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A sword is plunged deep into my chest. A pain like no other spreads over my body. Who is Ivy? It strikes me then that I don’t know her. My brothers were right. She was the one who betrayed us. I take a step back as though Peter has struck me. I stare, but it’s not him I see, but Ivy. How could I not have seen through her? Had I fallen so deeply in love that it blinded me to the kind of person she was?
Abruptly, I turn and march to my car. Only when I drive out of view do I stop at a street parking and kill the engine. I want to punch something. I feel robbed of the future I had dreamed for Ivy, myself, and our child. My chest physically hurts.
I’m a fool.
***
The double whiskey burns my throat as it goes down. It feels great to feel something. I’ve been numb for the last few hours. When the glass is empty, I bang it on the bar counter and ask the barman for another.
“I think you’ve had enough,” Jace says.
I turn to him. “Am I drunk?” He knows as well as I do that my capacity for alcohol is surprisingly huge. I can count on one hand the number of times that I’ve gotten drunk. Most times it’s an advantage but at times like now, it’s a disadvantage. I need to be drunk. I need the pain in my chest to recede. I need to stop thinking about Ivy and Peter. I wish now that I had punched his fucking face.
“That’s not the point,” Jace says.
“We’re just worried about you,” Dylan says. “We’ve never seen you like this.”
“I’ve never been dumped for another man. Usually, I do the dumping.” I grab the glass of whiskey that the barman places in front of me and take a decent sip. I’ll slow down, just to keep my brothers off my back.
“I still think you should have had a conversation with Ivy,” Jace says. “Hear it from her own mouth.”
I shake my head. “Not necessary. I heard all I needed to know.” I don’t admit that the thought of hearing it from Ivy’s mouth would break my heart. Or what’s left of it. I couldn’t bear it to hear Ivy say she’s in love with another man. It would be too painful. Debilitating. Let me fill the blanks for myself.
“You’ll get over it,” Dylan says. “You’re not the first loser to be dumped.”
That doesn’t bait me. I’m a loser, all right. God, I miss her. Which makes me angry as fuck. How can I miss a woman who has betrayed me in the worst way a woman can betray a man? What is wrong with me? I’ve always thought of myself as a strong man. I don’t feel strong at all.
“Have you ever been dumped?” I ask Dylan.
He shakes his head.
“Look Alec, I’m sorry this has happened, but I’d rather it happened now than later when you’ve already committed yourself and married her,” Jace says.
I would rather it hadn’t happened at all. Ivy’s face haunts me, wearing all the expressions that I love so much. How can she have lied to me all that time? Pretended to be interested in me all along? For what purpose? None of it made any sense. Was it money? I had given her enough money, and she had a comfortable car to use. Human beings were never satisfied, a voice in my head pointed out.
Maybe, but that did not sound like Ivy at all. She loved her writing. She had sacrificed to carry a baby for a childless couple so that she could follow her dreams. That I could understand. But to be willing to sell our story to get more money? It doesn’t sound like Ivy at all. But what do I know? Women are an enigma and all the same. I thought Ivy was different. That she didn’t care that I was an Anderson. The pain of betrayal shoots through me again, grabbing my heart and squeezing it like a vise.
“At least we now know where the leak came from,” Jace says. “But one thing doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t the TV station run the story if they had Ivy’s cooperation? Why did they back off?”
I realize that I’m drunk when I can’t follow Jace’s reasoning. It sounds important, but it’s too much work to try and figure out the meaning.
“Yeah,” Dylan says. “I’ve been thinking about that too. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Women are fucking disloyal,” I say in a too loud voice.
The bartender laughs. “Really? What was your first clue?”
My brothers laugh. I don’t get the joke. Then another thought hits me. Something I’ve been avoiding thinking about. Our baby. Ivy is not just another woman. She’s the mother of my baby. The woman I was going to make a family with.
“Fuck her!” I shout suddenly.
“Cool it,” Dylan says. “We need to go. I have an early start tomorrow morning.”
“Me too,” Jace says.
“I’ll have one more.” I have a plan. Get home and fall asleep immediately. No thinking about Ivy.
“Give him another one,” Jace says to the bartender.
