Chapter 29 Ava
AVA
Three days later
Leaving my lawyer’s office, I could barely contain the excitement I was feeling.
My divorce was fast-tracked and final. Thank God!
It was such a bittersweet feeling though.
I remembered my wedding day as if it happened yesterday.
I was so happily in love with Justin. Never would I have ever believed that in less than a year of getting married to him my marriage would be over.
Justin was my entire life at one point. I couldn’t have seen myself without him.
I was willing to forgive and overlook so much because I didn’t think that I could handle ever losing him.
It was funny how a shift in the wind could change all of that though.
By the grace of God, I was able to get my divorce fast-tracked due to Justin cheating and exposing me to HIV.
My lawyer was able to get my divorce approved without his consent, and all I had to do was show up to one court appearance, and it was final.
When she handed me a copy of my divorce decree today it felt so surreal.
At first, I really didn’t know how to feel.
It was all a bit much to take in at once.
A wave of emotion coursed through my body as I read over the papers.
I couldn’t believe that this had become my current situation.
Yet I couldn’t say that I regretted my marriage because it exposed who was really for me and who wasn’t.
What I did regret was how I allowed myself to get played like I did for a man that didn’t value me nor himself.
Having gone through all that I had been through with Justin, I learned that some women could be very judgmental such as my sister.
They would say what they would and wouldn’t put up with when it came to someone else’s relationship as if they were the strongest people walking the earth.
Even though at a time or two, and in some cases three, they had gone through much worse.
I had found that judging a person for what they decided to put up with and go through in a relationship wasn’t anyone’s place.
Everybody was different and everyone’s tolerance levels weren’t the same.
What one person would put up with another wouldn’t and vice versa.
So, it was best to either be a shoulder for someone to lean on without judgement or to keep all opinions to thine self.
For instance, my sister had been hurt so bad in a past relationship that she was at a point in her life where her tolerance for certain things was just nonexistent. She learned at a very early age what heartbreak truly felt like, but that wasn’t the case for me.
During high school and the majority of college, I was more focused on my education, so I had never experienced a hurt that deep, until I got with Justin.
I put up with things that she could not understand throughout my relationship with him, but it was my life lesson to learn, not for her or anyone else to judge.
Knowing what I knew now, I would absolutely never, ever allow for myself to go through any of what I went through with Justin with another man.
My sister couldn’t understand how I was okay with Justin always spending all of his free time with his friends.
She didn’t get how I was suspicious of that, but at the same time allowed it.
All men hung out with their friends, some just did it more than others.
To be honest, at first, I couldn’t understand why she felt that I should have felt a certain type of way about it other than the fact that it would sometimes leave me feeling lonely.
Justin always hung out a lot with his friends, so when we got together it was hard for him to divide his time evenly.
At first, I tried to be understanding but over time it became bothersome because I was feeling lonely in our relationship.
I never had a reason to feel like he was out cheating.
If anything, I could admit that I demanded a lot of his time and was even clingy in a sense, so I’d get upset if I was feeling neglected by him.
If he said he was at Tate’s house, the times that I would double check that would be exactly where he was.
Once I started feeling like we were two ships passing in the night, I started to address it with him.
As a result, it began to cause problems in our relationship.
He’d always defend his actions by saying that he was just chilling with Tate, so I’d try to be understanding of that.
I never had a reason to believe or suspect that he was over there having sex with him though.
Now that was what was surprising. I had absolutely no idea that Tate and my husband were both on the DL because they never gave off any vibes.
I never suspected that something to that magnitude was going on between the two of them.
I always thought they just enjoyed playing the video game or watching sports while having a few drinks and talking shit.
I provided Justin with more than enough sex, so I had no reason to think he would go out and get it elsewhere.
As I sat in my car in the parking lot of my lawyer’s office thinking over everything that I had gone through with Justin, I could now see that I had on rose colored glasses and was blinded by the obvious.
I should have known long before finding the condom in his pocket that he was up to no good.
But love had me gone. What I couldn’t shake and what played over and over in my mind was the fact that Justin was into men.
That was something that I would’ve never guessed.
I would have never guessed that he was sleeping around with Tate at first, but now that I thought about it, Tate was never able to maintain a relationship with a woman.
I always thought it was because he was a playboy and that he worked a demanding job with long hours.
I knew firsthand that it took a strong woman to be able to handle their man working a demanding schedule such as his, but it all made sense now.
As for Shane, that whole situation still caused a weakness in my gut and stirred up a wave of angry emotions every time I thought about it.
Justin always gave me the illusion that Shane disgusted him because of his lifestyle choices.
He always used to say slick stuff about me and Shane’s friendship.
He said he couldn’t understand what Shane and I had in common or how I could be friends with his gay ass.
I’d always stick up for Shane and explain to Justin that Shane was fun to be around, and I thought he was a great friend.
So, for them to have had a sexual relationship going on behind my back, that hurt me more than finding out about him and Tate even though neither one was appropriate.
What hurt the most was that I thought Shane was loyal to our friendship.
He never made me feel like he’d ever do something like that to me.
No one could convince me that Shane wasn’t worthy of my trust before all of this happened.
He had always been there for me no matter what he had going on.
I had confided so much in him about my relationship that it made me feel like a fool.
The level of betrayal was something that I would never be okay with.
What they did to me was unforgivable in my eyes and heart, but I knew that I needed to be able to forgive in order to move on.
Especially when it came to Kevin. I was glad that he was willing to give me time to move on, but I didn’t want him to feel like I was leading him on. I didn’t want him to think that I wasn’t into him because I was. I just wasn’t fully ready to be in a relationship just yet.
Speaking of Shane, he had been reaching out to me ever since I found out what was going on, but I didn’t have any desire to ever speak with him again.
As far as I was concerned, our friendship was over and could never be salvageable.
I would be lying if I said that I didn’t miss our friendship up until I knew how deceitful he truly was.
The whole time he was phony kicking it with me and sleeping with my husband…
all while carrying HIV was just too much to bear.
There would be no point in us ever trying to mend fences when I knew in my heart that I would never be able to fully forgive him for what he did.
I didn’t even feel bad for him having the virus, as mean as that might be.
I felt like it was his karma. I was thankful that God had spared me, and I didn’t have it.
Shane knew that I was done with him and that there was no coming back, but he continued to reach out to me consistently, whether it would be via text or phone call.
I just never responded because there was nothing he could say or do to make what he did okay.
Now that my divorce was final, I vowed to myself in order to move forward in my life that I would need to forgive them both.
That didn’t mean that I was forgiving them to the point of us ever being able to be cool or cordial with each other.
Forgiveness was more for my benefit than theirs.
Starting my car and pulling out of the parking lot, I decided to call my sister to give her the good news.
“Hey boo-boo, how did your appointment go? I can’t wait to hear all about it,” Dawn answered her phone sounding all giddy.
“It went great! I’m finally FREE! My divorce is final!” I sang in the phone. I felt a huge wave of relief that caused for me to let out a long sigh.
“Yay!” Dawn bellowed into the phone. “I’m so freaking happy for you! You are happy now, right?”
“Thank you, and yes, I’m very happy! I’m so glad that I finally got that monkey off of my back, you just don’t know.”
“I can imagine because in just a short period of time you have gone through a lifetime of hurt, pain, and betrayal.”