When I showed up here at almost four o’clock in the morning when I left Eric, I knew I wouldn’t be able to tell this story more than once. While Cindy wrapped a blanket around me and sat me down on the couch, she called Belle and had her come over immediately. I spent the next hour telling them everything I should have a long time ago. How I was late turning the paperwork in, how I thought Ursula was just a judgmental assistant who worked at the courthouse, how she showed up at my house and told me our application was denied, how Ursula turned out to be Eric’s mother and basically blackmailed me into leaving her son.
To say they were livid is an understatement. Belle was so angry, she couldn’t even think of any statistics to spout, she just started screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs. Cindy woke up PJ and asked him if he’d be our getaway car because she was adamant we go over to Ursula’s house and spray paint Manipulative Bitch all over the white limestone of her home. He rolled over and went back to sleep, telling her he kept a jar containing with bail money in the garage. He’s clearly used to our crazy at this point.
Cindy and Belle are right. This isn’t me, sitting around crying and feeling sorry for myself. I just don’t know what else to do. I miss Eric so much there’s a physical ache in my chest, and the fact that he won’t stop texting me is just making it worse.
As if he knows I’m thinking about it, my phone, on the couch next to me, chimes with an incoming text.
Cindy reaches for it before I can, smiling and then laughing out loud as she reads the text.
“What does it say?” I whisper.
“It says, ‘Come home. Derrick Alfredo misses you. He refuses to lick his balls until you come back. He’s on a ball-licking strike. It’s pathetic. He just lifts his leg above his head and licks the air.’ And he attached a picture of Derrick’s balls.”
She turns my phone around to show me, and sure enough, there’s that little inside-out, ugly fucker, with his leg above his head, staring into the camera with his balls on full display.
I laugh even though it just makes me want to go into the kitchen and find more junk food.
Ever since Eric woke up that morning to find my note, he’s been texting me random shit like this. He’s never once said anything angry or mean, and he should have, since I told him in my note that after much consideration, unfortunately, I didn’t think it would work out between us. I gave him some bullshit excuse about how being with a man was messing with our business, and how I was slacking off because I was spending too much time with him, and that I just didn’t have time for a relationship right now because I needed to concentrate on the Naughty Princess Club. I told him I still cared about him, but I couldn’t do it anymore and needed space, and for him not to contact me.
Of course he didn’t listen.
His first text to me just said, “Nice try.” The second one said, “I know where you are and I know you’re overdosing on carbs without me.” I screamed at Cindy for that one when she looked guilty as soon as I read it to her. She said he called her just to make sure I was safe, and she couldn’t lie to him.
“We need to make a list,” Cindy suddenly announces, handing my phone back to me as she goes into the kitchen and pulls a small notebook out of her purse, along with a pen.
Good lord, she’ll never be able to fully escape the PTA mom, planner-of-everything persona no matter how hard she tries.
“I vote that the first item on the list is Ariel goes back to Eric and tells him everything,” Belle states.
“Negative. You know why I can’t do that. I’m not going to put him in the middle of this and ruin his relationship with his mother,” I remind her, holding up my hand when she opens her mouth again. “And I’m not going to date him in secret and just hope she never finds out. Stop trying to make secret dating happen, Belle. It’s not gonna happen.”
“I like where you’re going, Belle, and we’re definitely putting that on the list whether she likes it or not, but the first thing Ariel needs to do is string Sebastian up by his balls. I made some calls, did a little digging, and found out he’s staying at the Hilton in town,” she tells me, scribbling on her notepad.
For the first time since I walked away from Eric, my heart starts beating again. I know, I know—my fucking heart didn’t really stop beating when I left the guy, otherwise I’d be dead. It’s a fucking figure of speech because it feels like it’s not beating when I’m not with him. The idea of confronting Sebastian is finally something I can get on board with that starts to pull me out of my funk.