Page 132 of Light Up The Night
Itisme. It is notallthat I am, but it is part of me. I need not change it, hide it, or think I need to be fixed.
It is a blessing so great I cannot express the joy it brings me.
We walk through the swirl of snow, and for the first time in my life, I indulge in something I never thought I'd get to do:
Daydream about my wedding day.
Epilogue
LACEY
What am I doing?
Why in God's name did I think coming back to Three Rivers was a good idea?
I sit in my car, everything I own packed into the seats. I'm parked downtown, on Main Street near the bookstore. The stores are draped in vertical strings of white lights from one end of the strip to the other, on both sides, with holly and mistletoe on the streetlamps and merry Christmas tunes playing from hidden speakers.
I hate Christmas. I used to love it, but Eddie ruined it for me. I'd spend literal weeks decking our house in the finest decorations. I spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours. I handmade wreaths from live holly branches, complete with battery-operated light strings. I could have sold them on Etsy for a fortune. I handmade garland. I put up trees in every room of that fucking mansion and decorated each one to a room-specific theme. I bought festive candles. Little scenes with hat-clad penguins that danced and sang Jingle Bells. Pillows. Blankets. It was never enough. Never good enough.
I threw epic holiday parties for his fancy-ass friends. As in live bands, catering, full bar with bartenders, and cocktail waitresses. I flirted with his asshole boss and dealt with the bastard's fat, sweaty, wandering hands.
I was faithful.
I even sucked him off regularly, on top of regular sex, just to try and keep him happy.
I cooked. I cleaned. I gave up mycareerfor the fuckingbastard.
I gingerly touch the black eye that is my Christmas present. That and the string of sexts I found on his iPad between him and his PA. Who, by the way, is nineteen. Eddie is forty-fucking-seven.
I didn't go snooping, by the way. He left it unlocked and open while he answered a phone call from his boss—oops. I didn't go looking. I just happened to be wiping the counter when a message popped up.DING! The notification slid down from the top of the screen, showing a thumbnail of a photograph.
Of a teenager—a literalchild. Legal? I suppose, technically. But it’s vile, if you ask me.
She was topless. Pinching her silly little child’s nipples with a vapid, open-mouthed expression which I assume was meant to be, like, saucy, or erotic or something. She just looked dumb. Wrong number, maybe? Nope. She followed it with a long message detailing all the things she wanted to do to him. Lots of typos and grammatical errors. No punctuation. Used his name a few times. No question it was for him.
Eddie is a silver fox, it's true. Damn good looking. But he'salmost fifty. Why would a hot, nubile nineteen-year-old want his old ass? He's thirty years older than her, for fucks sake.
Money? Is that really all it is?
I did a reverse image search and found her socials. She's all over IG, obviously. And wouldn't you know it? She gothired four months ago. I remember him telling me about it. Well, four months ago, her feed started to reveal fancy new things. New athleisure clothing. A new Coach purse. New Louboutins. Diamond-dripping tennis bracelets and sapphire pendant necklaces.
And about four months ago, Eddie started acting…less interested in me.
I tried harder.
Bought lingerie. Seduced him. Surprised him with lunch dates to his favorite place in Detroit.
So when I saw the proof, I went a little crazy. Sue me. I'm a hot-tempered woman; he knows this.
I yelled, I screamed, I called him names. Dialed up my friend Susan, a man-eating divorce lawyer who would, in another time period, be the type to wear men's testicles as trophies. I told her, in front of him, that I wanted her to draw up divorce papers.
He slapped me.
I grew up watching my dad hit my mom. He never hit me, but I swore to myself that I would never, fuckingeverallow that to happen to me.
I waited until he left for work this morning, packed my shit, left the signed divorce papers on his desk at home, and took off.
I left my cell phone.
