The Dare

I sigh deeply and head back inside to face Karen once more. My ex is laughing like this is the funniest thing that has ever happened to her which only aggravates me further. I have been attempting to be a good person with her, giving her the benefit of the doubt, and she is relishing in my misery. I don’t like the idea that she hasn’t changed at all, but that’s the impression she’s giving me right now.

“You really do know how to pick them, don’t you?” she squeals with glee. “Wow, what did you do to that bitch to send her so crazy? And why does she think that I’m your wife all of a sudden? You didn’t get married after me, did you? I didn’t think you had time for romance after me.”

I have no idea, but that’s not the only reason I don’t answer Karen. It isn’t her business. Me and Latesha is nothing to do with her. We aren’t here to talk about that…

“And someone you work with as well,” she howls, clearly too amused to see my bad mood. “Wow, what a fuck up. You’re looking at me like I don’t have it together and look at you.”

My mood clouds, I don’t know how we’re going to continue this with her winding me up like this, I’m not sure I even want to. This feels ridiculous…

Chapter 13 – Latesha

“I am such a fool,” I whisper over ice cream, glad that Tracey came for me after that show down. “Honestly, I feel like such an idiot. Even more so now. It doesn’t feel like I grabbed my power, but that I have just made things worse. I’ve destroyed their family over a couple of random hook ups that didn’t mean anything.”

Tracey glares at me over her own food with anger in her eyes. “You did the right thing. You know that. I know it too or I wouldn’t have feigned sickness to get away from work so I can look after you.”

She’s right so I nod. In her eyes, I have taken the enemy down and done the right thing. She thinks that I am doing a duty for woman kind by stopping this one man from screwing around behind his wife’s back, but I am a side effect of that. Every feeling inside of me hurts, so I can only imagine how she must feel…

“The wife was weird,” I tell my friend thoughtfully. “She was smirking as I yelled at Zack.”

“She could be one of those gold digger wives.” Tracey shrugs as if this is obvious. “One who is only with him for his money, because he is loaded, isn’t he? His business is really successful so he must be. She might not actually give a shit about him. It could be a marriage in name only. They might both have affairs…”

“In which case I freaked out for nothing,” I groaned loudly. “I stormed in to that café and yelled over nothing. His wife probably thinks that I am some kind of nut job which really sucks.”

“You still did the right thing. I stand by that,” Tracey insists. “It doesn’t matter what their fucked-up situation is, you have extracted yourself from it and made him know how you feel. That is something.”

I hang my head low and eventually rest it on the table in front of me. Ice cream was a good idea when I still had adrenaline coursing through my veins, but now I’m emotionally exhausted and all I want to do is be at home. My bed is practically calling out to me, begging me to get under the sheets where I can rest in peace.

“Can we leave?” I ask my friend a little pathetically. “I want to go home.”

“Of course. Come on.” Tracey shakes her car keys at me. “Let’s get home. Bad TV and crap food awaits.”

She takes my arm gently and leads me from the room, taking me way from the rest of the world so I can finally grieve. There is a chance that all of this is a bit of an overreaction considering how little we actually hooked up, but I invested a lot. I felt for him deeply and I can’t stop myself from feeling sad that it’s all over. I have adored Zack for a lot longer than the couple of days we hung out, and that’s the part which aches.

***

With a duvet cover over me and rich women arguing about nothing on the TV, some reality show that I don’t need to even know the names of the characters to be able to follow the vague story line, I do start to feel a lot better. Tracey has been in and out of the room. I know that she is still trying to do a bit of work from home from her laptop, so she doesn’t get too behind with her work, but I’m so grateful to have her around. I feel bad that I’m putting her out like this, but she keeps telling me that it’s fine because I would do the same for her.