As I started to doze off, I remembered the text messages I’d received at the airport earlier. Grabbing my phone I clicked on them. The first was from a number I didn’t recognize.
Emilyn, pls txt me back and let me know you are okay.
What the heck? Who was this? I clicked on the next one.
Em, its Finn. I just want to know you made it home safely. Pls txt me back.
How did Finn get my number? Of course… Harper would’ve given it to him. I wondered what he’d had to do to get it out of her. I knew he’d probably text me again soon if I didn’t respond, but I didn’t want to talk about what happened. I text him back, hopefully holding him off.
I’m fine. Home safely. Thanks for checking. Tired. Goodnight.
The response was immediate, and I wondered if he’d been waiting on my text.
Wait, can we talk?
Finn, I’m really tired. There’s nothing to talk about. Pls let’s forget what happened.
Fine. You can go to sleep. But this conversation isn’t over Em. We have a lot to talk about. Goodnight sweet dreams. X
As if I didn’t have enough to think about. What did ‘x’ mean? Did he do that at the end of all his texts? And what’s more, Finn wanted to discuss what had happened between us tonight. Or was it last night? It was so early in the morning, I didn’t know. Time had blurred together and I really needed to get some rest. Lying in the hotel bed for over an hour, the early morning light seeped through the heavy curtains before exhaustion finally overtook me.
It’d been two weeks since I had left Chicago—and my cheating husband—behind. Harper met me at the airport like she said she would, and she took me home with her. I didn’t want to go to my parents’ house. I knew that they loved me and I would have been more than welcome to live with them again, but nothing screamed failure to me more than getting a divorce and moving back in with Mom and Dad at twenty-eight. My mother begged me to come and stay with her, but after some convincing—and my Dad talking to her—she understood that I just needed some time and Harper was an excellent support for me. Finn continued to text me and even called a few times. I cleared the calls and sent him short texts back to try to keep him at bay. I still wasn’t ready to hash out what had happened between us, nor did I want to tell him about my failed marriage. But I didn’t know how much longer he was going to let me push him away before demanding answers, or going to Harper.
A week after I’d arrived back home, there’d been a knock on the door and Harper had answered. She called me over because there was a cop asking for me. Apparently my soon-to-be-ex-husband couldn’t wait to be rid of me and had gone ahead and filed divorce papers. I was being served. Once the shock wore off I realized I needed to do something to keep myself busy, and I needed to start putting my life back together. I needed a job and eventually a place of my own. Harper insisted that she loved having me around—I enjoyed being there too—but I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. We may have been best friends but we weren’t college kids anymore. We were older now and had our quirks. I’d been helping her out around the house by cleaning and making dinner for when she got home in the evenings.
A few days after being served, I went out and hired a lawyer that my Dad had suggested. Because West filed in Chicago, we had to abide by Illinois state law. Fortunately the lawyer that I hired had passed his bar in that state so I felt confident in his abilities. Harper thought I should take West for everything that I could. Part of me really did want to take him to the cleaners for lying to me for so many years, but I couldn’t help but feel like maybe I’d deserved what happened to me. I lost myself at some point during my marriage. I didn’t think I’d ever fully given myself to West. After Finn, I’d closed my heart, scared to feel any semblance of real love. I’d known that I would never survive another heart break like that and so I guess that made me selfish; for never fully investing in my marriage. Part of me thought that maybe West was right to leave me. I couldn’t forgive him for stringing me along for eight years, or for cheating on me. He should have let me go before he decided that he wanted to be with Julia. I’d despised that woman from the moment I met her. Oh well, they deserved each other. Julia could have him and his money. I didn’t want anything from him, except to erase him from my life. Fortunately West’s connections meant that the divorce would likely be over and done with fairly quickly.
“Hey, so what are your plans for today?” Harper asked me while fixing herself a cup of coffee.
“I have an interview at the coffee shop in town, and then I’m going to the doctor’s office for some testing.”
“What kind of testing?”
I was sitting at the table in the kitchen and let out a long yawn. “The STD kind of testing. After catching West with Julia, I have no way of knowing if he’s been with anyone else.”
Harper put a lid on her coffee cup, and gave me a sympathetic look. “Well when you get an answer, give me a call. I’m worried about you. Oh and good luck on your interview. I still don’t know why you’re getting a job when you don’t need one. Just suck the bastard dry.” I heard her grab her keys and open the front door. “I’ll be home around six.”
“Bye” I yawned again.
I had a few hours before my interview so I decided to bide my time and take a nice long hot bath. I grabbed my favorite romance novel, ran some steamy hot water, piled all my hair on top of my head and slid in the tub. I pressed play on my iPod and ‘Innocence’ by Avril Lavigne floated out of the speakers. As I allowed my body to relax, my mind drifted to Finn. A few days after I had moved in to Harper’s place, she’d told me that Finn had headed back to LA the day after the reunion. She’d wanted to speak to him about why I’d left so abruptly, but when I’d called her that night and told her about catching West in bed with Julia, she decided to let it go. I’d told her everything about what happened leading up to the kiss, and what I saw when I got to Chicago. She cried right along with me while I poured my emotions out. She’d asked me a few times since then if I’d thought about calling Finn to tell him what happened with West. Honestly I had, but what would I say to him? That I hadn’t completely given myself to my husband because I was still hung up on him? That I’d failed in my marriage and no one wanted me? That I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss and how it woke up something in me that had been long buried? That I missed him?
No I couldn’t call him. Finn had his own life and I couldn’t just call him and expect him to stop what he was doing to come play the white knight to me. I needed to live on my own and figure out what I wanted out of life.
I wasn’t sure how long I lay in the bath but I must have dozed off. My cell phone buzzed from where I’d left it on the toilet seat and woke me. It was a text from Harper. She was letting me know that she would be about an hour late because she had a showing. Getting out of the tub I went to my room to get dressed. I didn’t want to be overly dressy for the interview since it was just the coffee shop but I didn’t want to appear unprofessional. I chose to wear a loose fitting blue top with three-quarter length sleeves that matched the color of my eyes, and a pair of black dress pants with black flats. Better to appear professional than sloppy was always my Mom’s motto.