Page 75 of The One I Love
“Wow,” Kendra says. “Okay, crazy moms. That would be definitely a reason to wait for a minute.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Once they know we’re together, be ready for the wedding, because it will happen within a week.”
“It won’t be a week,” Betsy says.
“Oh, it will,” I say. “I’ve already had my mother pressure me to get married quickly once in my life. I know exactly how fast that woman works. I don’t need for it to happen again.”
“Really?” Whitley asks. “Is that what happened with your ex?”
At this point, we are all sitting in our loungers, and unfortunately, my sangria is long gone. I should ask for another if I’m about to talk about my lackluster wedding to a lackluster groom.
“I got pregnant spring of my senior year. Of course, I wasscared, mortified, and all-around confused. I was so panicked that I told Shane before anyone else. Even my mom or Paul.”
I remember that day like it was yesterday. How I cried. How he held me and told me everything was going to be all right. How he walked with me to my parent’s house and stayed with me when I told them. Not Paul. Shane.
I should have known then what I know now…
“I told my mom a few weeks before graduation. My dad was long gone by then, so I didn’t need to worry about him. I was afraid she was going to kick me out of the house. Which, I mean, I was eighteen, she could have. She didn’t. However, she very strongly kept asking if Paul and I were going to get married. The asking became nudging, which ended in her and Paul’s mom sitting us down and all but forcing us to get married. I mean, wewerein love. At least we said that to each other at the time. So one Wednesday night we went to the courthouse and got married in our jeans and T-shirts. Six months later, Luke was born. The rest is history.”
“Damn,” Whitley says. “What I’m confused about is your dad left when you and Jake were young. She was a single mom most of y’all’s lives. Why was she so gung-ho on you getting married?”
“I wondered that too,” I say. “Years later, right after my divorce, I asked her that. She said she knew how hard it was for her as a single mom. She thought if we were married, it wouldn’t be so hard for me.”
“Was she right?”
“In some ways,” I admit. “At the beginning, things were good. We were young and dumb and in love. Then Luke came. For the first few months, Paul was always there. Slowly he started going out more and more on the weekends. Sometimes he’d be gone all weekend, saying he was going with buddies to different college parties in Nashville or Knoxville. And Ilet him. I mean, he didn’t give me a choice, but I didn’t fight it. That’s what weshouldhave been doing, partying and having fun, not budgeting for the week to make sure we could afford diapers and groceries.”
“You raised Luke by yourself, didn’t you?”
I shrug my shoulders to Betsy. “Basically. I made excuses for Paul. And don’t get me wrong, we had some good times. There would be weeks he’d be home. We’d do things together as a family. Then as soon as I’d get used to that, he’d be back out and I’d never know when he was going to come home.”
“That had to be horrible.”
“It was,” I say. “Then we had Mariah. Before it was just the partying and drinking. Then it became so much more than that. At that point, I was a stay-at-home mom. I was completely reliant on him, and he knew it.”
“Oh, I do not like where this is going,” Betsy says.
I nod. “It started with just little mind games. He was gaslighting me before I knew what that word even meant. He’d tell me if I took care of myself that we’d have sex more. That if I was a better wife, he wouldn’t leave all the time. Things like that. It then became more and more evident he was sneaking around. But even with all that, and part of me knowing he had to be having an affair, I was still in denial about it.”
“How did you find out?” Kendra asks.
“The guys,” I say. “They told me that they saw him at The Joint kissing another woman. At first I didn’t believe them. They always hated Paul, so of course I wasn’t going to believe them.”
“What was the tipping point?”
I push down the tears and the anger that threaten to build up every time I talk about this. Which granted, isn’t often. But I don’t think that matters. I think this will always make me emotional.
“I was out with the guys. Mom had taken Luke and Mariah. We went out for Simon’s birthday. I had texted Paul what I was doing, but either he never got the text or didn’t care, because when we showed up at The Joint, there he was, his tongue down the throat of Jessica Mozzaro."
“This is why I hate men,” Kendra says.
“For a while I did too,” I say. “I don’t even remember reacting. I just know I turned and ran away. I still don’t know what happened after that. All I know is that the next time I saw Paul he had a black eye and was full of apologies and excuses.”
“No fucking way!” Kendra says as Whitley and Betsy’s eyes almost pop out of their heads. “That brazen fuckhead! Also, my money is on Shane for decking him.”
“Probably,” I say. “That was the beginning of the end.”
Maybe it wasn’t the true beginning, but that was the first night I realized everything that had been bad in our marriage. The late nights. The lying. I couldn’t excuse it anymore. Two days later I confronted him. And he lied. He told me I was seeing things. I asked him about the black eye, and he said he ran into something at work.
