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Two.
The soothing spray of hot water blasted against my skin, helping to relieve some of the tension in my neck and shoulders. I’d come home and immediately popped a few tablets of guaranteed sleep and then climbed into bed and closed my eyes. Ten hours later, it was just after midnight, and I was aching from the apparently awkward position I’d passed out in. After my shower, I pulled on a tee-shirt, grabbed a pint of strawberry cheesecake gelato, and got right back into my bed.
I flipped the TV on, and then picked up my phone, which was blissfully free of the hundreds of social media notifications that had plagued me the night before. Chloe, PR guru and good friend, had made me disconnect all of the accounts, and she and her team were managing them for now. There was only one notification on the phone that I actually cared about – a message from Wick.
NoRestForTheWicked: Hope today was better for you.
I smiled, even though it definitely hadn’t.
SleeplessInSanDiego: No such luck?.
NoRestForTheWicked:?Sorry. You need to talk?
I stared at those words for a few moments before I responded.
SleeplessInSanDiego: yes.
The… friendship, I guess, between me and Wick had started innocently enough, on an online support forum for people who suffered from insomnia. Five years of late night ramblings had eventually turned us into good friends. What we’d done together last night was a relatively new development.
About two years ago, I’d kicked Kellen out. Technically he’d never moved in, but we chose this house together, as one of the last real attempts at repairing our marriage. After signing the papers, he’d insisted on going to his studio, saying he had some creative energy he needed to work out. Later that night, I showed up with dinner and wine, thinking that my spontaneous plans were romantic, and maybe we’d end up working some different energy out.
I walked in on Crystal sucking his dick.
So… yeah.
For me, that was the end of that.
I didn’t make a scene, didn’t curse them out. I didn’t even let them know I’d seen, because what would have been the point? What would have changed?
Instead, I took my ass back to my dream house, with all the perfect finishings I’d chosen, and imagined living there alone… which wasn’t very hard.
That realization was what brought the tears, and eventually, the phone call to Wick, that I still vividly remembered.
“He hates me,” I whispered into the phone to Wick, a few hours after yet another blatant betrayal, my voice raw from screaming and crying. “That’s why he can do things like this, with no guilt, no remorse. I can’t keep pretending otherwise.”
On the other end of the line, Wick sighed. “Cheating can mean a lot of things, Sandy. Not necessarily that he hates you. He married you. Didn’t you say you were college sweethearts?”
“Yeah. But who he is now, isn’t who he was then. He lost that finance job, and just… became somebody else. He was charming, and dynamic, and driven, and he just… he had his shit together. After that job loss? All he wanted to do was sit around wearing a damn hole in my couch. And I let him – I didn’t bother him, didn’t push, because I wanted to give him space to feel whatever the fuck he needed to feel, but while he did that, I was grinding. Which… is part of the problem.”
“Why would that be a problem?”
“Because I didn’t need him. I paid the bills. I built my business, I got investors, and I didn’t tread water, waiting for him to pull himself up. And… I thrived. I ignited, while he fizzled, and he resents me. I can feel it, even when he’s pretending to be Mr. Wonderful. It’s contrived. I um… my business… it got featured in a pretty important business magazine – a magazine he told me, back when were sophomores in college, that he wanted to be on the cover of.”
“That sounds like something to be proud of, Sandy.”
I let out a dry chuckle. “It is. I mean… for most men, it would be. But when I told him about it, all excited… he never even said congratulations. No, “that’s amazing sweetie,” nothing. He couldn’t even pretend. That was almost a year ago, and he hasn’t touched me since then. I’ve offered, he declines. And I’d been wondering, you know… how is this man willingly depriving himself of sex, for so long? And now I know… he wasn’t depriving himself at all. Just me.”
“I… wow.”
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head as I squeezed my eyes shut, silently cursing myself for heading down this line of conversation at all. But I was… exhausted. And hurt.
“Don’t be.” Wick’s voice was authoritative, leaving no room for me to argue back. “We’re friends. And if you can’t go to your friends to vent your frustrations, where the hell could you go?”
I busted out laughing at his passing reference to a popular meme. “You’re crazy,” I told him, and then raised the bottle of wine I’d been drinking from for the past hour, draining the last drops down my throat.
“I’ll be that, for the desired result – getting you to laugh. Do you feel better, now that you’ve talked it out?”
My laughter turned into a heavy sigh. “Yes and no? I’m exhausted now, and I have a headache from crying, but I already know sleep is not coming easily for me tonight. I need a good orgasm – the kind I haven’t had inyears. I bet that would put me right out.”
