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What the heck? Who was this? I clicked on the next one.
Em, its Fi
How did Fi
I’m fine. Home safely. Thanks for checking. Tired. Goodnight.
The response was immediate, and I wondered if he’d been waiting on my text.
Wait, can we talk?
Fi
Fine. You can go to sleep. But this conversation isn’t over Em. We have a lot to talk about. Goodnight sweet dreams. X
As if I didn’t have enough to think about. What did ‘x’ mean? Did he do that at the end of all his texts? And what’s more, Fi
It’d been two weeks since I had left Chicago—and my cheating husband—behind. Harper met me at the airport like she said she would, and she took me home with her. I didn’t want to go to my parents’ house. I knew that they loved me and I would have been more than welcome to live with them again, but nothing screamed failure to me more than getting a divorce and moving back in with Mom and Dad at twenty-eight. My mother begged me to come and stay with her, but after some convincing—and my Dad talking to her—she understood that I just needed some time and Harper was an excellent support for me. Fi
A week after I’d arrived back home, there’d been a knock on the door and Harper had answered. She called me over because there was a cop asking for me. Apparently my soon-to-be-ex-husband couldn’t wait to be rid of me and had gone ahead and filed divorce papers. I was being served. Once the shock wore off I realized I needed to do something to keep myself busy, and I needed to start putting my life back together. I needed a job and eventually a place of my own. Harper insisted that she loved having me around—I enjoyed being there too—but I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. We may have been best friends but we weren’t college kids anymore. We were older now and had our quirks. I’d been helping her out around the house by cleaning and making di
A few days after being served, I went out and hired a lawyer that my Dad had suggested. Because West filed in Chicago, we had to abide by Illinois state law. Fortunately the lawyer that I hired had passed his bar in that state so I felt confident in his abilities. Harper thought I should take West for everything that I could. Part of me really did want to take him to the cleaners for lying to me for so many years, but I couldn’t help but feel like maybe I’d deserved what happened to me. I lost myself at some point during my marriage. I didn’t think I’d ever fully given myself to West. After Fi
“Hey, so what are your plans for today?” Harper asked me while fixing herself a cup of coffee.
“I have an interview at the coffee shop in town, and then I’m going to the doctor’s office for some testing.”
“What kind of testing?”
I was sitting at the table in the kitchen and let out a long yawn. “The STD kind of testing. After catching West with Julia, I have no way of knowing if he’s been with anyone else.”
Harper put a lid on her coffee cup, and gave me a sympathetic look. “Well when you get an answer, give me a call. I’m worried about you. Oh and good luck on your interview. I still don’t know why you’re getting a job when you don’t need one. Just suck the bastard dry.” I heard her grab her keys and open the front door. “I’ll be home around six.”
“Bye” I yawned again.
I had a few hours before my interview so I decided to bide my time and take a nice long hot bath. I grabbed my favorite romance novel, ran some steamy hot water, piled all my hair on top of my head and slid in the tub. I pressed play on my iPod and ‘I
No I couldn’t call him. Fi
I wasn’t sure how long I lay in the bath but I must have dozed off. My cell phone buzzed from where I’d left it on the toilet seat and woke me. It was a text from Harper. She was letting me know that she would be about an hour late because she had a showing. Getting out of the tub I went to my room to get dressed. I didn’t want to be overly dressy for the interview since it was just the coffee shop but I didn’t want to appear unprofessional. I chose to wear a loose fitting blue top with three-quarter length sleeves that matched the color of my eyes, and a pair of black dress pants with black flats. Better to appear professional than sloppy was always my Mom’s motto.
Grabbing my brush I worked it through my hair and decided to leave it down. I glanced at the clock I saw it was time to go. I took one last look at myself in the mirror. Ready or not, this was as good as I was going to get.