You’re probably wondering what happened to Austin moving, right?
It happened. He leaves Saturday morning, but instead of coming by the house himself, because I told him if he steps foot in my house again, I’m calling the cops, he has Brie come by and pick up a few things he’d left in the garage.
I don’t know how this co-parenting is going to work out, because at this point, the boys refuse to see him and while I don’t want to allow him to see them, I’m not sure I have a choice.
I called my attorney this morning and left a message for him, asking him for my options but seeing how the parenting plan is already filed and agreed upon, we would have to reopen and agree on the changes.
Do you see the two women standing outside in the driveway beside the minivan? There’s one biting the inside of her cheek so hard blood pools in her mouth. There’s one nervously shifting from one foot to the other, contemplating what she’s going to say to her friend. Ex-friend.
And here we stand, face-to-face, alone for the first time since she stabbed me in the back. I have to wonder if anything that comes out of her mouth is going to be truthful.
I’ve gone over the night in my head. The night I discovered Austin cheated on me, but I now know it started way before I had any idea of him cheating. Still, my thoughts wander to how did it start?
I imagine that song by Little Big Town. You know, the one, “Girl Crush.” Only I don’t have a crush on Brie. I have a hate rush anytime I’m around her. I think if anyone had a crush, she had one on me and took what was essentially mine.
But she didn’t get the best part of Austin. She never would.
I do wonder what Austin said to get her in bed or what did she say to him?
Honestly, I’d rather catch my pinky toe on the bed frame then to talk to Brie, but it’s inevitable at some point because, after everything, I deserve an answer, don’t I?
That’s the bottom line, isn’t it?
You know a little bit about my friendship with Brie Baker. What you don’t know—and I probably should have shared this in the beginning—is that I was her only friend when she first moved here from New Jersey. No one liked her. Everyone made fun of her pasty white skin and her braces.
Not me. I was nice to her. Always.
We went through every single stage together growing up, from the first period to the “dude, I got boobs finally.” She was literally the sister I never had, and I always wanted her to be my kids’ super cool aunt. Never once through any of those phases in our life together did I think there would come a day where we would no longer be best friends.
She changed that.
Life got complicated.
My breathing intensifies when I breathe out, “Why?”
Brie swallows hard, shifting the box in her hand filled with Austin’s football trophies from college. “What do you mean, why?”
Brie had always had a thing for Austin since the day I met him when I was thirteen. It made me wonder, naturally, how long had this been going on? Austin said they slept together before we were married, but I can’t trust anything Austin says, as you know.
Did I want to know the answer? No. Not really.
Does it stop me from asking?
Nope.
“Why did you fuck my husband?”
And then she says, wait for it. . . it’s the most generic line ever used.
“I. . . it just happened, Aly. I didn’t mean for it to. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Excuse me while I stick my finger down my throat and gag in her face.
“When was the first time?” Brie’s face hardens like she has to poop. I point in her face. “Don’t lie either. You’ve lied enough in our ex-friendship.” Like how I added ex? She needs to know this grudge-holder isn’t befriending her again. “Time to be honest with me.”
Brie draws in a careful breath, as though she needs it to explain to me how much of a bitch she really is. “First time was when I was fifteen.”
Fifteen. Fucking fifteen?
That means. . . no, it couldn’t. Well, yes, it could. That means Austin lied when he said I was his first because he was seventeen when I lost my virginity to him at fifteen. Brie is one year older than me. Which made her sixteen. . . and I know my math skills aren’t that great, but I can do the numbers on this one.
“Austin had sex with you while I was dating him, didn’t he?”
She nods. One. Simple. Nod.
What the fuck? How could I have been so naïve in all this? Was I that caught up in Austin’s perfect wispy hair and crooked smile that I didn’t see how much of a lying, cheating bastard he was?
Apparently so.
“And it continued, didn’t it?”
Another nod.
“And you remained friends with me because. . . .” My words trail off, and I stare. This is where she fills in the blanks. Or she’s supposed to. Does she?
No. She fucking stares at me like she wants to drop the box on my head and run away.
You know me well enough by now to know what I do next, don’t you?
You fill in the blank then. Watch out for the blood coming from her nose though. Wouldn’t want your shoes to get stained.
I’m just kidding. I didn’t hit her. But I wanted to.
“Nothing I can say to you is going to make this any easier,” she says tearfully. “I know that I’ve lost you for a friend, and I’m sorry for that.”
“I’m sorry too,” I admit. “But not for losing your friendship. I’m sorry you lost mine. I’m sorry I ever trusted you. But thank you.”
“For what?”
“For showing me how to be stronger. If you hadn’t slept with Austin, I wouldn’t have realized how badly I needed out of that relationship.”
You can see the realization on her face, the understanding, the choices she’s made and the premonition that she could be me eight years from now, raising a daughter on her own.
I hand Brie Austin’s boxes, one by one as she loads them into her Mustang, her hood and windows fixed. It still brings a smile to my face thinking of how gratifying it felt taking my frustrations out on her car.
Inside the house, I smile again because there are my boys, curled up on the couch, still in their pajamas, one on each side of Ridge.
They don’t acknowledge my presence in the room. Why would they? They’re watching The Walking Dead. I finally see what he was talking about last night. Selfless love. Something he’s showed my boys, and me, since he came back here.