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“You know how you avoid having those regrets?”
“How?”
“You don’t shit on the people who care about you.” I stood and started to walk toward the stairs. I’d made it up two steps when I decided I did have something to talk about with my ex-husband. Turning around, I marched back to where he stood and folded my arms across my chest.
Something had been eating at me for a long time. “Why?” I said.
His brows furrowed. “Why what?”
“Why did you cheat on me? I was a good wife. I kept a nice home and cooked you meals. We never really argued. I thought we had a good sex life, even. You seemed to get off, and I can’t remember a single time I turned you down when you were in the mood. I even dressed up and answered the door in those cheap naughty nurse outfits you liked so much.”
“My therapist thinks I’m a sex addict.”
I scoffed. “Sex addict? Therapist?”
“Yes, it’s a compulsive disorder, no different than someone who washes their hands all the time or checks if they’ve locked the door. It’s a disease.”
“Really? Okay, well, people who need to wash their hands all the time or check if the door is locked—do they go to someone else’s house to wash their hands or check if the neighbor’s door is locked? Because I might believe there’s a disorder that makes you obsessive about sex—but that doesn’t explain why you couldn’t just bang your willing wife more.”
Tobias frowned. “You’re simplifying something that’s more complicated than that.”
“Actually, I think you’re making something pretty simple more complicated than it is. You cheated because you’re an asshole. And even after two years, you still can’t own that. You know why? Because you’re an asshole. Maybe you have obsessive-compulsive asshole disease. Why don’t you ask your therapist to treat you for that? I hear an enema might help.”
“You’re lashing out because you still care.” He took a step toward me, and I put both my hands up and took a step back.
“Don’t,” I warned.
“You should come to my therapist with me. I think it would be good for us.”
“No, Tobias. First of all, there is no us. Second, you don’t need a therapist to treat you for some bullshit disease. You simply need to man up and grow some morals. And third, I’m not lashing out because I care. I’m lashing out because I hate cheaters. You’ve robbed me of happiness these last two years, and some stupid bitch has the man I care about too nervous to try a relationship because she cheated on him. Cheaters are basically the bane of my existence.”
My ex-husband had the audacity to sound perturbed. “What man you care about?”
I huffed and turned back to the stairs. “Go to bed, Tobias.”***The next morning during breakfast, Bree asked if we could all go sit on the back porch when we were done eating. Mariah, Bree’s stepmom, and I cleaned up the kitchen while Richard, Bree’s dad, and Tobias headed outside. We told Bree we’d join them as soon as we were done.
Not ready for the conversation we were about to have, I spent a solid minute drying a single plate. “Maybe we should take all the dishes out of the cabinets and wash them. The house wasn’t used over the winter, and they’re probably pretty dusty.”
Mariah finished rinsing the last plate in the sink and shook the water off before placing it on the drying rack. She turned to face me, leaning her hip against the basin.
“I know this is hard. But think of how much harder it is for her. We have to try to keep it together through everything she wants to say today.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I can.”
She smiled warmly. “You can. Though I’ve only been part of this family a few years, I can say without a doubt that you’re one of the strongest women I know. A storm makes a tree grow its roots deeper so it can keep standing. That’s what you’ll do, what we’ll all do. We dig in and hold tight as a family. All together.”
A lump formed in my throat. Leaning on people hadn’t exactly worked out for me in the past—my own family, Tobias… Every time I’d grown the courage to trust someone and allow them to bear a little of the weight, they’d crumbled when I leaned.
But I’d do whatever it took to help my friend. I just needed to stand strong on my own and be there for her. Breaking down today would only make it harder.
“Thanks, Mariah. I guess we shouldn’t keep her waiting anymore.”
Mariah and I went out to the back porch and joined everyone else. Once we were settled, Bree took a folded paper from her back pocket and began to open it. She cleared her throat. “I thought it was time we discussed my final wishes.”
