Chapter 18
Odette
Getting Lux to bed this evening was a little more difficult than normal. She was sick and tired, and I knew part of her wanted her dad.
“How about a book tonight, baby? You always want me to read you books.”
She huffed at me. For someone so small, she sure could pack a punch in the sass category.
“I didn’t get to write in my journal like I usually do.” She pouted, and I really hated that I had no idea what she was talking about.
“What journal, babe? Can we make one here?”
Apparently, that was the wrong question and the waterworks started. I never did get her to answer me; she finally tired herself out by crying, and I knew it wasn’t about me. She was sick, she was tired, but it still made me feel like I was missing something important.
I made my way down to the kitchen where Wynn was enjoying a glass of wine and looking over some emails on her iPad.
“Tough day, sis?” she asked without glancing up. She was privileged enough to hear the entire meltdown from Lux just moments ago.
“It was actually…a weird one.” Thankfully, I finally had someone to talk to about what a turn my life seemed to have taken within the last forty-eight hours.
Wynn locked her iPad and set it down on the table. “Oh? Like, I need to grab the bottle of wine, or just a refill will do?”
“I’m going to go with the bottle.”
“This is so exciting! You’re never exciting anymore! Let me guess, Benji got squished by rocks, not enough to kill him…seriously maim him maybe…”
I gasped, “Wynn!”
She shook her head, almost confused by herself for saying that out loud.
“Whoops… I thought I was keeping that to myself.” She blushed, and Wynn never blushed, so this was odd.
“I’m really sorry, Ode. I didn’t mean it.
” She looked down at her glass of wine and frowned. “Maybe I’ve had too much wine...”
“Unfortunately, I think you’re going to need more, anyway.”
Deciding to overlook her outburst, I got the bottle from the fridge, grabbing myself a glass while I was at it.
“I had dinner with Murphy tonight.”
“ Whaat ?” Wynn screamed, and I couldn’t help but lunge over and cover her mouth with my hand.
“I swear to god, Wynn, if you wake Lux, who decided to be a little bit of a terror this evening, it’ll be you who's putting her back to sleep, m-kay?” I threatened her, and she nodded through my hand and crossed her heart, signaling that she understood me completely.
She sat there as I went over the events of the last few days: Lux being sick, Murphy taking her, Murphy clearly taking off work to care for her, all our interactions down to a mini skit of how I hugged him when we both started crying after his confession.
“Ode, how the hell am I supposed to understand the meaning of it all when I don’t get what you’re describing? Come over here and show me how it happened.”
After the demonstration, I recapped the last few minutes of our encounter and what he said to me outside the car.
“Hmm.” Was her only remark after I had finished. It took everything in me not to smack her drunk ass upside the head.
“You made me reenact our hug, and all you got for me is hmm? Come on, Wynn, that’s unacceptable.”
“I’m still processing everything you told me, but I guess the real question is, how do you feel about everything?”
I took a second to really think about it. “Scared, hopeful, mad, confused, interested…”
“Stop, stop, stop.” She held her hands up. “You can’t possibly be feeling all that right now.”
I laughed at her. “I feel all that and more Wynn. It scares me...” I whispered.
She slid her arm around me. “Sometimes being scared isn’t the worst thing. Usually, it means you have something worth fighting for.”
A tear slipped free. “You think so?”
My phone beeped with an incoming text message, and I looked away before she could answer.
It was Murphy, and I couldn’t help but smile once I read the message.
Murphy: Thank you for letting me know you made it.
I had messaged him once I got Lux in the bath, letting him know we had made it home.
Odette: No worries. Lux wanted to write in her journal tonight... Any chance you wanna give in and clue me in?
His response was almost immediate.
Murphy: Just tell me the time and place, Odette, and I’m all yours.
“Earth to Odette?” Wynn smacked my arm, trying to get my attention.
“I take it that it isn't Benji?” While she fluttered her eyelashes innocently, a sinking feeling filled the pit of my stomach. Benji’s text messages never came close to making me feel like this.
Was it because Murphy was my ex-husband?
Maybe, but I knew it wasn’t right, regardless.
“I have to end things with him.”
“Yeah, you do, like yesterday.”
The yucky feeling was back and settled into the pit of my stomach.
“Can you finally tell me why you hate him so much, Wynn?”
She took a rather large swig of her wine, polishing off her glass, and grounded out her answer. “It’s not that I don’t like Benji, it’s that I don’t like him for you.”
She got up, rinsed out her wineglass, and was about to make her way into her bedroom.
“Wynn, do you think people can change?”
This. This was the thought that went round and round in my mind repeatedly. Could someone change? I used to think the answer was no, you were who you were and all that.
She turned to look at me and seemed to mull over her answer. “I think you know the answer to that question yourself. Sis, you don’t need me to answer it for you.”
Life happened, situations happened. I became a mom, I started working full time.
I took shifts in the hospital. My husband cheated on me.
Every single situation I've been through, the good and the bad over the last three years, had a lasting effect on me in some way, and I could honestly say that I’m not the same person I used to be.
So, if I’m not, is Murphy?