The second it registered what he was reading, his expression changed from smug to furious.
“Where did you get these?”
“Amazing what you stumble across on the internet these days, isn’t it?”
Unable to look at him anymore, I spun on my heel and walked toward the kitchen.
Things had been bad between us since our son, Cody, was two. I’d come home from taking him to the hospital because he’d had an infection in his ear that’d dehydrated him thanks to the constant vomiting and had picked up the laptop when it wouldn’t stop making noises.
On the screen had been a chat, and with messages coming through so frantically, I’d immediately thought the worst and that something had happened to one of my siblings or parents, or maybe even that there was a work emergency.
Yeah, no. It’d been the woman he’d been having an online affair with.
Because Cody was asleep, I’d scrolled through them with tears rolling down my face at the lies and nasty shit he’d told her about me. She’d been married as well, with three daughters, but she was hinting at leaving her husband and moving closer to where we were.
And guess what? One of the biggest complaints he had about me was that I was always with Cody, and he felt like it was us against him. Those were his exact words, like we were all three years old, not adults with a little kid to look after.
Her reply was: How selfish.
A mother of three calling me selfish for looking after a small child. Did hers have to raise themselves?
Tired, fed up, and over his shit, I’d ended the marriage the same day and thrown him out of the house.
He’d come back two weeks later in tears, begging for another chance, and like the fool I was, I’d given it to him for Cody’s sake. My parents had been together since they were nineteen, and no one in my family had ever had a reason to get divorced, so I’d thought I was doing the best thing for my child.
More fool me. Once the trust was shattered in a marriage, few can get it back to where it was before it happened.
We went to couple’s therapy and tried everything, but, as the therapist explained, if I wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened and go back to how it’d been before this, I’d have to let it go completely. I couldn’t do that, so I went along with the motions, never once complaining when he fell asleep in his study every night, and focused on my son.
But this was too far.
The fact he’d chosen his affair over his son’s birthday, had lied to his crying kid’s face, had ruined that special day with his absence, and had done it to have sex with a random woman in a motel fifteen minutes away from our home lit a fire in me.
And I’ll repeat—the video had gone viral.
Thousands if not millions of people would see him smiling smugly at the camera. Our friends would see it. Our families would end up seeing it. I could only hope they watched it until the end and saw the date and realized what he’d done.
He was a liar. He was a cheat. He was a selfish and manipulative bastard. And I was done.
Even our two dogs, Rocket and Razzle, were done with him. They’d never even raised their heads when he’d come in, and come to think of it, I don’t think they’d done it for a while. They were lazy by nature, but not this lazy.
“You’ll understand why I’m making the decision I am,” I told him when I heard his footsteps behind me. “You have three days to celebrate Cody’s birthday with him and pack up your stuff, and then I’d like you out of here.
“I’ve contacted a lawyer about the divorce, and she’s putting things in motion for me. I’ll retain custody of him, but you can visit him whenever you want—”
“That suits me fine,” he interrupted, trying to sound blasé but failing miserably. He wasn’t sad or upset, he was pissed because he was in the wrong. “You can keep him. I don’t want the responsibility of being a parent, anyway.”
An almost animalistic noise drowned out my gasp, and when I turned around to see where it’d come from, it was to find Cody standing pale-faced in the doorway.
And he’d heard what the asshole had said.
“You— You don’t want me?”
I saw the expression on Neil’s face change from a sneer to fake sympathy before he glanced over at him, not even turning fully or looking ashamed at how badly he’d fucked up.
“You and your mom are close, kid, so you need to live with her. I’ll see you when I’ve got time, okay?”
Cody, my brave little eight-year-old mini-man, tilted his chin in the air, doing his best not to show his dad how close to tears he was.