Page 4 of Homewrecker | AllFreeNovel

What bothered me was how easily he’d become a man with a past while I had become a woman with a definition.

Caleb had cheated, but I was a homewrecker.

Caleb had made a mistake, but I was a mistake women needed to protect their marriages from.

Caleb got a new girlfriend and heart-eye emojis, but when I reached for a fucking napkin women grabbed their husbands.

His affair was something he’d done, and mine was apparently something I was.

“Close the app,” Janelle said quietly.

I hadn’t realized I was still scrolling, so I stopped and locked my phone.

“I’m good.”

“Blair.”

“I said I’m good.”

She got quiet because she knew sometimes I’m good didn’t mean I was good. It meant that I simply wanted the dignity of falling apart later.

I finished the champagne and across the room, someone laughed. Behind me, I swore I heard someone whisper my name. I didn’t turn around because I’d spent two years turning around. I spent two years trying to determine who was talking, what they’d heard, which version of the story they believed, whether their smile was genuine, or whether they were waiting for me to walk away so they could whisper ‘That’s her.’

I was tired of women who’d once shared beds, secrets, drinks, vacations, and bathroom stalls with me suddenly acting like infidelity was contagious. I was tired of losing clients who loved my work until they discovered who I’d once loved. I was tired of apologizing without speaking. I was so tired of Caleb getting to become someone new while everyone kept introducing me as someone I’d already stopped being.

I know that may sound a little selfish because consequences didn’t come with expiration dates. Maybe his ex-wife, Ravenna, still had days when something reminded her of what we’d done and knocked the breath from her chest. I’m aware that maybe there were wounds my apology couldn’t close.

I could live with that, but what I couldn’t keep doing was bleeding from the same wound to prove I understood that I’d cut someone else.

I placed the empty flute on the table.

Janelle grabbed my hand. “Are you ready to go?”

I looked around the room at women who used to call me friend. I looked around at people who knew the ugliest chapter of my life and had apparently decided the book ended there.

I looked down at my phone, and my reflection stared back from the black screen.

“No.”