Staring at me, with my hands on my damned ex-wife’s shoulders on my porch.
Chelsea.
Fuck, I couldn’t imagine what she thought seeing that. Actually, by the smoldering and broken look she flashed me from the car, I could imagine what she thought, and it was nothing good, that’s for sure.
Fuck.
I whirled back to Lenore as the car drove up the rest of the driveway and narrowed my eyes at her. “I’m going to tell you this one more fucking time, Lenore. There is nothing for you here, got it? Look, you need money and don’t want to admit to your parents why you’d be asking? Fine. Your deadbeat new guy bailed? FINE.” I drew myself up, my face stony and my fists clenched at my sides. I had to settle this now so that I could go explain everything to Chelsea.
“I’m the better guy here, Lenore, and if you need money for your kid, fine. I’ll send you a check, but get the fuck off my porch and stay out of my life.” And with that, I stepped back inside and slammed the door.
Slammed door.
I could hear her huffing something about “this not being over” as she stomped back to her car, but I was already whirling around to find my phone.
Because never mind all the Lenore crap. Right then, I needed to get to Chelsea. I needed to get to the one good thing in my life - the one perfect, pure thing - and fix it.
Chapter 23:
Chelsea
That fucking asshole.
It hadn’t been enough for me to hear about him trying to get back together with Lenore. I’d had to come to see him with her the first second we pulled into the driveway. So screw him; him and all his bullshit and his lies and for messing with my head.
I stomped my way to my room under the pretense of being tired the second I walked in the house, barely saying hello to my dad and Dennis. I could barely see straight, just thinking about seeing him with her right on their front porch like that. I mean, the whole thing with Jake had been foolish, I knew that now. I’d thought of it as “wild” and “crazy” before, but I knew now I’d just been a stupid, inexperienced girl. I’d been Jake’s mid-life crisis; his little red sports car.
And I hated him for it, and for what I’d given him.
He called me almost immediately, but I of course ignored it. It and the six more calls after that. On the seventh, I did pick up, but this time just to tell him not to call again and then hanging up before he could say a word or another lie.
I did managed to drag myself downstairs for dinner, but we’d barely gotten started before there was a knock at the front door. I knew it was him even before my dad walked chuckling with him back into the dining room. My eyes narrowed at him, glaring at that asshole while the rest of my family beamed and grinned away at him like was some sort of nice person; like he wasn’t a lying, manipulative asshole. Part of me even wanted to just spill the whole thing right there, just to screw him. Yeah, I’d probably get in trouble too, but honestly, who was going to get it worse in that scenario? The young and naive nineteen year old, or the forty year old man who should have known better?
Jake small-talked with my parents about some neighborhood thing or whatever, but I knew he was there for me. I knew he was there to try and spew more stories my way.
I was not about to give him that opportunity though.
I excused myself to my mom while dad talked Jake’s ear off, complaining about my stomach again before I headed back upstairs without a second look his way. Come home and relax and unwind? Yeah, right; like that was going to happen. Now that I was here, all I wanted to do was go back to Boston and cry and eat ice-cream with Lucy.
*****
It was much later, and I was in bed but not really able to sleep when I heard the thumping outside my window. I ignored it, figuring it was probably the trees against the side of the house or something. But then suddenly, my bedroom window was opening, and it was like my whole body froze in a silent scream as the shadowy shape of a man came through it!
The scream was just about to break free of the iron grip of my frozen throat, when his hand came down across my mouth, muffling me as his lips found my ear. “Hey! Chelsea! It’s me! It’s me, honey.”
Jake.
I shook my head free of his hand and glared at him. “You asshole,” I spit, glaring at him and back away from him in my bed. “You fucking asshole!”
“Hey!” He snapped at me. “You know it’s not like that.”
“Oh, do I?” I sneered. “Tell me, Jake, what is it like?”
“It’s not what you think, Chelsea. The Lenore situation is not what you think it is, I swear to you.”
“Get out,” I said softly, determined not to cry in front of him.
His eyes locked with mine. “Not a fucking chance.”