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He’s admitting it, at least. I won’t have to wonder if I overreacted or made it up later. I gather up the few shredded scraps of self-respect I have, knowing that I don’t deserve this. Nobody does. “Goodbye, Henry.”
I click the red circle, ending the call, and turn my phone off. That’ll prevent him from calling me back and from tracking my location. I shake my head in disbelief, remembering how many nights I stared at his dot on that stupid app, waiting to see when he left work. Sometimes, we’d talk while he drove home, or sometimes, he’d come to my place, but I always felt like he was honest because he was where he said he would be.
Never did I think he was getting his rocks offatthe office.
Guess I’m the sucker. Seriously, how many soap operas have I watched where that’s exactly what happens? But I thought we were different. I thought Henry was different.
I pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders, burrowing into it. The night air hasn’t gotten any cooler, but my insides feel like ice as the adrenaline dump wears off. I don’t know how long I sit like that, replaying our conversations, things Henry’s told me, and thoughts I’ve had about him. About us.
Somehow, it’s still only ‘getting dark’ when Cole climbs the stairs to the back deck. He takes one look at me and my ugly, snotty mess of tears and silently goes inside, leaving me to my pity party. I hear him moving around in the kitchen, pans clanking and the can opener whirring, but I don’t know or care what he’s doing. Until he slides the door open again.
“Here,” he says gruffly.
I pop my head up out of my one-person blanket fort to see what he wants. He’s holding out a glass of white wine, poured all the way to the tippy-tippy top, and a deep bowl that has steam rising off it. “What’s that?” I ask, not taking it.
I made dinner. Dinner for me and Henry, and he broke up with me by phone instead of telling me before our romantic vacation, so food is the last thing I want.
“Wine. Chicken ‘n dumplings. Didn’t figure you’d want the chicken you made for the dipshit, but I turned it into comfort food.” He says it completely matter-of-factly, with zero emotion, but his calling Henry names tells me that he knows why I’m sitting alone on the back deck.
I’ve completed the curve around the stages of denial and sadness and am rounding into the anger stage, contemplating ways to bulldoze Henry’s existence. Maybe show up to his office and loudly announce his infidelity, asking if sex as a brain break is their norm. Or break into his apartment and erase the characters on his favorite video game. That’d be better than simply destroying the game system. If I did that, he could log into his account on a new one, but deleting the character in-game? Probably the thing that’d hurt him the most, which is ridiculous.
Or maybe move on and be happy. Best revenge is a life well-lived type of deal.
Realistically, I won’t do any of those things. They’ll stay in my head as ways to torture myself more than Henry, because though I stood up for myself over the phone, I don’t have the guts to actually get back at Henry in one of those song-worthy, dramatic maneuvers. I’ll simply fade into spinsterhood, living alone forever and adopting a bunch of cats that I name after breakfast dishes like Waffles, Bacon, and Cinnamon Roll.
Sighing heavily, I take the bowl from Cole. “Thanks. How can you be sure he’s a dipshit?”
He gives me a dubious look as he sets the wine on the tiny table at my side. “There you go. Let me grab mine and you can tell me all about what a fuckup Henry is.”
He disappears, coming back a minute later with a glass of wine and a dinner bowl of his own. He straddles the other lounge chair and flops to its surface. I’m worried for a second that the chair might collapse beneath him, but when it holds steady, I can’t help but laugh the tiniest bit. He seems pleased with himself for the small and momentary flicker of improvement in my mood even as I return to my self-pity wallow.
He scoops a spoonful from his bowl, blows on it, and then slurps it down. “This is based on my grandmother’s recipe. Had to change it up a little based on what’s in the kitchen, but it’s not bad,” he says conversationally, which is major for him, and any other night, I’d be off and running at the mouth with that small prompt. Tonight, I stare blankly at the bowl in my hands. It does smell good, but I’m not hungry or talkative now. “My grandmother would kick my ass if she knew I used canned biscuits for the dumplings.”
It’s a non-important fact, but I hear the question there, so I take a small nibble of a dumpling and nod. “S’good.” It’s all I’ve got, and I go back to sitting silently and sullenly.
Cole stares off into the dark forest, and at first, I think we’re going to have a very quiet dinner with me not providing running commentary on everything from Aardvarks to Zombies. But finally, he offers, “She makes the best chicken pot pie and apple pie on March 14th. Pi day. I look forward to it for 364 days each year and then fight Kyle to selfishly hoard it for myself. It’s not his favorite, but he fights me for it anyway because he knows it’s mine. He says I’ll appreciate it more if I have to fight for it. He’s probably not wrong.” He falls quiet again but then adds, “She’s a great cook and an even better grandma. Been through a lot, and a lesser person would’ve fallen apart. But not her. Tough times made her strong. I admire that.”
I don’t think we’re talking about his grandmother anymore. Or at least not only about her.
“My sister Kayla, too. She learned from Grandma Betty and my mom. They’re all the type of women who’ve gone most of their lives underestimated.” He shrugs like that’s to be expected. “Sometimes because of the times they were living in, sometimes because of their looks, sometimes for no damn reason at all. But they come back fighting dirty while staying clean as a whistle.” He looks at me, his blue eyes sharp and not missing a thing as he scans my face. “That’s when they surprise the fuck out of you.”
It feels even more like he’s talking about me, but couched in compliments about the women in his life. “How much did you hear?” I ask quietly. “Because I don’t feel strong or surprising. I feel... stupid.”
He chuckles darkly and doesn’t answer my question about what he heard. “Janey, you are the biggest fucking surprise I’ve ever come across.”
Why does that sound like such a big compliment? Especially coming from him.
“And I bet Henry is the epitome of a blah, boring, bullshitter,” Cole proclaims, his distaste for him obvious. I shrug, not ready to speak ill of him when he was my boyfriend thirty minutes ago. “Let me guess... you said he’s a software engineer, so he probably thinks he’s the smartest man in any room. Definitely thinks he’s smarter than you, which he’s dead wrong about, and I don’t even know him.”
I stare at Cole, who’s looking off into the forest now. I want him to say more. I’m not fishing for compliments, but my wounded ego could use a little hype party. I was gonna call Mason, but maybe this is better because Mason will remind me that he’s been telling me to ditch Henry for months.
“He thinks he’s the core of the relationship, but that’s his ego talking. The truth is, he’s lazy. He never puts forth any real effort and doesn’t give a shit about your experience, especially in the sack. You do it all.”
Automatically, I try to defend Henry. “He’s not that bad.”
Cole throws a stormy glare my way and I drop my gaze, feeling chastised though he hasn’t responded. After a heavy sigh, he snarls out, “We’ve been here for days, Janey. He hasn’t called or texted you. Not even a ‘thinking of you’ gif that’d take one second to send. But I see you checking your phone and sending him texts. You even sent him that sunrise selfie you took on the porch yesterday. Did he respond?” He pauses, not to give me time to answer but to stare me down, daring me to lie because he already knows the truth. “He’s too lazy to even keep you on the back burner. You put yourself there and stayed long after he turned off the stove.”
Ouch! That hurts, a lot. He sounds mad... at me. You’re not supposed to kick someone when they’re down, but he’s not holding back. And for someone who doesn’t really know me, Cole’s got me pinned pretty precisely. Henry too.
