Chapter 20
Paige~
I walked into the house, thankful that the week was finally over. With work out of the way, I could dedicate my time to my next move. While I was looking forward to meeting Kirk, to hold me over until then, I had sent Trista a text message earlier today, describing all the ways that Harding used to make love to me. I’d gone into detail, and I’d done it just to prove a point. If she thought that she was special, she wasn’t. Harding was probably doing the same things to her that he’d done with me, and I felt as if she needed to know that to deflate her ego a bit, if nothing else.
Heading towards the kitchen, I thought about what to make for dinner, and even though I was only cooking for one now, I didn’t have a problem with leftovers. Plus, it’d be a shame to let all this food go to waste just because Harding wanted to act like an asshole by not coming home. I wasn’t sure how long he was going to be able to stay at the hotel, but it was costing us quite a bit of money. Because I wasn’t stupid, I’d been checking our bank accounts every day to make sure that he wasn’t secretly cleaning me out. Now, while I didn’t think that he would do that, I also didn’t trust that his whore might not try to talk him into it. I was also checking his credit card purchases.
As I pulled a couple of steaks out of the freezer, my phone rang, and when I pulled it out of my pocket, I saw Harding’s name flashing across the screen, surprising me a bit. All week long, he’d been ignoring my calls and texts, and it would actually serve him right if I didn’t answer. Nonetheless, my curiosity was too great to ignore his call.
“What do you want?” I asked as soon as I answered.
“Paige, you have got to stop this,” he said, instantly annoying me with how victimized he sounded. “This has gone too fucking far.”
“Awe, did your girlfriend get upset when she found out how not special she is?” I taunted.
“Paige, this isn’t funny,” he snapped into the phone. “You’re becoming destructive.”
“Oh, I know this isn’t funny, Harding,” I shot back. “I know that more than anyone.”
“What are you trying to accomplish here?” he asked. “What do you think calling our pastor is going to accomplish? What do you think harassing people is going to do for the situation?”
“You know, you promised to fix the showerhead in the guest bathroom,” I reminded him, realizing that if he didn’t fix everything that he’d said he would fix, I’d be stuck with the bill.
“What?”
“You said that you were going to fix the showerhead in the guest bathroom, and you haven’t,” I repeated. “You also said that you’d replace the light switch in the garage.”
“Are you drunk?” he choked out, and he really did have a lot of fucking nerve.
“No, I’m not drunk,” I bit out. “But dipping your dick in another woman doesn’t absolve you of all your responsibilities here, Harding.”
“You’re calling everyone on my contact list, you’ve harassed my mother, you’ve threatened Trista’s children, have posted all of our private business on social media, and even sent me pictures and a video of you having sex with one of my friends, and you’re seriously asking me about a fucking honey-do list?” he squawked. “Are you fucking serious right now?”
“You’re still my husband, Harding,” I pointed out. “You’re still my husband, and that means that you still have responsibilities towards me and our home.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he muttered under his breath.
“Well, you do,” I insisted. “I am still your responsibility, Harding.”
“You stopped being my responsibility the second that you started dragging innocent people into this mess, Paige,” he fired back. “All I’d wanted to do was the right thing, and you went and turned this into a…a…Christ, I don’t even know what to call it.”
“Do not put this on me,” I snapped. “This is all your fault, Harding. Yours and your whore’s.”
“What I did does not excuse your behavior, Paige,” he snapped back. “You called Trista’s parents and pretended to be the police. You used Gil, and invaded his privacy in a way that’s actually criminal. Christ on The Cross, you filmed someone without their knowledge, Paige. How do you think that you have a right to do all the things that you’ve done?”
“Because you betrayed me for another woman!” I yelled.
“Yes, I did,” he bit out. “I’m the one that betrayed you. Me. I’m the one that hurt you, Paige. Not my mother, friends, co-workers, or anyone else. I’m the one that did this, so I’m the one that you should be dealing with, not everyone else that we know.”
“Are you going to fix the showerhead or not?” I asked, not wanting to hear him defend everyone but me. “Things need fixing here, and now that you’ve decided to spend our money on a hotel room, I can hardly afford to hire someone to do it.”
“Paige, will you listen to yourself? I mean, seriously.”
“Did you just call me to argue with me?” I snapped.
“No,” he replied with a sigh. “I called to ask you to please back off. I called to ask you to stop with everything that you’re doing and to deal with this like an adult.”
“Oh, the way that you did?” I sneered. “Had you been an adult about this, none of this would be happening. Had you just been honest with me before jumping into bed with that homewrecker, none of this would be going on.”
“But I didn’t,” he said. “I didn’t, and I can’t go back in time to correct that, Paige. I cannot undo what I’ve done, but I am trying my hardest to do right by you now.”
“By leaving me for another woman?” I practically screeched. “It wasn’t bad enough that you slept with someone else, but you think that actually leaving me for her is going to make things better for me?”
“I’m not leaving you for another woman,” he lied. “I’m leaving you because our marriage was over a long time ago, but I was too scared to tell you.”
“I call bullshit,” I huffed, annoyed that he was acting like he ever cared.
After a few seconds of silence, he said, “I want us to meet somewhere, so that we can talk about this. We need to talk about this, Paige.”
“You’re welcome to come back home any time that you want,” I informed him flippantly. “We can talk while you fix the things that you promised to fix.”
“I would prefer it if we spoke somewhere publicly,” he said, and I could feel anger weaving its way through my heart.
“Oh, really? And why’s that?”
“Because I can’t trust that you won’t do something that might land me in jail, Paige,” he answered evenly, angering me further. “That’s where we’re at right now.”
“You’re going to talk to me about trust?” I hissed, his audacity nearly choking me to death. “Do you seriously have the nerve to use that word with me?”
“Paige-”
“Who in the fuck do you think you are, Harding Rice?” I snarled. “You cheat on me, break my heart, destroy my life, and you want to call me to make demands? You want to talk to me about my behavior and the things that I’ve done?”
“Paige, if you think that this is the proper way to deal with marital issues, then you need help,” he said, and I saw red in a way that I hadn’t ever seen before. “What you are doing is not normal. It’s not the way that normal people behave.”
Rage had me nearly unable to speak. “I am done with this conversation,” I informed him. “If you want to talk some more, then you can come by the house. I also expect you to fix everything that you promised to fix.”
“Paige, I’m not coming by the house unless it’s to pick up my stuff,” he said, and his words had a finality to it that hit me square in the chest. “And even then, it’d be in my best interest to have the police present when I do.”
“I’m not the crazy one here, Harding,” I told him. “I’m just the one that’s being forced to pick up the pieces.”
With that, I hung up on him, not wanting to hear anything more. As long as he refused to see how all of this was his fault, there was no use in talking with him. If Harding refused to take responsibility for the things that he had set in motion, then there wasn’t much that I could do about that on my own. It was obvious that we needed help from a professional to get us back on track, and so I was going to have to spend the weekend searching for reputable marriage counselors since Pastor Truby turned out to be no help to us.
It was also obvious that I was going to have to do this on my own. Harding kept baiting me, making me angry, and that wasn’t going to get us anywhere. I was going to have to appeal to the judge, but once he found out how much I was involved with the local community and law enforcement, I was certain that he’d order counseling for us before granting the mistake of a divorce. In fact, I should probably search the sitting judges of our county to see what I could find out about each of them. After all, the internet really did make it too easy to find out whatever you wanted about someone.