AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She was not okay. Jonathan had a woman in his apartment. On a Saturday morning. With I-just-rolled-out-of-bed hair.
He’d already moved on. Replaced her. Which…he had every right to do. She’d told him in no uncertain terms there was no future for them. She just…hadn’t expected him to move on so quickly. She’d thought maybe he’d need to spend some time licking his wounds before he invited someone else into his bed.
She forced a smile for Jinny’s sake. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know,” Jinny said, still frowning at her. “You tell me.”
Esther started for the stairwell. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“You’re acting weird,” Jinny said, following her.
“Like you said, it was awkward.” Esther’s flip-flops slapped against the metal as she descended the stairs. “I’m not exactly his favorite person anymore.”
“You’re not, like, hung up on him, are you?”
Esther dumped her bag on one of the lounge chairs, studiously avoiding Jinny’s eyes. “I feel guilty. I screwed up and now he hates me, and we still have to live next door to each other.”
Even though she’d vowed to be more honest with Jinny from now on, she couldn’t make herself talk about Jonathan. It hurt too much.
Esther changed the subject before Jinny could interrogate her further. “What are you and Yemi doing tonight?”
Jinny’s face broke open at the mention of his name. “He’s cooking for me.”
“Yemi cooks?”
She nodded happily. “Yemi cooks. He’s kind of perfect.”
While Jinny regaled Esther with tales of Yemi’s superior boyfriend skills—strictly G-rated, thank god—Esther’s mind wandered back to Jonathan and his mystery woman.
Was it serious between them? Or was she just a one-night stand?
It was probably serious. Jonathan wasn’t the one-night stand type. Except for Esther, of course, but that hadn’t been his choice.
How long had it been going on? Where had they met? She didn’t look like a writer. She looked more like an actress. Was he dating an actress? Was she going to be around all the time? Because if so, Esther really did need to move.
“Hey,” Jinny said. “Are you even listening?”
“Yeah,” Esther said, gulping down a mouthful of mimosa. “Totally.”
Seeing Jonathan with another woman hit Esther harder than she’d been prepared for. She’d thought she was starting to make peace with not having him in her life anymore, until she’d seen that woman step out of his apartment. The sight of him with that pretty, skinny nightmare on two legs had left her feeling like an open wound.
She spent Sunday in her pajamas, knitting in front of the TV and punishing herself with more Hallmark movies. She watched an entire marathon of them. Sickly sweet, inspirational, low production value movies with C-list actors reciting stilted dialogue. It was like a juice cleanse, but for her feelings. That was the idea, anyway. Wallow for a day, get it out of her system, then pick herself up and move on.
Only it didn’t work. She had the wallowing part down; it was the moving on that wouldn’t take. After she finally turned the TV off and went to bed, she wound up lying in the dark, still microanalyzing the encounter with Jonathan and that woman he’d been with. Feeling worse and worse.
So Jonathan had replaced her. So what? Esther had given him up. Voluntarily, no less. What had she expected? Of course he’d moved on. It was exactly what he should do. Good for him.
That was what she needed to do too. Move on.
So why couldn’t she?
She’d never been this dejected over a man before. The closest she’d ever come was with the friends-with-benefits guy in college. But even that hadn’t been this bad.
Was this what love felt like? Because this felt like being sick. Aches, nausea, loss of appetite. Insomnia. Persistent headache. It kind of felt like she might be dying, actually.
Oh, god.
She’d made a terrible mistake.
