I didn’t think much of the strange car that pulled down the street behind me and followed me halfway to the office because I didn’t think I needed to. As soon as I got into the office I got straight to work and was digging in for the better part of an hour before the silent alarm on my watch beeped.
I pulled out my phone and went to the app for my home alarm thinking maybe a stray cat had walked onto the driveway or something and my heart stopped when I saw who I thought it was walking around the outside of my house trying to look in.
I knew the doors were locked and the alarm was on but the fear that gripped me in those first few seconds I could do without ever feeling again. The person was wearing a baseball cap and shades but that’s as far as the disguise went.
I grabbed my office phone and called mom who was closer to the house than I was and could get there faster. “Mom, head to the house now, Donna’s prowling around and I won’t get there before you hurry.” I didn’t even give her a chance to say hello before I dropped the phone and ran out of the office.
Donna
* * *
It had taken me the better part of a week to find out what I wanted to know. I hadn’t realized that Holly had changed cars so when I went looking in all her usual places I didn’t see her, until the day I followed her and those friends of hers to lunch and saw her getting into the new Mercedes, no doubt bought with Gage’s money.
I’ve been driving myself nuts in that time trying to get ahold of any information and that’s when I realized that no one knows anything about her or their marriage for that matter. That, or no one was willing to discuss them with a total stranger which left me to do everything myself.
I’d even given thought to hiring a private investigator among other things. There’s been no shortage of ideas running through my head since I became obsessed with finding out if she was pregnant. Today I finally got my answer when I saw them leave the OB/GYN.
At first I felt rage, then sadness and back to anger again. It was only then that I realized how much I truly hated her and wanted her gone. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me wanting Gage for myself, or resenting the fact that she was the one in his life, in his bed.
Life hadn’t been exactly fair to me up until now, so why couldn’t I have the one thing I ever really wanted? Other people go after their dreams without society looking down their noses at them? So why should I shy away from the thing I want?
But seeing him hold her hand and smile down at her when they left the office, the way he seated her in the car and even pulled the seatbelt around her was enough to make me grind my teeth in anger.
I followed them to their neighborhood but had the good sense to stop at the house next door that though a good distance away, gave me a perfect view of their driveway and one side of their house with the binoculars I’d bought to spy on them; that’s how far gone I’ve become.
I didn’t worry about anyone catching me there. If someone came home I could just pretend I was lost, no harm done. I don’t know why I even followed them home, I just did, hoping for that one last look at Gage before he disappeared behind the walls of their home which is what he’s been doing more of late.
I certainly wasn’t expecting the prim and proper Holly to let him eat her out in the driveway or fuck her like he did. It’s the closest I’ve come to committing murder. No one could hear my screams in the confines of my car as I watched them. No one was there to witness my meltdown as I cried tears of anger and betrayal.
It’s as I was following Gage’s car after circling his neighborhood I don’t know how many times with the intent of slamming my car into his that I realized there was something very serious going on with me. I haven’t felt this way since I had to deal with my aunt and uncle, this need to eliminate a threat, to remove an obstacle out of my way.
But I didn’t want to hurt him, it wasn’t him I wanted to erase. If she were out of the picture my life would be so much better. I’m convinced that if she weren’t there that it would leave the road wide open for Gage and I. That I’d be the one going to doctor’s appointments with him, the one he’d smile at like that, the one he’d be making love to.