T W O Men Sucked.
Raven’s POV
I ended up staying here for the weekend with Ryder, just telling Matt that he missed his Nana.
I knew we couldn’t stay here indefinitely, but staying Thursday night through til Monday morning sounded like a little slice of heaven in a nightmare, hell, you call a dream.
I didn’t think about him, much, over the whole weekend.
I didn’t think about him fucking his boss.
I didn’t wonder if he had brought her into our home.
I didn’t ponder the possibility that my bed was ruined, and possibly every other piece of furniture in my home, the place that should have been my sanctuary.
He was probably doing filthy things on our bed and in our shower, and in the whole house.
Ugh.
I would need professional cleaners to come in and disinfect all of the surfaces when I kicked his ass out. That was definitely going to be a Monday morning phone call.
Thankfully, Jefferson would be representing me, as it appeared my lawyer had decided he no longer wanted to work for me.
He had already reported Sullivan to the board about his conflict of interest, and all the money he needed to pay me back since he’d been working with my soon-to-be-ex-husband for the last two years to fuck me over in a divorce.
Friday, I had a delivery sent to my husband at the office, which had a bug in it, so I’d know his next move.
I also let him know we had to up our home security as it wasn’t up-to-date anymore.
I called first and went to see him at lunch.
I told him I need his signature on some stuff for the upgrades for the system and an update to the Wills and life insurance policies.
Which wasn’t a total lie.
I just took his name off of everything if something happened to me, and wrote Ryder as beneficiary and listed Mom as being the overseer until he came of age.
Emily, or Mom as I call her most often, would be put in charge of caring for Ryder, as his most involved family member.
I also had him sign a post-nuptial agreement that we each leave with what we came into the marriage with, and we take half of the total for all accounts held for each of our names, and all of the documentation with balances for those accounts were submitted to give a number, since he hadn’t moved any money around yet.
Thank God Mom came with me to meet him for lunch, keeping him distracted while signing all those important documents in the short twenty minutes I know he got.
It was going to suck to be him in a day or two when he got served his papers.
Mom had finally admitted she and Jefferson were a thing, and thinking of tying the knot in Vegas. They’d both been married before, and it hadn’t worked out. They were both in their fifties, and Jefferson said he already sees me as his daughter, and nobody messes with family.
I would not want to be Matthew or Karen any time soon.
With all the evidence we had stacked against them for the affair, the hidden accounts he had in my name, the post-nup he signed and filed, it was shaping up for me.
I was hoping this would be a quick and easy divorce.
I didn’t want him to try to drag it out.
Jefferson was planning on filing first thing Monday morning, which, looking at the clock, was in three hours.
I was working from home today, which was just code for me getting to stay home with Mom, and the movers could move me and Ryder into her spare rooms for now.
The divorce papers were being filed as soon as the courthouse opened today, along with the other paperwork.
Jefferson, being in law for decades, had made a few friends in the filing offices, and they’ve been keeping an eye out for anything that Sullivan would try to push through so we could be the team to file first.
It was petty, but we wanted to be first. We needed to be first.
Laying in bed in the guest room, I could hear Ryder snoring in his room, as our doors were slightly open so we could hear each other.
It was something we started doing more and more when Matthew wouldn’t come home.
It was a comfort to us to know the other person could hear us if we needed them.
And something about hearing his little snoring would usually always lull me to sleep, but tonight I was wired.
I was wide awake, tossing and turning in bed.
I’d spent the last two days helping get Stormi out of her house and away .
Neither of us knew what away looked like, but she needed it.
She promised to call wherever she landed.
Mom’s girls were falling apart at the seams, it seemed.
I had my mess, and Stormi had just filled us in on how her sister, her twin, was doing the horizontal tango with her fiancé, Jason.
I almost threw up. I knew she would be fine, but it was going to take some time to get there.
I just hoped that her ex would leave her alone.
Fucking her sister ? Her twin sister?! I put my arm over my face, willing myself not to think about it again.
Men sucked.
They all sucked.
All of them, except Jefferson, who was killing it with Mom.
Now that her relationship was out in the open, the happiness I saw on her face all the time was wonderful, and she was most at peace, I think I have ever seen her.
Jefferson might be busy, though, because between my divorce case and his other cases, he may also have to step in if Jason shows up at work again.
Mom told him kindly enough today to fuck off while still being polite about it.
But tomorrow was a different story. I laid in bed, trying to pinpoint when my marriage went and shifted.
Was it sudden? Was it subtle? Where did it begin?
Was that why I didn’t notice? Why didn’t I see the signs?
Or that I was just stupidly blinded by love?
Was I that naive? Was I one of those willfully blind women?
Looking back…it had been years since we were close like we used to be when it was just the two of us and we were free to do whatever.
After Ryder came along, a lot of the things we used to be able to do, we couldn’t do anymore.
And I knew when Ryder got a little older, Matt started trying to go back to who we were before we were parents.
It had probably been at least four years since we were close confidants to each other, and the last two, he had really been pulling away from me emotionally and physically.
He had been traveling for work more, which, looking back, was a total fucking joke.
What real estate agent needed to go to monthly, weekend-long seminars? ! And week-long conventions?! Huh?!
God! I facepalmed myself so hard, I knew I was going to have a handprint on my forehead for a little bit.
I felt like such a fucking idiot; my cheeks heated in shame as tears tried to sneak down my cheeks unchecked.
He started, slowly, ever so slowly, pulling away from me when Ryder was about four or five.
I didn’t honestly remember the last time we were intimate.
It's been that long.
As I lay in bed, wondering if I qualify to be a nun since I was swearing off all men, hadn’t had sex in so long I didn’t remember, and was willing to never get tangled up in something like matters of the heart again.
Never again. I wondered if we could get a bowling team together.
Call ourselves the Sisterhood of the Traveling Chastity Belt.
My phone dinged, pulling me from my thoughts.
Jefferson : Just filed everything. Had a filing friend going in early. He happens to be a bridge player who came over last night. Seems your case will be the first to go through this week. Also, the first to go out this afternoon. Can we have everything packed by then?
Raven : You betcha! Not too much to pack. I’m only taking what I bought or came with. If we have video evidence of my stuff being…used…I want compensation to replace said pieces. I don’t want them, even if they can be professionally cleaned. I would have to sell them.
Jefferson: Noted. I’ll have the PI start going over everything we’ve gathered to dig into specifics about that .
Raven: I have the U-Haul set to be picked up in two hours. He’ll be at work by then, so we can start right away.
Jefferson: Good. I’ll meet you girls at noon. Tell your mother I love her.
Raven: Gross. Tell her yourself.
Jefferson: LOL
They were so cute it was gross. Absolutely, adorably disgusting.
I both loved and hated it, because I both wanted that kind of love, and never wanted to put my heart out there to be in such a vulnerable state again.
Deciding that now was as good a time as any to get up, I did.
I went through my morning routine, made breakfast for myself, my mom, and Ryder.
We were dropping Ryder off at a friend’s house for the day.
He had questions for me every day, and they were getting harder to answer.
I didn’t want to alienate him from his dad, but I also didn’t know how to lie to him and keep him in the dark about what was happening.
He was a smart kid. He knew something was going on; he just didn’t have all of the information to put it all together yet.
I promised myself, and him, the day he was born, I’d always maintain an honest relationship with him.
So, when your eight-year-old asked, ‘Why aren’t we living at home?
’ or ‘Are you and Dad getting divorced?’ I hated not knowing how to answer those questions.
There wasn’t a manual for it, and I hated going in blind.
I wanted to tell him that we were going through this because his dad was a selfish bastard who wanted to fuck his boss and spend all his time with her instead of us.
That was where he had been for the last few years, according to the PI information he’d gathered.
Thank God this PI was thorough. He’d managed to dig up our whole marriage.
Thankfully, this was the only time he stepped out on me.
Unfortunately, he still stepped out on me.
Starting five years ago. It began as an emotional affair between the two of them.
Petey noticed a shift in the text exchanges five years ago, when they started to become flirty.
It didn’t get physical until four years ago.
It all hurt to know he was living a different life, a separate one without Ryder and me, like we were his dirty secret.
And this was where I, as a mother, was struggling.
How do you tell your child this? I didn’t think it was appropriate to just tell him, but I had to tell him something because he was asking all kinds of questions.
I didn’t know how to tell any of that to my son, who only wanted answers.
I knew I had to give the age-appropriate one, so I told him, simply.
“Dad loves you, buddy. But he and I want different things. Different grown-up things. So, we won’t be living together anymore.
But you now have two rooms! And you get time with just mom or just dad!
Double birthday and Christmas gifts!” I plastered a smile on my face, trying to make it seem like the coolest thing in the world.
I must have fallen short in my acting because he didn’t seem convinced.
“It’ll be okay, bud. Things always play out how they’re supposed to.” I said, hugging him to my side, kissing him on the top of his head.
I bit back tears as I tried to stay strong for him .