Page 37 of Ever After

Lia: Ugh, bitch. Yes! You have a lot to tell me. Aiden has been blowing up my phone for the past week. You never texted me back.

Me: Pick me up at 8? Already 3 glasses of wine in.

Lia: I’ll be there.

I wrap my arms around my best friend the minute I see her. She’s always so dressed up and fancy. Sometimes it makes me feel like a bum. As we head to the restaurant, I’m still a little buzzed, but not as much as before.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she demands.

Not knowing where to begin, I say, “I’m getting divorced.”

“I figured that much.”

I tell her everything that happened with Aiden. We pull up to our favorite steak house as she cusses out Aiden left and right. She’s more pissed than I was. I can’t help but laugh.

“What’s so funny?” she asks.

“I’ve never seen you so heated.”

“Why are you not heated?” she asks, clearly confused.

I pause for a minute, because honestly, I’m confused by this question myself. I haven’t had the chance to tell her everything about Jay yet.

“More has happened. Let’s go inside, and I’ll finish telling you.”

The soft lighting and peaceful music make a soothing ambience while we walk to our seats. As I open the drink menu, Lia’s eyes are on me. Looking up, I ask, “What?”

“Tell me!” she practically squeals.

“I will. Let’s order first. I have a good buzz going, and I don’t want it to go away.” She rolls her eyes at me and starts looking at the menu. Once the waiter takes our order, I look over at Lia. She’s anxiously waiting for me to finish telling her. I tell her everything about Jay. She stays silent like my mom did. I’m thinking about what I did was pretty shocking now. But now with her expression and my mom’s hesitance, maybe it was more shocking than I thought.

The waiter sets our wine down. “Are you guys ready to order food?”

We both ordered filet mignon and a lobster mac and cheese to share.

Before the waiter leaves, she says, “This is not what I was expecting to hear. But it’s so cute.” She exaggerates thesoin a high pitch squeaky voice.

I look up at the waiter, wondering what he thinks she’s talking about. He gives me a smile and backs away from our table.

“You think so?” Maybe this wasn’t so crazy.

“The story of you and Jay meeting is, but there is a lot of drama surrounding the situation. You’re married and what’s even more shocking is Jay’s ex was the one that Aiden slept with. That intensifies the drama. I would take a chance and go for it and see where it leads,” Lia says.

I never asked her what she thinks I should do. That wasn’t even why I told her everything. She’s my best friend and I tell her everything. She was a little upset that I kept it from her. We tell each other everything right when it happens. We have always been that way.

“I’m not asking for your advice, Lia. I needed to tell you everything.”

“Why wouldn’t you go for it? Come on, you wasted how many years with Aiden? You have another chance at love. Why wouldn’t you take it? People get so scared to go through a divorce thinking they won’t find anyone else.”

“Well, for one, I’m still married.”

“He knows that and still pursued you. So why does that matter?”

Remembering he texted me when Aiden was over at the house, and I forgot to text him back. I pull out my phone and look at the message. That was six hours ago. Now that I’m talking about this out loud, the more embarrassed I get. Especially for him. Why did he continue to pursue me?

If I don’t eat something with substance soon, I’m going to black out as I shove a piece of bread in my mouth. I haven’t eaten all day and I’ve been drinking. I look around, trying to see if I see our waiter coming with our food.

Now that our food is here, I’m not as hungry after all the bread. I ask the waiter for another glass of wine. Getting drunk wasn’t the plan for tonight, but that seems to be where I’m headed.

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