I Forgave You Anyway Read online

  The next few weeks flew by. Michael came back home just in time to start school and I’d been hired as a part time receptionist at a local vet clinic. Between that and my girlfriend Jae’s full-time job, our lives went from hours of boredom to touch and go, with barely a moment to breathe. David and I shared visitation every other weekend and as his first Friday to pick up Michael rolled around, the tension between Jae and I rose. Michael was ecstatic to see his Father, which made Jae about as cuddly as a tiger with a toothache.

  “Why is he so obsessed with his Dad?” Jae asked me bitterly.

  “His Dad is a loser. He can’t even pay his bills or show up for an appointment for his son.”

  “Jae! Please try to be fair. Can we please just try to be pleasant for Michael?” I begged her.

  “Whatever, but I’m not talking to him.” I rolled my eyes at her, feeling a pang of grief snag in the back of my throat.

  I wanted so badly for David to be the Father he’d promised. I felt like everything was my fault, and that my decision to leave David had irrevocably messed up Michael’s chances at having a normal childhood. I felt like I was the cause of Jae’s frustration and struggle as a stepparent. I knew it wasn’t easy for her to accept that there had been someone else I’d loved before her.

  Suddenly, I heard six taps on the front door. It was a weird little beat, but it was more pleasant than the typical cop-knock of strangers. David had been knocking that way since I could remember, and the sound alone sent wave of anxiety through my chest. My dogs went crazy howling and barking, pushing and shoving me out of the way to greet the intruder with wagging tails and wet noses.

  My heart quickened. David and I hadn’t been getting along all summer. Disagreements on how to raise Michael had minced the shreds of our relationship over the last three months. Despite our arguments, I believed that David still had a soft spot for me. At the time, I’d mistaken this “soft spot” for love, when really all David truly ever wanted from me was my loyalty and my unwavering allowance for his control. Like a calf led to slaughter, I wanted him to forgive me. I needed him to forgive me. Living without him had been the hardest decision I’d ever made. I knew Jae could see the pain and love I still had for him written all over my face every time David was around. I couldn’t help the way I felt, but it still didn’t make it any easier.

  “Hey,” I said cautiously, opening the door.

  “Hey,” he said, his eyes glued to the welcome mat.

  “Just send him out,” he said flatly.

  He looked up for a moment, catching my gaze. Disgust and anger were written all over his face. He turned and walked quickly to his car, leaning up against it and squinting blindly at his cell phone screen. I felt my heart sink, knowing he was nowhere near ready to allow me back into his graces. I’d violated our unspoken contract, and that was not something David would tolerate.

  “Mikey, Daddy is here,” I called, watching David out of the corner of my eye and pretending to straighten the door mat.

  “YAY!” Michael screeched.

  Funny how he couldn’t hear me yelling for him to come eat his dinner from ten feet away, but he could hear me basically whisper the word ‘Daddy,’ from all the way downstairs.

  “Yay. . .” Jae echoed sarcastically from the kitchen.

  I turned and shot her a warning look. It wasn’t Michael’s fault that the adults in his life didn’t know how to get along. After I’d said my goodbyes, Jae and I stood on the porch waving at Michael and watching them drive away.

  “David looks so stupid driving that car.” Jae said, eyeing the four door Honda sedan David and I had bought together. “It’s a Grandpa car anyway.”

  “Really? I don’t think so. I liked that car when I used to drive it.” I replied, remembering the day David and I had proudly driven it off the lot.

  It had been our first brand-new car with pristine interior and Bluetooth technology.

  “No, your new car is way sexier,” she said, pulling me in for a hug.

  “I do like my Mustang.” I said, smiling into her chest, breathing in Joop cologne and men’s sport deodorant.

  My whole life had changed when I’d left David. I’d given up my new car for an older used one, as well as exchanged a home with a landscaped lawn for a tiny apartment with paper thin walls. Despite all of it, I was happy. Or so I told myself anyway.

  “Well babe, let’s get ready.” Jae said, interrupting my thoughts. “We’re supposed to meet Sam and Sarah at The Mask around ten o’clock. God knows it’s going to take you forever to get ready,” she teased.

  “It does not take me that long!” I protested, knowing full well she was right.

  Tonight, I planned on going full lipstick lesbian, complete with stilettos and a dress I couldn’t bend over in. Jae wore eye liner when she wore her “girly” jeans, but most often she was bare faced. After spending ten minutes on her hair with a flat iron, she’d stuff her feet into a pair of Vans and with a last chug of light beer, she’d be ready to go. After that, you could find her planted behind me, sitting on our bed, watching the fascinating process of my beauty routine and annoying the hell out of me.

  Chapter 3: Confessions

  The club was pulsating with loud renditions of Lady Gaga. Disco lights and laser beams scattering in maddening patterns across the walls. Half-naked men pranced around laughing and yelling into each other’s ears. Our one local gay bar was pretty much a sausage fest with a few cliques of lesbians sipping on drinks and trying to snag the attention of women who seemed to be constantly running to the bathrooms in small herds. You could always tell a straight girl by her death grip on her equally straight friend, staggering around the dance floor in heels and the latest outfit from the nearest outlet mall.

  They were like lesbian kryptonite: the unattainable bleeding heart escaping their typical hangouts, thinking that a gay bar would be a nice break from the constant advances of male suitors. My friend Sam noticed me eyeing them with disdain. Every seasoned lesbian knew to steer clear of straight girls, or else face the ultimate blow: being left to pick up the broken pieces of your heart when she left you for Prince Charming.

  “Put the claws away, Anna,” Sam laughed, handing me a shot of fireball.

  Cool and confident in her rock n’ roll inspired outfits, dark eyeliner intensified her deep-set brown eyes which peered mischievously from behind a short, dark razor cut.

  “Sorry, it just reminds me of that one time I fell for Rhino,” I said bitterly.

  Jae raised her eyebrows, a cocky smile on her lips.

  “It’s not like I never worried you’d leave me for your husband,” she said sarcastically, adjusting her snapback.

  I shook my head, smiling. “True, and I can honestly say you had a right.”

  “Wait, who’s Rhino?” My friend Sarah asked.

  Sarah was more feminine like me, model-like with large blue eyes and a perfect sun kissed tan.

  “Ah, well, Rhino was the first girl I actually ever slept with. She was barely twenty, my neighbor and my husband’s mistress,” I said coolly.

  “What?!” Sarah exclaimed, not hiding her intrigue. “I need details.”

  I looked at Jae, not wanting to offend her by talking about my wild oats. She smiled, nodding at me. I think any story where David lost was one worth telling in her eyes.

  “I slept with this girl, she had a Rhino tattooed on her inner thigh, thus the nickname,” I started. “It’s shameful really,” I said, hoping they’d drop it.

  “Oh, juicy!” Sarah exclaimed, looking over at Sam, who sat smiling coyly, waiting for me to continue.

  I rolled my eyes. “Okay, I guess I’ll tell you, since no one is obviously going to let this go.”

  I sat back in my chair and took a long sip of my rum and Coke.

  “I first noticed that something was going on between David and this girl shortly after David and I had this long conversation about working things out.”

  I looked down at the table. As funny as this story mig
ht be for my friends, for me, it was a raw wound that hadn’t yet quite healed. Especially because I felt ashamed of how everything had played out.

  “She was hardly old enough to enlist, and her parents were our neighbors. David worked on the base with Rhino. She was David’s superior, actually.”

  I looked up at them, each of them looking back at me with wide eyes.

  “I know, trust me, it was messed up.” I took another long drink and continued. “She was the tom-boy type; not fussy about her clothes or hair, working every spare minute to buy herself a Jeep or some other lesbian-esqe car. . .” we all paused to laugh. “She seemed harmless to me. Young, care-free and still living with her parents.

  Here I was, the perfect little housewife who always had my lipstick on when my husband came home, at least most days anyway. Her Dad would mow our lawn sometimes, and her Mom and I would sometimes chit-chat in their garage, so that made everything worse,” I said, fidgeting with the straw in my drink. “David and I had decided to re-locate to the base, and when moving day came, their whole family came to help us. Her Mom basically packed my entire living room for me.” I looked down at the table again. “She really was a good woman.”

  This wasn’t turning out as easy as I’d thought. I trusted Sam and Sarah, since they were my closest friends, but I’d never told anyone else but Jae. I prided myself on my self-actualized sense of right and wrong. I rarely ever deviated from the code of morality that had ruled my life for two decades, but this had been a time in my life when I’d allowed myself to do things I would have judged others very harshly for. Maybe it’d been the pain of my crumbling marriage, or the fact that everything I’d stood for at the time seemed fruitless and hadn’t seemed to earn me one iota of respect. Either way, it wasn’t easy to let other people see that I’d done less than noble things in my life.

  “Rhino came over, asking if there was anything she could do. David was in the back, cleaning up the yard and getting ready to paint over some of the walls in our bedroom. Throughout the day as we packed and cleaned, I kept thinking it was weird how she’d always ended up wherever David was. He didn’t have the best track record, so I started feeling a little uneasy; maybe even a little sad. He seemed to be avoiding me, and I kept ending up alone, cleaning or whatever.” I stared at the ice in my empty glass. Wishing we’d sat closer to the D.J., so my voice could be drowned out by the music. “Finally, I went back into the bathroom. It was this tiny room, too small for one, let alone two adults.”

  Sam sat forward in her chair, rolling her eyes.

  “Oh God, here we go,” she said.

  “Rhino was bent over painting, and they were basically backed up into each other, her perfect, twenty-year-old ass, brushing up against his legs,” I said frowning, remembering how it felt to find them like that and to realize how naïve I’d been.

  “I tried to be rational and made some joke about the bathroom being a little small for two people. Rhino seemed to get the hint and walked out of the bathroom. It was then I noticed she was wearing a flower in her hair. One of those ugly little faux flowers that clip on. It looked totally weird on her, and I started to wonder who wears a bow to go paint? It just hit me. I knew, but I didn’t really know. David and I finished moving, and I thought maybe it was just a little flirtation and would fizzle out with all the distance between them. So, basically, I looked the other way.”

  Sarah looked like she was about to cry, and said quietly, “God Anna, this got depressing fast.”

  I laughed, shaking my head. “Hey, you guys asked.”

  Sarah nodded, and called the bar tender over for another round of shots.

  “Cheers to lying whores,” she toasted, throwing back another ounce of rum.

  I leaned back, letting the alcohol settle me into a cozy fuzz, and continued my story.

  “After we moved, life on the Air Force base began and we busied ourselves getting settled in. Not long after, I noticed that David seemed more distant. He started taking long coffee and smoke breaks outside with his phone. I wanted to believe he was just playing games or thought maybe he was just a little depressed. We’d been through so many changes that year. He’d promised me our life would be better, that all the hurt and pain from our past would be left behind once we moved. I learned fast that David was never going to change. I tried making better friends, I even tried going back to church with him, but the truth was, David didn’t love me. He wasn’t happy, and I could feel it in my bones.”

  I could feel tears starting to sting the back of my eyes, but I ignored them, and hoped Jae didn’t notice. “One night, he’d left his phone out and my gut sank as I reached for it. I knew I’d find things like porn and dating sights. Stuff I didn’t want to see but I never expected to find pictures of Rhino.

  I’d already been through him cheating, I’d been through his lying and abuse so many times. He’d known this would the last time. He’d put the nail in the coffin with his own hammer. This time it was really going to be over. That night I let him hold me, because I couldn’t do anything else. I couldn’t even breathe. He swore it had only been texting and pictures, but something in me died that night. I e-mailed Rhino and told her I knew. She texted me and apologized and ended up calling me crying. She didn’t want her parents knowing. She was ashamed and wanted to apologize to me in person. So, we started hanging out. She kept telling me how pretty she’d always thought I was, and we started becoming close. It wasn’t long before I started having feelings for her and she admitted the same. Soon I was meeting her at the mall, leaving David at home. It honestly felt amazing to have him watch me take his crush right from under him. It was the ultimate payback.”

  Sam looked at me nodding mischievously, “I bet it ‘felt amazing,” she said sarcastically.

  “Very funny, Sam. You want me to finish or what?” I asked, hoping they’d be too drunk for sad stories and just want to dance or take more shots instead.

  “Oh no, this I’ve got to hear. Continue, my friend!” She exclaimed, sticking her vapor cigarette between her teeth.

  I reluctantly began again. “One night, Rhino came over to hang out. We all knew what we were there for. The sexual tension had been high for weeks, and I wanted to see what it felt like to watch my husband have someone he wanted more than me. I wanted to know if I could take the pain. To see if it really made him satisfied. So, we slept with her. It was crazy, it was beautiful, and it also felt very wrong. Maybe that’s why it was so exciting, I dunno. . . It wasn’t all about David, and I made sure he knew that. He was even shy, which was new to me. I saw them both in so many new ways. Anyway, there was no way it was going to end well, but we had no idea it would end the way it did. About three days later, Rhino was asking us if we had threesomes before. I think she got the idea we were swingers or something. She told me she had a rash, and was headed to the hospital, freaking out that we’d given her some sort of STD. The worst part was, David came to me with his own rash. It got worse over the next day, and really started to look hopeless. I started to think it was exactly what we deserved, letting our life spin so far out of control.”

  They gasped in unison. I nodded and talked faster. I didn’t want anyone thinking I had the gift that kept on giving.

  “David cried, and I cried. We both felt like God himself had judged us. David went to medical to get tested, and Rhino stopped talking to both us. Thankfully, the doctor sent David home with a clean bill of health, other than an acute case of bad razor burn. Rhino finally text us a few weeks later and said that it had been a reaction to soap and had been purely coincidental.”

  “Oh, my gosh. . .” Sarah whispered, looking wide eyed at Sam.

  “She also called to let me know she was dating some guy she’d met during her college classes, so I promptly told her to screw off, and we never spoke again.”

  My friends’ mouths were hanging a-gape, their drinks barely touched. I picked up my box of Camels, flicked my lighter, and took a long drag.

  “Yup,” I said, raising
my glass for a toast. “So, here’s to straight girls.”

  Chapter 4: Rainbows vs. Reality

  The next morning, I muffled a groan into my pillow. My head felt like it had been squeezed like a lemon in a juice press. With one eye open, I looked around my bedroom. Clothes were strewn everywhere, stacks of laundry piled haphazardly on my dresser.

  My cat slept nose to tail on top of them, shedding his course white hair all over the first layer of the freshly washed stack. I rolled my eyes. Jae was great at washing the laundry but had a serious issue with putting it away. We were nearly three years into our relationship, and this was one of those little annoying habits that slowly begins to peck away at the honeymoon phase.

  Jae stirred beside me; her soft blonde hair splayed on the pillow she’d had embroidered for me on my last birthday. It was the match to my own pillow, both endearingly displaying the word “Mrs.” in black calligraphy. I rubbed my eyes, picking at the leftover clumps of mascara from the night before. I’d lay awake for hours last night, despite my exhaustion.

  “Good morning beautiful,” Jae said sleepily.

  I smiled automatically at her in the dim morning light. I was trying to ignore the growing feeling of irritation I felt.

  “Hey,” I whispered, taking a moment to look at her. Her cheeks were flushed from sleep, more pink than usual. I moved closer to her and kissed her lightly.

  “How are you feeling?” She asked. I rolled over and looked at the ceiling. It was popcorn spray, adorned with an ugly white fan.

  “Like shit,” I said flatly.

  She sighed and I felt her tense up. “I keep telling you to go to the doctor.”

  I rolled stubbornly away from her, annoyed that she always had a solution. Maybe I just wanted to feel like shit. I hated going to the doctor. I was poor enough for Medicaid and every time the State decided to change insurance companies, stop funding programs, or drop the income guidelines, I had to start all over. The parade of doctors I had seen over the years gave me a sudden case of heartburn.