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He stood from the table. “Tillie, this isn’t about you. So many businesses are going under these days. It’s just too hard with the cost of supplies and the competition. You must know I’m right. It’s better we cut our losses now before things get even worse.”
I turned to him. I didn’t see how things could get worse. Still, it was easy for him to say. Tillie’s was a side hustle for him, a passive investment. For me, Tillie’s Brews was my entire livelihood. I’d banked everything on it. I felt foolish, and I hated the thought of admitting defeat because then I would have to face the most terrifying question of all: Now what?
I exhaled, tears falling. I’d known it wasn’t going well. I wasn’t oblivious, and I wasn’t that bad at math. I saw the money leaking out of the place every single day for the past couple of years. I saw the red in the accounting software, even before Brad alerted me to just how bad it was.
Tears fell. Because I also wasn’t a fool. I’d seen Brad distracted by his phone at strange times. I’d seen the panic on his face when I’d come home early a few times to find him on the phone. And I wasn’t a fool when he claimed to be going to work late at night when I knew he wasn’t. With the coffee shop and with our relationship, I was just too stubborn, too afraid, and maybe too exhausted to call it what it was.
Done.
“Is that how you feel about us, too? Better to cut your losses now?” I asked, deciding we may as well get it all out.
Brad exhaled. “I didn’t want to tell you like this. And not all at once, Tillie. I care about you, I do.”
“Well, you may as well just kick the tower the whole way down,” I said, standing with my arms crossed and letting the tears slide down my cheeks.
“Tillie, it’s just, well, I think you know we haven’t been the same.”
I wanted to say that I did know that. It was why I’d been so desperate for his attention, for his affection again. It was why I tried too hard with the lipstick and the smile when I just wanted to cry. But it hadn’t been enough. I was never enough, any way you looked at it.
“Who is she?” I asked, wanting to know and not wanting to know.
“No one,” Brad said defiantly. But after all those years, I could tell when he was lying. And I could also tell when he was nervous. He bit his lip, the signature tell.
“Who is she?” I demanded. He paused, a moment of indecision. Pickles meowed. I braced myself.
“We were going to tell you together. I just...” he said, shifting his eyes. I narrowed mine.
“Why would she want to be here? Why would that matter to her?” His words confirmed my fear. He was cheating. But I didn’t have time to be mad or to break down. Now, everything was focused on the faceless, nameless “her” who had wrecked my life with him.
“Because you know her,” he said. And my mind raced. Was it his secretary at work? That girl he sometimes talked to at the gym? Mary, my barista? The possibilities flooded through my brain as my mind tried to land on a logical explanation.
“She’s going to be upset I told you. She wanted to break the news. Said she knew how to handle you better, how to soften the blow. She feels bad about all this. She didn’t expect it to happen. Neither did I, Tillie. It just...did.” His words tumbled out as he tried to make excuses. My mind, my world, spun out of control.
“What are you saying?” I asked, vehemence growing in my voice and heart. It couldn’t be. She wouldn’t. Not after all we’d been through. I closed my eyes in complete denial. My life couldn’t be falling apart this completely, could it?
“Scarlet. It’s Scarlet. But it’s only been a few months,” he said, holding his hands up. “We didn’t want this to happen, and you should know it’s not her fault. It’s not anyone’s fault, really. It just happened.”
“Scarlet? Are you kidding me?” I shrieked. My best friend, my confidante, my roommate for all the years I lived in the city before I moved in with Brad. In honesty, Scarlet had been my only real friend since my high school days. My mouth opened. It had to be a sick joke. “She wouldn’t.”
“Tillie,” he said, stepping forward, but I flung myself backward.
“Stay away from me. Both of you. Both of you stay away,” I shrieked at a decibel I didn’t think I was capable of. Pickles ran for the back bedroom.
Tears were gushing. I couldn’t keep my composure. I stormed out of the apartment, feeling the urge to vomit, to punch something, and to curl into a ball and cry.
I had no one left. I had nothing. My home, my boyfriend, my business, and my best friend were all gone in the blink of an eye. It was a week until my 30th birthday, and it was only a few weeks until the new year. But there would be nothing to celebrate. I stood in the middle of the December wind, the hustle and bustle of New York City suffocating me. The snowflakes falling fast and my vision clouded, I did the only thing I could. I pulled out my phone and hit the familiar button.
“Mom?” I asked.
“Darling, what’s wrong?”
And then the uncontrollable sobs came out of my mouth, shrieks and cries that were animalistic. After confirming through muffled noises that I wasn’t hurt and no one had died, Mom jumped into action.
“I’m sorry,” she said. We’re on our way to get you,” she said. I clicked off the phone, thankful in that moment for a mother who was meddling—but also loved me unconditionally.
