“Your life can’t be roses and rainbows without fertilizer and rain.”
~ Barbara-Jean Nelson
“Did you actually see him having sex with her?” Gen’s dismissive tone came loud and clear through the speakers of the rental car and hung in the air.
Seriously?
I stared blankly out the window as I passed by yet another wide-open field of green grass. Whatever the auditory equivalent was of blinking when you didn’t believe what you saw was what I did when I heard my best friend’s response to me telling her I’d discovered Drake Dawson, my boyfriend of five years, screwing Janika Snow who was our costar on Sunset Bay, and I thought, my friend. How was this not a code-red bestie alert?
“It was either that or he was giving her mouth to mouth while they were both naked.”
“Maybe they were working on a scene?” she suggested nonchalantly.
“A scene for what? A porno?”
“Sushi…” she paused after calling me by my nickname. I was sure it was for dramatic effect. Everything Genesis Monroe did was for dramatic effect. Just like when she legally changed her name from Murray to Monroe after her idol Marilyn. “Can I be honest?” She took a breath as if she was about to reveal something significant. “I just don’t think Drake’s the sort of guy to do that.”
My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “The sort of guy to do what, a porno or cheat on me?”
“Both, sweetie.”
Hearing Gen call me ‘sweetie’ was the equivalent of hearing nails on a chalkboard for me. It made my skin crawl. I’d always hated her patronizing tone, but I’d never said anything. Just like I’d never said anything when Drake had done things that bothered me. I never stood up for myself and look where it took me, in the middle of nowhere with a boyfriend that cheated on me and a best friend that was defending him.
“Well, sorry to burst your bubble, Gen. But that’s exactly the sort of guy he is. He’s a lying, cheating, piece of shit.”
How was this the conversation we were having? Why did I feel like I was defending myself? I was the wronged party here. Not Drake the snake. I’d called Gen expecting support, an offer to help bury the body. Instead, I felt like I must be getting punked.
In the last twelve hours, everything I’d known about life had come unraveled. I was supposed to be leaving for the Bahamas on vacation today with my boyfriend of five years. Instead I was alone, in a rental car, in Texas.
Tears began to form in my eyes, and I wasn’t sure if it was from anger or sadness. Probably both. I’d been sure that this trip was the trip that Drake was going to propose. We’d talked about marriage, even looked at venues. We’d discussed how many kids we wanted and what their names might be.
One second I’d had everything I’d ever wanted in my grasp, and the next it was gone. It was as if the universe was a cat pulling at a single thread on the tapestry of my life, and now it was just a mess of shredded cotton. Drake wasn’t the man I’d thought he was. Janika wasn’t the colleague I thought she was. And Gen sure as hell wasn’t the friend I thought she was.
I felt like I was living out a nightmare and I couldn’t wake up.
“What happened exactly?” Gen asked.
Irritation that I was the one being questioned bubbled up in me. “I went up to surprise Drake in Big Bear.” He’d been going up there shooting an indie film for the past month every weekend. “I thought we’d get an early start on our vacation, so I drove up to surprise him. When I—”
“I thought you guys were leaving yesterday,” Gen interrupted.
“No. We were supposed to leave today. Anyway, when I got to the cabin, I saw Janika’s Range Rover.” I knew it was hers because of the vanity plate. “I walked up to the porch and saw the two of them through the window, they were having sex on the couch.” I stood there for a few seconds in disbelief.
“What did you do?”
“I got in my car and drove to the airport.” But not before I took a picture and texted it to him saying that we were through. I wasn’t going to tell Gen that because she would want me to send the pic to her. And for some reason, that felt like the wrong thing to do, even though