Divorced, but Not broken

” No, you don’t understand. He cheated on me, Kayla, his wife, for eight years. He is the one that should be paying the fees for selling the house. I can’t believe he just ditched me and went with his slutty girlfriend and left me with the taxes of the sale, bastard.” My fingers tapped fast over the phone after seeing the papers scattering over my small table. What a dick he was, my ex-husband Ryan, he could burn in hell, and that skank of a girlfriend he had found when he was still married to me.“Ryan always was a bastard, Andy. You knew it, just as everyone else. I’m not saying he wasn’t good either, but he sure has his way of getting what he wants and then just dumping the shit on anyone else. He is a fucking player, and it’s good that you finally see that.” I frowned at my best friend’s message. She really wasn’t pulling any punches all of a sudden. She had always thought that Ryan was this good guy that everyone loved. She did, my parents did, the neighbors and the freaking government seemed to do it too since they didn’t care that he had left the country with this girl that he had been having sex with the last year in our home when I was working.

Oh god…. It was still morning when I got up from the couch, went to the small bathroom, and just stood in the shower. This had been the worst night of my life. That rude guy that was my neighbor had actually turned up the volume. I had considered calling the cops so many times that I had fallen asleep with the phone in my hand when I had woken up by my alarm.The bags under my eyes were huge, and I just put my hair up in a quick ponytail, still damp from the shower, but I didn’t care, it was getting warmer, and I just took up my makeup bag. Covering up the worst part of my tiredness, getting the mascara all over my left eye, and cursing when I didn’t have time to start over, I just got dressed and walked out the door. I was still looking for the keys in my hand when I saw the door opening to my left. My heart stopped when the guy was standing in the doorway, kissing a girl whispering to him, and giggling, and I just stared.

I was staring at the screen on my laptop, a glass of wine to celebrate the end of my week when it was Friday; that meant that I hadn’t seen him for three whole days now, and I was getting desperate in a way that I didn’t even want to admit to myself.I should have known he was just teasing me; I mean, come on! he was a good-looking young guy. He could have anyone, absolutely anyone. So why the hell would he even have looked my way? No, just face it, Andy, he was just mocking you, payback for ruining his party last Sunday…. I stared at the glass of wine on the small table I bought at a yard sale. Drinking alone sucked so hard.

I just stared at myself in the mirror. Kayla had brought me one of her dresses; it was long and black, with a sweetheart neckline that made her look professional and me more daring since my boobs were bigger than hers and a slight stretch since I couldn’t fit in her clothes otherwise.“Holy shit, Andy! You look fucking hot! I bet Ryan will eat his heart out when I post this. You are so getting laid tonight, babe!” She shrieked again when I smiled. I looked good, I did, but I just wished that she had stopped talking about Ryan. I didn’t give a shit what he thought about me, and I just wanted to have fun.

I was getting out of the car when we arrived at the club, and Austin was nice enough to let me lean on his arm. I didn’t hate it when Kayla marched right up and started talking to the bouncer, who just looked at her before her date dragged her back, chuckling at her being pissed off that the guy ignored her. I just followed Austin’s lead when he walked up and said some words in the ear of the man. He let us in right away, making me look at him in awe when he winked at me. We walked inside, and someone took my coat. I was bare again; my skin felt electric against the tension in the room that blasted music, and there was light everywhere. I just stared around the place. I haven’t been out since… well, since I met Ryan, and shit, things had changed but were still the same.

I woke up still feeling like shit when my back was aching, my head was pounding, and my feet were still numb and swollen from walking in high heels yesterday.I just blinked a few times, lying entirely still, feeling rising nausea when the image of Kayla being a bitch and acting crazy came back, and I just made a scowl. I was going to fucking call her and asked what the hell she was doing when I made a small whimper from moving.

I had been working my ass off all week. From morning to late evening, I was looking for an extra job, anything to keep me away from this place.I stared at the front door and sighed when I walked in, it was evening, and I was back late, just like I had been all week, and I started to climb the stairs slowly, feeling that I was out of breath already. I had been working like a dog all week and had nothing to eat. Some of the girls were nice enough to give me a piece of their lunch some days, but that was it, and today I hadn’t eaten anything.

I was finally coming back from the hospital. Malnutrition or starvation, as I called it, for more than a week, who knew that all the organ in your body was so touchy about wanting to shut down if you didn’t eat and worked day and night with a demanding job? I sure didn’t when I just smiled when Jonah was holding me, helping me take steps when. I stared at the elevator and gulped from the fear coming up in my eyes, and I just stared at him. Couldn’t we just take the stairs? I could walk really slow, and we would make it back up to our floor sometime tonight…“No, we are not taking the stairs, Andrea; it will be okay. You are not alone in there. I am with you all the time.” He sounded so sure when I gulped again. The last two times I had been in an elevator, I had been drunk, clinging onto him for dear life, and the other time, I had been puking all over it. My track record wasn’t the best.

I was in the shower; it felt good getting the grime and hospital smell off me when I heard the door open to my place, and I didn’t care; it was probably one of his friends, he had a lot of them I noticed, but only the three guys I had talked to was Tom, Chris, and Joey.I was getting out when the bedroom door was open enough for me to hear small passes of what he was talking about. It mainly seemed to be about him being pissed at the person in my apartment, wanting him gone.

I started to move, it was getting colder, and I was going to work tomorrow. I was barely hanging on as it was. James had threatened to fire me, even if I was in the hospital, when I called him, and I got it. He didn’t need me; plenty of people needed my job, but I needed it too. I really did.The party was still going when I walked by, hating the fact that I had to go back and just opened the door to my place, expecting it to be empty and just going to sleep in the same bed that a guy feeling sorry for me got when I stared in surprise at the four guys sitting in the sofa. I stopped. Why the fuck were they here?