Page 3 of After Him, There Was You
There was so much noise in her background that I had to turn my phone’s volume up. Luckily, Eva had always been quite a vociferous person, so it didn’t take much to still hear what she was saying despite the various sounds in her background.
“E, don’t say that,” I chastised, shaking my head as if she could see my nonverbal disapproval.
“I will stop calling him sorry when he stops acting like a bit—”
“Eva!” I yelled to interrupt her, and I couldn’t help but to laugh at her exaggerated bluntness.
Even though we had all known each other since middle school, she had never been on Jason’s team, and when his cheating came to light, Eva didn’t take it easy on him about playing with my heart and killing our family dynamic.
“You’re right. I’ll save my aggression for the next time I see him.”
“Girl, you are a mess.”
“You know how I feel about you and your wellbeing, T, and before I go off again, let me change the subject,” she stated and took a dramatic inhale. “Do you have any plans this weekend with the kids out of the house?”
“I was going to have a night in. That’s about it.”
“In other words, you aren’t going to do anything except for stay in your pajamas this weekend,” she confirmed, calling my bluff. We had known each other so long I shouldn’t have been surprised at her reading through my generic answer. “I knew you wouldn’t be doing anything, which is why I made plans for us. Get sexy and be ready for me to pick you up in two hours. Love you. Bye.”
Racing to end the call, she didn’t bother giving me a chance to reject her proposal.
I appreciated her offer, but a part of her invitation caused an intense level of fear to ignite in my heart.Get sexy.I replayed her words in my mind, and I didn’t know where to start.
Take a shower, and then get dressed.I mentally and casually reasoned to myself, attempting to minimize the level of anxiety I was experiencing.
Okay.
I figured a task I completed every day was easy enough. It wasn’t as if I didn’t wear stylish clothes on a daily basis. Yet, I knew just because I was stylish didn’t mean I was sexy.
Admittedly, Jason’s affair had done a number on my confidence and self-esteem, and no matter how hard I workedto rebuild myself, I still found myself wondering why I failed at being good enough for my husband.
That was the part of divorce no one could quite prepare you for. It was the part where when everything was said and done, you wondered why you weren’t good enough. You wondered if you could have done anything differently, and lastly, you questioned why it had to be you.
Out of all the husbands who could have cheated on their wives and gotten their mistress pregnant, why did it have to be mine?
Choosing not to ruin my night by giving life to the self-sabotaging thoughts occupying space in my mind, I pushed them all the way to the back and finished cleaning.
By the time everything was to my liking, I had a little over an hour left in the two-hour window Eva had given me to get dressed, or in her words get sexy.
I had an hour and fifteen minutes to redefine sexy and bring it to life…Great.
Chapter 2: Freakum Dress - Eva Monroe
“Get sexy and be ready for me to pick you up in two hours. Love you. Bye.”
Laughing out loud, I could see her still staring at her phone in disbelief. Tara was more than likely going off on me in her head now, but I knew she would be thanking me later.
Tara was the type of person who was always there when you needed her, and I was going to be there for her regardless of the façade she wore to appear like she was okay.
How could you give a man twelve years of marriage, including two beautiful kids, and be okay when he decided to stick his little bitty penis inside another woman? You don’t.
If nothing else, I wanted my best friend to get out of the house and live her best life. We were far from old, and although we were both mothers, we had a right to be social and live a little bit. We both worked hard, and we deserved to play hard too.
Just like Tara, I was kid free for the weekend because it was my sons’ father’s weekend to get the boys. Trevor and I didn’t work out as lovers, but when it came to our sons, Egypt and Tyger, we managed to have the whole co-parenting thing together. Our sons, who were eight and five years old respectively, were two of the reasons we shared for getting out of the bed in the morning.
There was no baby mama and baby daddy drama involved. I even liked his live-in girlfriend, Vivian. I appreciated Trevor and the man he was because he was consistent with our sons, and together we were raising two little men who were bound to make us proud. More or less, we made the whole blended family thing look easy.
Pulling into my driveway, I let the garage up using my opener, pulled in, and shut the car off while letting it back down.
