5. Chelsea
CHELSEA
Ihear my brother’s voice the second I step out of the cab, as he calls out, “Well, look who finally made it back to the land of the boring.”
I grin widely and turn just in time for him to wrap his arms around me and squeeze me the same way he used to when we were young.
My brother and I have always been very close. We’re four years apart in age, and even back in our teenage years, when our hormonal angst had us at each other's throats and when realistically, our bond should have weakened, it only grew stronger.
It’s on his bed that I’ve sobbed over my various crushes and boyfriends not working out, and the one time a girl broke his heart senior year, I was just about ready to fight her, despite her being taller and probably stronger than me.
While our parents are around, they’ve always been the distant type who didn't know what to do with us, really, but at least we’ve always had each other.
“I missed you, Blue,” I say, referring to his nickname, which reminds me of the character from Blue’s Clues.
“I miss you, Andy.” Andy from Toy Story, by the way. “How was your break?’
I pull back to answer the question. “Good.” Another reason why my brother is the best in the world, and an all-around fantastic human being, was that once he found out what happened between me and my ex, including me losing my job as a result, he immediately sent me on an all-expenses-paid trip to Miami for a month just to get my head together.
I tried to turn it down at first, telling him it was too much money, but he reminded me that the entire point of his accumulating wealth in the first place was to spend it on those he loved.
"Besides," he remarked. "I never actually got you a graduation present. This can double as that, as well as a 'Thank God, you ditched that bozo' present."
I snorted. "The bozo ditched me, remember?"
He shook his head. "No. I like my way better."
After his party, he reminded me of the trip, and I still tried to turn it down, but honestly, after that night I had with the three men, I figured I really did need to clear my head, because I don't know what the heck that was about.
To this day, I don't know how I, completely sober, decided to have a wild foursome with three strangers.
Insane.
Even more insane is that I wanted to do it again. The second I got home, and my panic subsided, I was tempted to do an about turn and head back to their house for seconds.
I needed to get my head screwed back on straight, and since I was doing out-of-character shit anyway, I decided that I might as well continue on that trajectory and fully exorcise that bastard from my heart.
Hence, Miami.
And it worked. I think. I only thought about Eric for the first couple of days of the vacation, and the rest of the time was spent mostly thinking about the men I had sex with and remembering that heated night, replaying it every time I masturbated because they were all I needed to get going.
I met a few men while there, and got flirted with a few times, but I wasn't even tempted to entertain it. I didn't want to tarnish the memory I had, and I had a feeling none of those guys would give me anything even close to the passion I shared with the trio.
God, I don’t know whether I should curse myself for going through with it or be happy that I had that night to remember.
The only thing is that I’m probably going to think of it for the rest of my life, and I’m scared that I’ll never have a healthy relationship with anyone ever again, because I'll always compare whatever sex we have to the sex I had with three random strangers in their condo bedroom.
And in their car. And in their kitchen and in their living room.
We decorated the entire house with our passion.
Despite everything, I don’t think I can regret it at this stage.
Because that experience is probably what helped me move on so fast, and realize just how shitty my relationship with Eric was, all the way down to the sex.
I must have been blind and delusional with the way I clung onto him after everything, because some of my masturbation sessions have been more fulfilling than whatever the heck we had going on.
“So does that mean you’re ready to work now?
” my brother inquires, raising an eyebrow.
Another amazing thing my brother did was that the second he found out that I had lost my job, he offered me a job in his marketing firm.
Of course, I argued against taking it. I wasn't a fan of the nepotism of it all, not to mention the fact that I might be taking someone else’s job, someone who was just as qualified but was unlucky enough not to be the boss’s sister.
But he assured me that I wouldn’t take anyone’s job.
His company had grown exponentially, and he had enough money to bring on extra marketing leads, especially since he needed someone experienced to handle the merger they were having with another major construction company in the state.
This was a very important merger, and he needed someone like me to be hands-on with it.
It’s a little overwhelming to be in charge of something so significant, but after that break, I feel more ready than ever to handle it.
“Alright,” I say. "Yes, I am."
Most of the morning is spent introducing me to the staff and getting me onboarded. I already know some of them, like his assistant, Molly, with whom I have lunch every Saturday after our book club meeting, and Terry, who took me wedding dress shopping when I thought Eric was going to propose.
He also offered to destroy his online presence for me when he found out what he did, which I will forever love him for.
Around midday, when we get lunch, I get the sense of being watched. I glance around the restaurant, but no one, except a little girl three seats over, is paying any attention to me. I smile at her, and she hacks a loogie onto her hand.
Adorable.
“What's up?" James asks as he steals a fry off my plate.
“Don’t do that,” I say, glaring at him.
"Why?" he grins wickedly. "We always share our food."
"Not since we were teenagers. Sharing food is very intimate these days, and people might think we’re dating."
His eyes twinkle. "It wouldn’t be the first time.” While James and I are full-blown siblings, same mother, same father, we're rarely pegged as such. James has much darker features. Tan skin, dark hair, and eyes the same color as a midnight sky. Not to mention, he's all muscular.
Meanwhile, there's me, soft and pudgy, and pale everywhere, infernal red hair and skin that burns before it tans. I’ve always envied his looks and wished I looked more like him, most especially because it’s gotten us in a lot of very uncomfortable situations in the past.
James thinks it's funny to play into it for whatever reason. I think it's just gross.
"No more fry stealing," I tell him as I shift the plate determinedly out of his grasp.
He raises an eyebrow. "You know I can get to it from over there, right? I have a much longer wingspan than you."
"Much bigger ears too, yet you somehow manage not to hear what I'm telling you."
He smirks. "I hear it. I just decided to ignore it."
"Of course," I say, but I eat the rest of my fries while they're balanced on my lap. Maybe I eat too fast, because a sudden wave of nausea hits me, and I put the plate down, putting my hand on my head.
"Uh," I groan.
"What’s wrong?" my brother asks.
"Nothing. I think maybe my flight was a little too rocky, and I’ve been feeling sick ever since. I took some Tylenol, so I should be fine."
"You should go home. You shouldn’t be working on your first day back anyway."
"I want to work." It helps distract me. Being home by myself is just slightly too depressing for me to handle right now, because I keep thinking of the random turn my life just took.
I thought we would be married by now. I thought that Eric was working so much lately that he could buy an engagement ring.
Even though I told him I wouldn't mind something cheaper, he's always had an eye for the finer things in life, and I thought he might be going for a big rock.
Then a year from now, we would be married, and I would be pregnant and expecting our first child.
I might not miss Eric much as an individual, but it's hard to let go of the visions I had for my life at this point. It's hard to think about how wrong I was about him, how blind I was, even though things were right in my face.
It's the broken trust that hurts the most, and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to blindly trust another man like that again. And that sucks.
"I still wish you’d let me kick that bastard’s ass," my brother says, eerily guessing at the trajectory of my thoughts.
"No, because then you’ll be in jail and I won’t have a job." Eric is petty enough to have my brother thrown in jail if he attacked him, and James is a lot bigger than Eric. He might actually hurt him badly. "This way is better. Everyone lives, and everyone moves on."
"He doesn't deserve to move on after what he did to you."
"Well, what he deserves or doesn't deserve is irrelevant. Look, revenge is the last thing on my mind right now. I'm just trying to rebuild my life, and I'm so happy you're helping with that, but I don't want to spend all our lunches talking about him again."
"Fine," James says, but I can tell he's not super happy to let it go.
The nausea persists when I go back to the office, so much so that I step out quickly to head to the urgent care down the street.
They run tests, but give me some anti-nausea medication, because we assume that it's just airplane food making me sick.
I return to work, but somewhere around late afternoon, I get a call.
I pick it up. "Hello?"
"Hey, is this Ms. Winston?"
"Yes."
"Oh, this is Byrdie, from urgent care."
"Oh, sure." I'm answering as I'm scrolling on my laptop, going through possible design plans for a poster.
"We have your test results. Would you be coming back to pick them up?"
"I’m not sure I'll have time to get there before it closes. I might leave work late today. Is there any way you can tell me on the phone?"
"Umm..." Her hesitation is my first clue that something is wrong. After all, she wouldn't be that apprehensive about telling me that I have food poisoning.
I pause my scrolling for a second, alarm rippling through my mind. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. It's just that...our blood test shows that you're pregnant."