To Have and to Hold

“It was a busy day with the bake sale, so they knew they couldn’t keep me. I just thought I would bring your extra suit by, so you’ll have it here in case you need to change for anything.” I look at him as he approaches, but I can feel her watching me, looking me over in the same fashion I did her just moments ago.

“Jessica, this is my wife, Scarlett. Scar, baby, this is Jessica, the new receptionist.”

Of course I knew he was going to hire someone else, since my mother-in-law retired, but I didn’t think he would hire this walking blow-up doll. There’s not an inch on her that is flawed, and I can tell that just from a few brief moments of analyzing her.

I look to her, and not wanting to let her see the jealousy raging inside me, I stand up straight and reach out my hand. “Hello, Jessica. I’m Mrs. Gideon Pierce.” I purposely add the Gideon in there just to make it extra clear. It takes a moment—Gideon is too busy taking the suit from my other hand to notice—for her to reciprocate the gesture. But that’s not the part that has me curling up inside, into the insecure woman I have become.

No, it’s the snarky expression she gives me and the way she looks me up and down once again, seeming unimpressed, as if I have nothing to offer the most handsome man who ever walked the earth. My husband.

He is your husband, Scarlett. He would never cheat. He may entertain the thought, but he would never act.

Yet he would entertain the thought. Wouldn’t he?

Suddenly, my head spins out of control, and I become an unconfident nightmare on the inside, suffering without anyone being able to calm me down or see it. I’m fighting an invisible war with myself, and the parts of me I hate most are winning.

“Nice to meet you, Scarlett.”

Keeping the smile, my eyes tighten into slits.

“Beautiful, I have an appointment coming in the next half hour, so I don’t have much time. But I would love to spend it alone with you, if you have a moment before you finish running errands,” Gideon interrupts, still oblivious to the standoff happening between the two women.

“I wish I could, but I need to get groceries, put them away, pack for the kids, and then head to pick them up and take them to your mother’s. They’re staying with her tonight.” The old Scarlett, the one without a heaping pile of insecurities, would have taken that offer and shown this Jessica just what Gideon has and what she can’t compete with. But honestly, my heart and my mental state can’t handle it. I need to get out. I’m barely keeping my composure as it is. The old Scarlett would stake her claim, but the new Scarlett can’t even try.

Jessica smirks, and I catch the bitchy attitude behind it, but Gideon doesn’t. His eyes are on me. I’m sure he’s thinking this is just me blowing him off again and putting some distance between us.

“Oh, okay. Well, I’ll be home tonight. I have that dinner with the guys. Will you be okay alone for a bit?”

Refocusing my attention on my husband, I give him a gentle smile. “Yes, I’ll be great. You have fun, and please be safe. Call me if you have too much to drink and need a ride.”

Grabbing my hip, he pulls me in, and the small gesture of claim on me makes that jealousy more a quiet bitch in the back of my head. “I don’t plan on drinking tonight. Just dinner, and then I’m going to come home and spend time with you. Text me while I’m out. You know I like that.”

I shake my head. This is something he has always said to me whenever he’s going to be away from me for a few hours outside of work. “Yeah, you only like it so you can keep tabs on me, psycho.”

“Hell yeah, baby. I like to know my woman is at home waiting for me. Not out, where other men have access to take her.” His comment is unexpected, but it’s welcomed. It helps silence that green monster in my head.

“I’ll be doing laundry and cleaning the kids’ rooms. No time for Fabio to sweep me away while you’re out to play,” I tease back, the banter familiar yet unrecognizable at the same time. We haven’t done this in a while, because of me and all I have going on inside my head.

But in this moment, the threat is extinguished, and I pray it stays that way.

He would never cheat, Scar, I repeat in my head. Sharing a soft, intimate kiss—nothing lengthy, because his client enters through the doors—we say our goodbyes. And as I walk away and he heads back toward his exam rooms, I take one glance back at Jessica. She stares me down with her fake green eyes along with an equally fake smile she gives me.