you been an adult about this, none of this would be happening. Had you just been honest with mebeforejumping into bed with that homewrecker, none of this would be going on.”

“But I didn’t,” he said. “I didn’t, and I can’t go back in time to correct that, Paige. I cannot undo what I’ve done, but I am trying my hardest to do right by you now.”

“By leaving me for another woman?” I practically screeched. “It wasn’t bad enough that you slept with someone else, but you think that actually leaving me for her is going to make things better for me?”

“I’m not leaving you for another woman,” he lied. “I’m leaving you because our marriage was over a long time ago, but I was too scared to tell you.”

“I call bullshit,” I huffed, annoyed that he was acting like he ever cared.

After a few seconds of silence, he said, “I want us to meet somewhere, so that we can talk about this. Weneedto talk about this, Paige.”

“You’re welcome to come back home any time that you want,” I informed him flippantly. “We can talk while you fix the things that you promised to fix.”

“I would prefer it if we spoke somewhere publicly,” he said, and I could feel anger weaving its way through my heart.

“Oh, really? And why’s that?”

“Because I can’t trust that you won’t do something that might land me in jail, Paige,” he answered evenly, angering me further. “That’s where we’re at right now.”

“You’re going to talk to me about trust?” I hissed, his audacity nearly choking me to death. “Do you seriously have the nerve to use that word with me?”

“Paige-”

“Who in the fuck do you think you are, Harding Rice?” I snarled. “You cheat on me, break my heart, destroy my life, and you want to call me to make demands? You want to talk to me aboutmybehavior and the things thatI’vedone?”

“Paige, if you think that this is the proper way to deal with marital issues, then you need help,” he said, and I saw red in a way that I hadn’t ever seen before. “What you are doing is not normal. It’s not the way that normal people behave.”

Rage had me nearly unable to speak. “I am done with this conversation,” I informed him. “If you want to talk some more, then you can come by the house. I also expect you to fix everything that you promised to fix.”

“Paige, I’m not coming by the house unless it’s to pick up my stuff,” he said, and his words had a finality to it that hit me square in the chest. “And even then, it’d be in my best interest to have the police present when I do.”

“I’m not the crazy one here, Harding,” I told him. “I’m just the one that’s being forced to pick up the pieces.”

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