Sully
Trevor kept his word. His car isn’t in the driveway when we pull up, and the house looks empty from the outside. Cassidy stares at it from the passenger seat.
“You ready?” I ask.
“No.”
“We don’t have to do this today. We can leave?”
She shakes her head. “No.” She lets out a breath and reaches for the door. “I want this over with.”
Okay, then. I climb out and open the back of the SUV.
We’ve brought flattened boxes, tape, markers, and enough packing paper to move half of Wisconsin.
Emmett and Ember are doing the same thing at her house, literally just down the road.
Cassidy walks toward the front door but stops before putting her key into the lock.
She must give herself an inner pep talk because she straightens her spine and then walks in.
The house looks exactly how she left it.
A pair of shoes beside the entry, mail stacked on the small table, a throw blanket folded over the couch.
It’s strange seeing the proof of a marriage everywhere while knowing the marriage no longer exists.
Cassidy drops her keys into the bowl near the door and stares at them.
“I bought that bowl on our honeymoon.” Her chin wobbles.
“Do you want it?” I ask her.
She looks at me. “The bowl?”
“Yeah.”
“No … um … I don’t know.”
I grab a marker and write MAYBE across one of the boxes.
“There, problem solved.” I place the bowl in the box, minus her keys because we need them.
Her mouth twitches. “That’s your solution?”
“We’ve got a keep, trash, and a maybe pile.”
“What about things I want to set on fire?” She smirks.
“They aren’t here, they’re at work,” I tease.
She gasps before giggling.
We start in the living room because it feels easier than walking into the bedroom. Cassidy points at things, and I pack them. Books, candles, art. A ridiculous decorative vase that looks like a twisted piece of metal.
“That’s ugly,” I tell her.
“It cost four hundred dollars.”
“That doesn’t make it less ugly,” I tell her.
“It was in a design magazine,” she argues.
“The magazine was wrong.”
She takes the vase from my hands and puts it in the keep box. “You have no taste.”
“I have excellent taste.”
“You live in a frat house.”
“It’s a bachelor pad, I grew up,” I throw back at her, which earns me an eye roll.
For a few minutes, this almost feels normal.
Cassidy bossing me around, me annoying her.
Then she picks up a framed photo from the shelf.
It’s from her wedding day. Trevor stands behind her with his arms wrapped around her waist. She’s smiling at the camera while he looks down at her.
I watch the smile disappear from her face.
“Cass.”
“I remember that day like it was yesterday.”
I stay quiet.
“The photographer kept telling him to look at me instead of the camera because it would be romantic.” She runs her thumb over the glass. “I thought he was looking at me because he loved me.”
“He did then.”
She glances at me. “Don’t defend him.”
“I’m not.”
“It sounds like you are,” she snaps.
“I’m just saying, what they did doesn’t mean every moment was fake,” I tell her. Unless Trevor is an Oscar-winning actor, he can’t fake his affection for her. I still want to pummel the guy.
“How do I know which ones were real?” She looks at me, glassy-eyed.
I don’t have an answer because I’m not sure which was which. She turns the frame over so it’s facedown, and moves on.
We move through the rest of the room faster after that.
Keep.
Trash.
Maybe.
Keep.
Trash.
Burn.
I actually make the fourth box, which makes her laugh again.
The kitchen is next. Cassidy opens cupboards and starts pulling out the things she bought before the marriage. Our grandmother’s serving dishes, her favorite coffee mug, a Dutch oven Mom gave her for Christmas.
“Do you need all this?” I ask her.
“I’m taking what’s mine.” She glares at me.
I nod and don’t ask her again.
She packs a set of expensive knives. I’ve never seen her cook, but I’m not saying anything, this is her journey. By lunchtime, the living room is full of sealed boxes. Cassidy stands in the middle of them with her hands on her hips.
“How did I accumulate this much crap?”
“You’ve been married for years.”
“Don’t remind me.” She groans.
I order pizza while she goes and tackles the bedroom. I give her some time before following. The bedroom door is open, but she’s standing in the hall staring inside.
“You don’t have to do this today.”
“Yes, I do,” she argues.
“We can hire movers.”
“I don’t want strangers packing my underwear.”
Fair enough. “They’ve probably done it a million times.”
She shakes her head and walks inside. The bed is made, which is good to see. A book sits on her nightstand with a bookmark halfway through it. Her robe hangs over the chair. The room still smells faintly like her perfume.
Cassidy sits on the edge of the mattress. “I love this bedroom.”
“Of course you do, you designed it.”
“I designed the whole house,” she says, waving her hand.
“I know and it looks good.”
She looks at me. “That sounded painful to say.”
“It was.”
She throws a pillow at me. I catch it and drop it into an empty box.
“Keep?”
“Obviously.”
I start taking clothes from the closet while she sorts through the dresser. Most of her things go into boxes without hesitation until she reaches the top drawer.
She freezes.
“What?” I ask her.
She pulls out a small velvet box. “My wedding jewelry. I put it away in a safe place so that I could save it and give it to my daughter.” Her breath hitches in her throat.
“Hey.” I rush over and give her a hug.
“I’m not going to have a daughter now.” She hiccups through her tears.
“Yes, you will,” I reassure her.
“It’s all right for you, but I’m in my mid-thirties. My eggs are dying.” She full on starts bawling, and I just hug her tightly.
“It’s going to be okay.”
“No, it’s not,” she cries, “my time has run out. He took my good years.”
I continue to hug her tightly as she cries. I feel for her, she’s always wanted to have kids, and now that fucking jack ass has wasted her time.
“Cass, don’t cry. Please, he’s not worth your tears. You’re going to be a mom one day, and I know you’re going to be the best mom to that kid.”
She looks up at me through her tear-soaked lashes. “Or I’m going to be the fun aunt to your kids.” She sniffles.
“With whom?”
“Probably some random puck bunny.”
“Do not wish that on me ever,” I warn her, which gets a small smile.
She’s still holding the jewelry box. “Keep, because you never know.”
I nod and put it carefully into the box beside me.
Then she reaches deeper into the drawer and pulls out a stack of cards tied together with ribbon.
“What are those?”
“Cards and notes Trevor left me over the years.” She unties the ribbon and opens the first one. Her eyes move across the words, then she opens another, and another.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No.” She sniffles. “This is me working my shit out.” She sits on the floor with her back against the bed.
I sit beside her.
“He wrote that I was the love of his life.”
I look down at the card. “I’m sure he believed it when he wrote it.”
“He was probably sleeping with Kevin then.”
“You will drive yourself crazy thinking about that. After the first betrayal, the number doesn’t matter.”
She wipes her face.
“I keep trying to make it make sense.”
“You might never.”
“How do you marry someone while being in love with somebody else?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.” It was more how could you watch the woman you loved at the time marry someone else, that I do know a bit about.
“How do you sleep beside someone every night and lie to them?”
“I really don’t know, Cass.”
She lets out a sigh. “How did I miss it? How could I have been so blind?”
“You trusted him. And honestly, I never saw the signs. I’ve been going over everything, trying to see if there was anything off, and there wasn’t.”
“I feel stupid.”
“But you’re not, no one suspected this. They were good liars.”
“But a wife should have known.”
“No, Cass. He should have told you years ago, but he is a selfish fucking asshole instead.”
She looks down at the cards again. “I hate him.”
“You’re allowed to.”
“And I miss him.”
“You’re allowed that too,” I reassure her.
She leans her head against my shoulder. “When did you become sensible?”
“I’ve always been sensible.”
She snorts. “You once dyed your hair blond because a woman said she liked blonds.”
“And it worked.”
She shakes her head and holds the cards out to me. “Burn box.”
I still. “Are you sure?”
“No.”
“Maybe box?”
She thinks for a moment, then nods. “Maybe.”
I place them inside.
A knock echoes through the house. “That must be the pizza?” I say as I tape up a box.
“I’ll go get it.” She stands, wiping at her face before heading downstairs. I follow a few steps behind, carrying another loaded box.
Cassidy opens the front door and is greeted by a man in a dark suit, standing on the porch holding two large manila envelopes.
“Cassidy Sullivan?”
“Yes,” she answers cautiously.
“You’ve been served,” the stranger says, handing over some paperwork.
Her shoulders tense, and he glances over her shoulder to where I am standing. Wait a minute, she’s been served? What the hell for? He then turns and leaves.
She closes the door, and neither of us speaks. She slowly looks down at the envelope and across the top, in bold letters reads ...**Summons**
“Well ...” she sighs. “I guess they didn't waste any time in filing.” She slides her finger beneath the seal and pulls the papers free.
“What?”
“For divorce,” she says.
“Are you saying those fuckers filed for divorce?”
She nods. “Trevor did tell me last night he saw a lawyer, so I guess they filed the papers today.”
I let out a slow breath. “That’s a shit thing to do.”
“It is,” she says firmly. “And I guess I now know where we stand. Fuck them.” She points at me.
“Fuck them,” I repeat.
Moments later, there is banging on the front door. I move my sister away from the door in case it’s her ex, but when I open it, I see a furious-faced Ember.
“Did Cass just get served?” she asks. She must have run over here because she’s out of breath.
“I did,” Cass calls out. I open the door wider.
“Fucking assholes,” Ember mumbles.
“Screw them, they lost any shred of kindness with this,” Cassidy tells her.
“Agreed.” Ember nods. “Are you nearly done here?”
“Yeah, I’m not taking much. Honestly, after this I don’t want any of this shit,” I tell her.
“I mean, we don’t need to take everything because Kevin did say last night we could do a straight swap. They get the business, and we get the houses,” Ember reminds my sister.
“That is true. But do you want to keep your house?” she asks Ember.
“I’ll never live in it, but I’ll rent it out,” she states.
“Good idea. I know we don’t have much mortgage on ours,” Cassidy tells her.
“Neither do we. We wanted to pay it off before we had kids,” Ember adds.
“And we are never going to work in the business again either,” Cass states.
“True. Will be sad to say goodbye to the team, but honestly, I don’t trust that they didn’t know,” Ember says.
“Agreed,” Cass says.
“Then let’s pack the rest of this shit up and get the hell out of here,” I tell them, and they agree.
There's another knock at the door. All three of us freeze, my heart can’t take the excitement anymore.
"If that's another man in a suit, I'm not answering it," Cassidy says.
I check through the window, and it’s a teenager standing on the porch balancing two pizza boxes, with absolutely no idea he's walked into a crime scene.
"It's the pizza."
"He can stay," Cassidy says.
I open the door, grab the pizzas, give the kid a big tip, and slam the door shut, then text Emmett to let him know it’s here.
Moments later, he walks in the front door. “I’m starved,” he calls out. We eat sitting on the floor between the boxes, the pizza resting on top of the MAYBE box because it's the only flat surface left.
“I can’t believe those assholes served us,” Ember mumbles around her slice of pizza.
“Forget them, Em. We’ve got this. This is what we needed to know we are on the right path,” Cass tells her.
“You should probably let the lawyer know,” Emmett says.
He’s right.
The girls call the lawyer and let her know they have been served. Emmett and I turn our backs to them while they chat with their lawyer.
“Fucking spineless assholes.” Emmett curses.
“What was the point of that? I thought they were all amicable.”
“Well, it’s not now,” Emmett states.
“Maybe we need to pay those two assholes a visit later.” I look over at my best friend.
“We promised the girls we wouldn’t,” Emmett says.
“I know, but watching her go through her love notes from that fucker and then breaking down because she’s worried she’s too old to ever have kids. I’m sorry, but I need to defend my sister,” I tell him.
“Ember had the same freak out,” he tells me. “But maybe the boys want us to go over and cause a scene, it would help their divorce if we did.”
“Shit, I didn’t think of that. You’re right.”
“Wouldn’t put it past those weasels.”
The girls hang up with the lawyer and give us a smile.
“Countdown has started. One hundred and twenty days, and we will be free of those men,” Cass says, looking the happiest I’ve seen her in a long time.