Seven Years of Bad Luck (2 page)

After hugging, jumping up and down, and talking in sentence fragments over each other, we made our way to my car and headed straight for a place where we could get drinks. Sitting down at the bar I knew what was coming because she got that look on her face that told me she was thinking about something.

“Okay, what? Just come out and say what you want to say,” I said, dreading the conversation. The bartender took an awkward three seconds too long stare at the both of us, and we both smiled politely thanking him for our drinks but mentally dismissing him from our conversation at the same time.

Cheyenne drew in a short breath and huffed it right back out. Her elbow was propped on the bar, and she rested her chin in her upturned palm. If her goal was to look annoyed and exasperated, she had accomplished it quite well.

“Okay, fine. Where is Aidan?” she asked flatly.

“Um, he has business in California,” I replied with the same tone, and there we were like two tennis players serving up bullshit by the mouthful. I stirred my drink with the tiny red straw and kept my eyes turned away from her.

“Have you spoken to him about… you know… the whole coffee cup thing?”

“No. I didn’t really plan on explaining that one. He’ll think I’m nuts and give me that crazy stare which just makes me want to kick him in the balls and run.” I followed up my statement with a shrug and a slight smile. She gave me the same crazy stare for talking about the crazy stare which made both of us erupt into a huge fit of laughter that caught the attention of everyone else at the bar and won us a few dirty looks from the “grown ass teenagers.” After we wiped away our tears from laughing and caught our breath, we continued our conversation and cocktails.

“Seriously, Kat, what is the plan? What is going on? Spill it.” I knew those were commands disguised as questions from an irritated Cheyenne.

“Well, it’s just… I don’t know.” My shoulders slumped in defeat. I gestured at the bartender for another round and then clasped my hands together hoping that holding my own hands so tight could help me hold onto my sanity a bit longer. Cheyenne squared her shoulders to face me and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Okay, start talking. What the hell has been going on between you two? Did he screw up again? Because I swear, Kat, if he did, I will kill him myself!”

I laughed at her idle threat. Mostly because Cheyenne was so pretty and petite it was hilarious to see her super pissed. A visual image flit through my brain of Cheyenne going head to head with my husband in a physical altercation. Although she could be quite feisty when she needed to be, there would be no contest unless there was a gun, flame thrower, or explosives involved. My husband, Aiden, towered above both of us at 6’4”. He was exceptionally tall and lean with a chiseled body of defined muscle. He boasts an all-American-boy smile which he gladly shared with anyone who looked. He was and probably always will be a diehard flirt. Aidan had beautiful blue-gray eyes and ash brown hair that he kept rather short on the sides but longer on top, and he always styled it to look sloppy. His hair going in no specific direction gave him that distinctive look that he either just walked out of the shower or the bedroom. Either scenario was fine by me and plenty of women who laid eyes on him.

Cheyenne rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. “What has he done this time to make you move his favorite coffee cup, which caused me to fly across the country to be with you? Also, what is the likelihood of me going to jail for assault?” I nodded and gave her an endearing smile, knowing full well that she was serious about the jail part.

“Well, it’s just that with everything that he’s done in the past seven years, it feels like I am at the end of my rope.” I furrowed my brows thinking aloud about the disaster that had been my marriage. “He has betrayed my trust so many times, it just feels like irreparable damage now. He has done enough to take down three or four marriages. Honestly, I’m not sure how we made it this long. He is just so damned charming; he knows what buttons to press to reel me back in every time. My missing backbone certainly doesn’t help.” I audibly scoffed at myself, and it came out sounding more like a mixture of a disapproving cluck and a gag. I actually felt repulsed with who I had become and how much time I had wasted at Aidan’s side. I took another long sip of my cocktail and absentmindedly spun a napkin around on the bar.

“Well, has he had another affair?”

“Not that I know of, but I haven’t been digging. I’m just too tired to deal with it, Chey. I’m not going to snoop around like some private detective all my life.” I shrugged and glanced at Cheyenne. She looked at me with sympathetic blue eyes, and I instantly felt the sting of looming tears. The lump in my throat grew exponentially, and it was hard to discern if it was the alcohol or my circumstances that were making me so emotional. A couple of fat tears rolled down my cheeks.

“I don’t even know how I got to this point. I’m such an idiot.” My voice was weak and quiet. I shook my head slowly from side to side as I looked down. The weight of the shame and embarrassment I felt was crushing.

“Hey. Don’t do that to yourself.” She reached over and placed her hand on my shoulder as she kept talking.

“You loved him, and you got lost somewhere along the way. That doesn’t make you an idiot. It makes you human.”

“No, but tossing myself and all my dreams into the trash and staying with him for so long definitely makes me an idiot, Chey.” She didn’t respond to my self-deprecating dialogue.

“Kat, I only want you to be happy. Is this what you want? Because divorce is ugly and painful, and it’s going to leave a nasty scar. Are you ready to walk away?”

I knew I had two options. I could either stay with my husband and just cope with having to share him with God-only-knows how many women and possibly never get myself together or gather what was left of my dignity and walk away from seven years of nothing but bad luck with a little hope. I knew what I had to do. After the coffee cup incident, I found myself doing a body check similar to the motion that a person makes when she is in some type of accident. Except my check was more of an emotional inventory.

Heart? Broken. Brilliant.

Ego? Seriously wounded. Great.

Self-confidence? What’s that? Oh joy.

Dignity? Little to none. Excellent.

Self-worth? No habla ingles! Ah shit.

I escaped that thought, and I turned in my seat to square my shoulders with Cheyenne’s; then I tossed back some words she once spoke to me.

“It’s over. I have to leave him. What choice do I have?”

My extended weekend with Cheyenne flew by entirely too fast just as I had anticipated. She and I spent the majority of our time in the kitchen and in the living room. We were in our element simply hanging around the countertops of my kitchen, whipping up fine culinary works of art. We sampled each creation that rolled out of the oven and off of the stove and basked in the contentment that our time in the kitchen always brought. We talked about everything and nothing all at once. We confronted demons from the past and hopes for the future. We laid to rest all-consuming regrets and dreamed up new adventures. We laughed uncontrollably at inside jokes that only she and I shared, and we cried while sharing memories of painful times that only she and I were witness to. She was perhaps the only person with whom I had shared all my hopes, secrets, dreams, and nightmares. Our friendship was a valued outlet, an outlet that was dependable and safe. Those two things didn’t really exist for me outside of my close bond with her.

I had to give her credit. She was highly skilled in a kitchen. Watching her in her element brought a painful reminder that as far as I knew, my dearest friend had set aside her goal of a self-owned and operated bakery indefinitely. I had fought her tooth and nail over that sacrifice to no avail. Although she did well as a masseuse, I knew it was a far cry from her passion, her dream. I made a mental note that weekend to confront her once again about the bakery.

After driving her to the airport and saying some quick goodbyes, I returned to my dreadfully quiet house. When I met her, quite by accident, I never would have guessed that we would have become such close friends. We were both living in Denver, Colorado at the time. Aidan was in real estate development and had been offered a great position in the mile high city. Cheyenne had been living there with her now ex-husband, Matt, who held a job as an accountant for a major ad firm. I was the ‘new neighbor,’ and Cheyenne was the accommodating, friendly neighbor. We hit it off immediately, mostly since we were both born and raised in southern states. My being a Texas girl and her a Florida girl, we had more than enough in common, including the Gulf of Mexico. Two years in Colorado came and went, and Cheyenne’s marriage came to a sudden halt one day after Matt’s request for a divorce. She did not do much to fight him over it. She had too much dignity for that, and I understood her reluctance to fight for a marriage to a man who adamantly refused her. I asked her if she was going through with the divorce, and she spat out the words that I eventually shot back at her years later.

It was months later that we discovered the reason for Matt’s request. Her name was Monica, and she was a real piece of work. It was all I could do just to keep Cheyenne from going after the little hussy with a baseball bat. We later heard that Monica cheated on Matt and got knocked up—on accident of course. Matt ditched her, and so did the mystery sperm donor.
Well played, Karma,
I thought to myself. The night we heard the news, we shared the thrill of silent victory over a really great bottle of wine… or two.

We drank and laughed, and I imagined the two of us hauling ass around a professional racetrack for our victory lap. I could see us jumping out of our cars, popping open expensive bottles of champagne, and shaking them obnoxiously. I pictured confetti raining down around us and camera flashes going off wildly like seizure-inducing strobes. Revenge was sinfully sweet on my lips. I thoroughly enjoyed the thought of this Monica woman being miserable as part of some kind of cosmic reparation for hurting my dear friend. I felt guilty about my vengefulness for all of two seconds before the guilt fled and contentment flooded back in. It felt like this wrong in the universe had righted itself. It was a great feeling and I made sure that I lapped up every drop of it while it lasted.

With only a couple of hours alone to gather my thoughts before Aidan would be returning from his business trip, I was scrambling to compose myself. He had always been incredibly determined, ambitious, and clever. If I let him see that I had undergone a grand epiphany with the help of some favorite coffee cup, he would quickly start bringing down my defenses. Even if I put up a fight against his persuasion, he would pull out all the stops when necessary, and according to my track record, I always was terrible at refusing him when he started his charming onslaught.. I was in need of a game plan. I decided that impassive would be my best bet. That routine could buy me some time if I did it right. If Aidan was unable to read my body language and facial expressions, he couldn’t manipulate me so easily. He would be hung out to dry and likely just grasp at straws to get back on my good side.

Not working this time
, I insisted to myself.

He was so well practiced at this stupid game of battle of the wills. I found it quite repulsive that my life had been reduced to playing head games with the man I called my husband. How lame of a life I must’ve led. I often reminded myself that cheap used car salesmen often bore some of these same qualities. I couldn’t count how many times I had imagined him in a cheap cowboy hat, lousy three piece polyester suit (as cheap as the hat), and crap boots, reeking of a raunchy cologne. I could imagine him in the whole get-up attempting to dupe me into buying some shit car for a rock-bottom price! Aidan was just as bad as a con man. He just made the packaging so damn appealing that it was easy to get haggled into a shit deal built out of a foundation of lies and deceit. He knew how to dress something up to look way better than it actually was. I always wondered if he ever truly felt guilt. Guilt for all the lies. Guilt for all the women. Guilt for dragging me through it all. Mostly I wondered if he had guilt for breaking my spirit or if he even noticed that I had become so different from the woman he fell in love with.

Stupid, I know.

When Aidan pulled his car into our driveway, I immediately felt the butterflies and had a split second of doubt. I heard the slide of the deadbolt on our front door. and I looked up for just a moment. There he was. My husband was standing there in all his boy-next-door glory. His all-American smile spread across his clean-shaven face, his eyes sparkling at me, and his scent. Oh, that man had a scent that could render any women’s panties soaked with arousal. I sat on the living room couch doing my best to appear lost in the book I wasn’t really reading. I was actually staring at the same line on the page for what felt like hours and cussing myself on the inside for being so easily swayed by his mere presence. He hadn’t even uttered a word yet, and I could feel the grip on my determination slipping.