Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
I stomached the questions and queries as best I could without falling apart. That I left until I got back to the safety of my apartment where I would always break down. Wondering why this thing still had the power to hurt me after all these years.
Nick had gone on with his life obviously. There were some people who were only too happy to tell me what a beautiful family they were and how well they were doing.
Loretta, Dee’s mom, had been one of those people. I’d had the misfortune of running into her once at the grocery store and she’d had a lot to say about my mom and I.
There was such anger and hate there that it was hard to fathom how someone I’d never met could have that in her for me. She’d torn into me, calling me everything under the sun and accusing me of worse. I’ve avoided that store ever since.
Then they were the clueless careless ones who didn’t see any harm in sharing all the juicy details with me whether I wanted them to or not.
It was through them that I learned that Nick had joined the force, which had always been his dream if he didn’t make it to the majors. I tried to be happy for him, but this was no afternoon special, this was real life, my life, and quite frankly I wanted him to fall flat on his face.
I wanted him to suffer the same fate of limbo I seemed to be stuck in. Why should he go on and be happy when he was the one who’d fucked up, while I couldn’t seem to get that part of my life together?
Just as I’d done with school I’d thrown myself into my work and excelled. It was my only solace. I climbed the ranks at work and collected accolades and awards, but again they were hollow because there was no one to share them with.
I went to work and to mom and dad’s, then home to my lonely bed where I drowned my sorrows in ice cream and cookies. Still after all these years I wasn’t over the hurt. While I was away it was easier, if I could’ve stayed away maybe things would’ve been different.
I had good days and bad, but being back here where it had all happened, everything came flooding back and it was like living the whole thing all over again. So I avoided all the places I knew I might run into him or heaven forbid, them.
I distanced myself from the friends we’d once shared, the few who’d remained friends anyway. Turning down invitations to get together until they got tired and gave up.
I guess they were all under the impression that I’d moved on and was over it. Little did they know, just being around them brought back too many memories, memories I’d just as soon forget if only I could.
My luck held for a good few weeks, but then the inevitable happened. I ran into Dee and this time there was no running and hiding. She had something to say and I wasn’t about to get off that easy this time.
“I hope you’re not here to cause trouble for me and my family. Nick and I have been very happy these last few years and our son loves his dad to pieces. I don’t want his life turning into one of those soap operas so if you have any ideas about starting things up with my husband again, don’t.”
I never let myself think about the child. I never wanted that hate to touch him, not even in the privacy of my own mind. He was part of my Nick, my Nick. I still thought of him that way even then.
That day I’d barely inclined my head and put one foot in front of the other before hightailing it out of there. Leaving my basket with what was going to be that night’s dinner on the floor of the aisle.
I’d seen her a time or two after that but nothing else was ever said. But the worse was the day I saw them all together. Until that moment the fact that he shared a child with her was more like a spectral thing in my mind.
I was never able to bring myself to imagine their life together. I couldn’t let myself think of him touching her, smiling at her, loving her, the way he had me.
Then I saw them at the park. He looked so relaxed and happy as he threw the ball to his son, the son that should’ve been mine. He never saw me, but she did, and the smirk she gave me told me that it had been a setup.
I don’t know how but somehow she knew that I ran in that park every Saturday at that time and had arranged to be there where I couldn’t help but see them. I never went back there again.