Jenny (Babysitter's Club 5)

Any lingering guilt I may have felt about letting go of the hand of the mother of my children died with the words Lauren had yelled at Jenny. Her betrayal is something I will use going forward to remind myself that burying my head in the sand and pretending to be something I’m not for the sake of not rocking the boat is bullshit.

Because while I was doing that shit, the world was fucking me up the ass with a cactus. My Mr. Good Guy walk came to a crashing end under the wheel of the Rover; mom’s just gonna have to deal.

I started putting my new life in order as soon as I opened my eyes the next day, time to play hardball. I decided first and foremost to let the police know the truth and listed the Rover as stolen. Lauren was right; once I learned that she’d been with someone else, there’s no way I would ever touch her again.

She hadn’t denied it when Jenny asked her about taking pills, so that too was something else she’d hidden from me, looks like she wasn’t the person I thought she was after all, and she certainly didn’t deserve my sympathy, she can get that from whoever she’d fucked.

I started searching; maybe this guy is the one she was shacked up with. I didn’t know who he was; come to think of it I’d only ever taken her word for shit. I didn’t know half the people she worked with, and she didn’t have any friends to speak of.

She always had her phone with her, claiming it was work related, asshole that I am I’d always bought it, never once thinking that the girl I’d saved from a life of poverty and drudgery would turn around and fuck me over. Her whole life is on that phone, and maybe it was providence that she’d ran out of the house without it that day.

I went into the bedroom and grabbed it off the nightstand where I’d left it after calling Jenny that day. The girls were still asleep thankfully, so I knew I had a few more hours to play with before they woke up and needed my attention.

As of one day ago, I became their only parent, now I must act accordingly. I unlocked her phone and found that the battery had died I’d forgot to keep it charged. I plugged it in and paced the room back and forth as I waited.

I felt rejuvenated. Like I’d been asleep for the past eight years or so, ever since that night that I’d fucked up in the backseat of that car. Now there was a buzz under my skin, and I just wanted to get things started and get on with my life.

Since there was no sense in waiting and I no longer cared what anyone thought, I called up my lawyer and got the ball rolling on the divorce. Because of her actions, and I would use that video if I had to, I wasn’t allowing her any rights to my kids.

I’ve seen that movie, and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to be standing over two little graves with regret because I’d let myself care what society thought of me and allowed her near my girls only so she could kill them, fuck that. I told him she gets nothing, and it was his job to see to that shit.

She couldn’t come after the house or the business because my parents are no fools. They’d made sure both would stay mine no matter what when they signed them over. But she might try to dig into my trust fund or the money I’d made on my own over the years. Not one fucking dime.

I didn’t know it was that easy to fall out of love and into hate with someone, and I didn’t want to look too closely at that shit for fear that I’d find that I never loved her, that I’d set myself up for failure from the start.

I tried not to let my anger rule every aspect of my life for the next few weeks as I waited. Every other second I’d get the wild urge to call Jenny, but I fought it back. I’d fucked her over enough already; no way was I going to her until this thing was settled or almost there.

The lawyer said something about a divorce by publication. I’d have to run an ad in the paper for about three weeks disclosing my intent to divorce her, and if Lauren didn’t show up, then we could go ahead with a divorce by default. I told him to go for it and make sure that everything was tied up nice and neat so that there were no surprises somewhere down the line.