Chapter 11
I’m going to be sick.
Jeremy is kissing another woman. No, he’s not just kissing her. From the looks of it, he’s trying to sample what she ate for breakfast.
Clearly, he was lying when he said there wasn’t another woman.
But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since he lied about everything else.
I’ve heard that you can judge a person’s character best by how they act during a breakup, and for the first time, maybe my husband is truly showing his character.
And oh my God, are they still kissing? How long does this need to go on for? This is the longest kiss I’ve ever seen!
The right thing to do is to slink back to my car and get out of here before anyone sees me.
Nothing good can come out of confronting Jeremy and his mistress while they are making out on the front porch.
It won’t shame him. And there’s a very reasonable chance that we will start a commotion that will attract the attention of the entire neighborhood. I should go.
And yet, almost against my will, my feet start moving forward, taking long strides toward the front door of what used to be my home.
“I can’t believe you!” I shriek in a voice that even I recognize is way, way too loud. “You’ve been cheating on me all along!”
He stops kissing her at least. He takes a few steps back, his eyes widening in astonishment. And then I see some redness peeking out from under his shirt color. At least for once, I managed to surprise him.
“Naomi,” he chokes out. “What are you doing here?”
Now that I’m on the porch, I can get a better look at the woman that my husband was kissing, and I’m almost sorry I did.
She’s really pretty. Beautiful actually.
A willowy figure paired with disproportionately large boobs and oversize doe eyes with long lashes that make her look a bit like a cute anime character.
And she’s young. She is really, unfairly young.
Definitely in her twenties. Maybe even early twenties, which would be truly horrifying.
Now that I’m in my forties, it almost seems like an insult that people in their twenties still exist, with their perky bodies and unlined faces.
There is no amount of plastic surgery that could make me look like her. Those days are long gone.
But the worst part? The worst part is that my mother was right.
“I came to talk to you!” I spit out the words. “But apparently, you already have company!”
Oh God, this all makes horrible sense now.
I have been trying so hard to figure out what I did wrong and how our marriage fell apart so quickly, but of course, the reason was painfully obvious all along.
It wasn’t that I did anything wrong. It was that she came along. And that asshole couldn’t resist.
“Naomi.” He at least has the grace to look guilty. “This isn’t…what you think.”
“Really? So I didn’t just catch you making out with your mistress?”
Jeremy exchanges a look with the twenty-five-year-old girl he has been screwing.
He is squirming under his dress shirt, but the girl doesn’t seem the slightest bit uncomfortable.
She is peering at me with her clear mocha-colored eyes, a hint of a smile on her lips.
After a brief hesitation, she takes a step forward.
“I know this is a bit awkward,” she says in a voice that is as irritatingly pretty as the rest of her. “But I should probably introduce myself. My name is Veronica.”
Veronica? I even hate her name. “Actually,” I say, “I don’t think there’s any need for you to introduce yourself.”
The girl seems unfazed by my response. She just keeps staring at me with those big eyes. Her left eyebrow hikes up a few millimeters, and for a moment, it almost looks like she’s challenging me.
If she wants to fight, she can bring it. I’m ready for her. I’ve got fingernails.
Jeremy must sense something brewing between the two of us, because he murmurs to her, “You should go, Ronnie.”
“Okay.” She flashes me a neutral smile like we are two random people who were just introduced at a party. “It was so good finally meeting you, Naomi.”
I don’t return the sentiment. She’s lucky I don’t scratch her eyes out.
Veronica clip-clops down the stairs back to her Jetta. Jeremy watches her descent, and the longing in his eyes is palpable. He used to look at me that way, but I have clearly been replaced.
It finally all makes sense.
Even after Veronica has disappeared into her car and zoomed off down the road, I’m still fuming. That said, I came here to try to talk things out with my husband, and while we definitely didn’t do that, at least I’ve got an answer.
And now that I know the truth, maybe there’s a way to fix this. This girl Veronica might be beautiful, but that’s all she is. She isn’t his partner. She isn’t the mother of his son. But if we’re going to fix our marriage, first we have to lay everything out on the table.
“You told me there wasn’t anyone else,” I say in an accusatory voice.
“I’m sorry.” He can’t seem to meet my eyes. “I thought it would be easier on you if you didn’t know.”
“You thought it would be easier if I didn’t know you were screwing a girl half your age?”
“She’s twenty-eight.”
She’s older than I thought but still more than a decade younger than Jeremy. More than a decade younger than I am. No wrinkles and no stretch marks, I’d wager. “You’re still way too old for her. You look ridiculous, you know.”
He lifts a shoulder, like he doesn’t care how ridiculous he looks, although the red still creeping up his neck betrays him.
Except the truth is he doesn’t look ridiculous with her.
He might be older, but he still looks really good.
They make a very attractive couple, a fact that infuriates me even more.
“Has she met Teddy?” I ask.
He shakes his head. I take some comfort in the fact that he hasn’t felt her to be important enough to introduce to his son, but then he adds, “Not yet.”
“Look,” I say, “I know you’re having a midlife crisis or something, but—”
“This isn’t a midlife crisis.”
“Well, what do you call it when a forty-year-old married man is having an affair with a twentysomething-year-old girl?”
He frowns, wrinkling his forehead, and for a moment, he reminds me of the way Teddy looks sometimes. “Naomi,” he says in a low voice, “I’m in love with her.”
I start laughing. I can’t help it. It’s just so preposterous! Jeremy can’t possibly be in love with that vapid little girl. He hasn’t even introduced her to Teddy yet! “Oh, please!”
“I am,” he insists, and he sounds so serious that it sucks all the laughter right out of me. “I’m so sorry.”
“So…what?” I say. “You want to divorce me and marry Veronica instead?”
He doesn’t respond. Of course, an adamant no would be the best thing, but at least he didn’t say yes. That makes me confident I still have a chance.
Then again, do I even want him back after all this?
It was one thing when we were having “irreconcilable differences,” but now that I know he’s been cheating on me, it makes me look at him differently.
I’m not sure I could ever forgive him for this, even if he realized what a massive mistake he was making.
But I so badly want my family to be whole again.
I have always wanted Teddy to have the life that I never got to have as a child with two parents who love him in the same household.
And before Veronica came along, we were happy.
Jeremy was a workaholic—that was undeniable—but he was sweet and considerate and a great dad and also still handsome enough to make my knees weak.
Is our marriage worth saving?
I don’t know, but I hope so.
“I better go,” I mumble.
He nods. “I think that’s a good idea.”
I turn around and walk back in the direction of where I parked my Lexus. I make it almost all the way down the walkway, and then I hear Jeremy’s voice from behind me. “Naomi?”
I turn around. He is still standing on the porch, watching me. “What is it?”
He squints at me in the moonlight. “Will you be okay getting home?”
“Do you care?”
His frown deepens. “Of course I care.”
The buzz from the wine has worn off, and I feel bone-tired. But not so tired that I would fall asleep at the wheel. “I’ll be fine.”
We both stand there for a moment, staring at each other. As I look at this man who is my husband and the father of my child, I know that whatever he has done, this marriage is worth fighting for. But there’s even more to it than that.
I don’t trust that woman he was kissing. He might be in love with her, but I saw the look in her eyes, and there was no love there. She wants something from him.
And I’m going to figure out what it is.