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“Are you at the house?”
I got the girls to pose with me for a lounge chair selfie. I sent him the picture and wrote, “Yup! Laying out with the girls. That’s April on the left and Farrah on the right.”
He didn’t give a “thumbs up” or “heart” like he normally did with pictures I sent him. He didn’t really acknowledge it all. Instead, he wrote,“Okay. I should be home by 4PM.”
“See you then!” I replied.
I turned to the girls. “Something seems off. His warmth is gone.”
My phone chimed again.“Send your friends home before I get back. We need to have a talk.”
I wrote back, “ok,” and set my phone down with an angryhmmf.
The girls sensed the shift in my mood. “What’s wrong? Did he say something?”
The more I thought about what he wrote, the angrier it made me. If I told the girls what he wrote, they might hate him forever.
“I’m so pissed, I don’t even want to tell you,” I said.
“Oh, now youhaveto tell us,” Farrah said.
“Yeah, tell us,” April said.
I blew out a perturbed gust of air and read his last text message aloud.
April tutted. “‘Send your friends home?’Really?”
“Oooo, sounds like you’re in trouble,” Farrah sang.
“Who does this guy think he is, your dad? Is he going to ground you?” April griped.
“As if we were going to lounge around all day in a stranger’s home until he came home. Who would do that?” Farrah huffed. “What a douchebag. Fuck him.”
“I definitely don’t appreciate his tone,” I said. My voice lightened with a glimmer of undying hope. “But then … I also wonder what he wants to talk about?”
April broke it down for me. “I’ll tell you what’s going on: after sexting the forbidden fruit for a solid week, Rust is oh-so-close to coming home, and the guilt is setting in. He was probably freaking out all day and night about how to break it off with you before he did something ‘wrong,’ as if sexting with you wasn’talreadywrong enough. I’m sorry, Izzy, but I don’t think he ever intended to do anything more with you than sext. But honestly, it’s probably for the best.”
Farrah agreed. “Sexting let him sample the goods. In his mind, he’s probably done nothing wrong. But this is where he has to stop before things go too far.”
I frowned. “Man. What a letdown.”
April popped off her lounger and put her t-shirt on. “You should come with us, Izzy. Don’t sit around here like a puppy, waiting for him to come dump you. Make him sit around and wait foryou. And if what he has to say is sooo important, he can just text you and tell you what’s up.”
“Agreed,” Farrah said, and she stood and put on her t-shirt, too. “You’re his friggin’ dog sitter. Not his child. You’ve got better things to do. Like come hang with us.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said as I joined them. “Let’s get outta here.”
* * *
Shortly after four o’clock, I got a text message from Rust:“Hey. I’m home. Where are you?”
I was out having a great day with the girls—we had an amazing lunch, went shopping after and got our nails done. But I didn’t tell him that. I let an hour or two pass before I replied, because apparently, that was how we communicated now.
Finally, I replied, “I’m out with my friends. What’s up?”
“I thought you were going to be here when I got back. I need to have a talk with you.”
That text I did not reply to. I left him on “read” while we went to catch a movie. When we left the theater around eight o’clock, I had another message waiting for me:“Isabelle, we NEED to talk. When can you come over?”
