Chapter One
~MaKenzy~
“Come on, Macky.”
I cringe at his pet name. Honestly, I can’t stand his voice, either.
Ignoring the man in front of me, I tape the last box shut then lift it to make my way out of the front door. The custom door with our initials cut into stained glass taunts me now. The house means nothing anymore. The promises made, the life that was supposed to be created here—it was all built on lies. Today, I will leave it all behind.
“You don’t have to do this, Macky.” The whine in his tone only grates on my nerves more. “I’m in counseling now. My therapist says there’s hope for me to live a normal life.”
Normal. What is normal, really? Is anyone really normal? What constitutes a normal life? I would ask him to define this further for me, but why waste my breath, my voice, or anymore of my time?
Five years.
Five years, I have lived in a bubble of ignorance with this man.
My college sweetheart, Robert. Oh, the pedestal I had him on. Five years together, loving, trusting, and building a life, a future. Five years—it just plays over and over in my mind. I spent all of this time living in the clouds of having a happily-ever-after with him, all while he was busy spreading his seed far and wide around the Houston area. Apparently, he didn’t get the memo that we were in a monogamous relationship.
When not one but two of my coworkers popped up pregnant within six weeks of each other—both of them by my boyfriend—I had to face some facts.
The first: there wasn’t something in the water. It was simply him not keeping his dick in his pants.
The second: well, as much as I wanted to hate my so-called friends, it wasn’t completely their fault. It does take two after all. Add to my list of things to face, these women are, in fact, not my friends, since they knew the man they were sleeping with was living with me, and I was hopelessly in love with the douchebag. I want to blame them, put a Band-aid on this, and find a way to move on like it never happened. Only, it isn’t about them in the grand scheme of things.
No, this is about my realities. This is about my failing relationship. They were part of my cold dose of reality. The little things I had seen over the years and pushed aside then made excuses for were indeed signs I should have read more clearly. Now, after spending months trying to sort out the mess of my relationship before determining it was time to let go, I am numb.
In the five years we were together, he was only faithful approximately one year. Honestly, I am possibly being generous in giving him that much time.
Sex addiction, he calls it.
Stupidity, irresponsibility, selfishness, immaturity, greediness, and any other way I can describe his inability to own up to his mistakes is what I call it.
The box grows heavy in my arms. It’s a physical reminder of the weight of this relationship that is slowing me down. I hear him whining my name as I continue down the steps of what was once our front porch and walkway to the front drive, ignoring him.
Making my way to the overly full moving truck waiting for me, I move the box to my left hip so I can inspect my packing. Sighing, I set the box on the ground to free my hands to move a few things to make the space I need. One more box. Once I get this last box inside the truck, I will pull down the door, latch it, climb in the driver seat, and drive away from this life.
Far away. Okay not like another country far, but there’s going to be enough distance between me and him that I can hit the reset button on my life.
Like a dog seeking a bone, Robert is on my heels, still digging for a crumb. The more he talks, the more he sounds like a little yappy mutt nipping at my calves, looking for any sign of attention.
It’s over. Deuces. Peace out. I fold. I tap out. My white flag is waving. Moving on. Hello, giant moving truck in the driveway! Buy a clue, mister!
Turning to face him, I roll my eyes at the sight of tears pooling in his.
“Enough,” I bark out harshly.
“Macky, you can’t be serious.”
I put both my hands up Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune style. “See this? This is a moving truck. When you cheat, the prize for this puzzle is your freedom.”
“The doc says, with a twelve step program, I’ll be okay.”
I laugh in his face. “What doctor is this? The one online? It’s over, Robert.”
“Macky, come on, baby. I can’t afford the house and shit without you,” he pleads, the truth finally washing over me.
Wow, I should be surprised. I should be livid. A piece of me is, but something inside of me simply needs to have this over. The reality is I’m nothing but a paycheck to him. Not a partner, not a lover, and probably not even a friend. Nope, I am merely a meal ticket. Staying won’t change anything, but it will degrade me further.
Reality bites sometimes. Too bad I didn’t know all of this five years ago. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, they say. Well, it sure rings true right now.
I feel like a sad love song. He’s had the best of me, and now he doesn’t want the rest of me.
“Robbie, you’ll figure it out. Find a new conquest, and maybe she’ll support you. Or I don’t know, man up, sort your life out. Hell, get a second job. Honestly, with all that child support, you’re gonna need it, pal.”
I slide the two boxes over, making just the space I need. Bending down, I heft the box up and shove it in place. I sigh in frustration as I climb on the bumper and pull the door down on the truck.
In all of this packing and loading, Robert has done nothing to help me. No, all he has done is whine and beg. If he would shut up and go away, I would have been long gone and on my way home by now.
“Marry me, Macky.” He doesn’t ask, he states, which only makes me laugh sardonically as I jump down.
“Do you really think that would change anything? You’re delusional.” With that, I turn my back to him, climb in the box truck and slam the door on his crying, cheating face. I don’t look in the mirror to see him watch me leave.
Life is in front of me and it’s time I tackle it on my own.
The eight-hour drive from Houston to Gardendale is quiet and uneventful. I’m good with this. I could use some calm right now. This wasn’t an easy decision to make.
I tried to stay in Houston. I tried to stay with him. I guess you could call it fear of the unknown. Weakness is how I tag it. In the end, the decision was made easier by my coworkers constantly having catfights over him—fights they didn’t quietly keep to themselves. No, they shouted them far and wide as they bickered over everything: who he would end up with, who would get more child support, who would get more emotional support. Everywhere I turned, his infidelity slapped me in the face. He isn’t all that in the bedroom, so why they were hell-bent on being the one he chose is beyond me. He has given me a handful of orgasms over the years, but nothing Earth shattering.
“I love you dearly, but you come with a lot of stuff, Kenzy,” Jessika, my childhood best friend, states as she pulls open the flaps of yet another box of books sitting in my living room.
When I pulled in last night, she helped me tirelessly unload every single box until late into the evening so I could return the truck keys to the night drop box and avoid another full day charge. Now she has returned to help me unpack the load and settle into my new life.
“Not all of it will stay. I promise, some of it will go back in storage. I haven’t seen most of this in so long that I want an opportunity to sort through it.”
Living with Robert, I had stored most of my personal things for the last few years in his garage. When we bought the house, he did it saying he would cover the mortgage, and I would have free reign along with the expense of the design. Believing and daydreaming, I made what was technically his house into our home. The individuality of each of us was washed away, and it truly became a home that screamed a couple lived there. He was a part of a ‘we,’ yet it didn’t stop anything from happening in my own bed, on my beautiful, Egyptian cotton, mint green sheets.
Being back in Gardendale, Texas again after being away the last ten years is nice. Moving and unpacking, not so much. I have spent my time away from my hometown going to nursing school on a scholarship in Houston and then working at a hospital there. I have a new job as an intensive care nurse at a hospital in Odessa, which is a thirty-minute drive away, but in a much larger facility than what we have locally.
Jessika recently ended things with her fiancé and moved into a new apartment. I signed my lease for the one bedroom, one-bathroom apartment across the breezeway from her. The space is tiny yet will work perfectly.
My shifts rotate at the hospital. When I break it down, I most likely will spend more hours there than here. When I am at home, it will be to sleep and do laundry. This leaves me no need to have something overly elaborate.
Walking through my front door, there is a small kitchen directly to the right. The space is basic—a sink, stove, refrigerator, countertop microwave, and cabinets. No dishwasher, which is going to suck, but the place is cheap enough. The bar area is for eating as there is no real dining space.
To the left of the entry door is my bedroom. The four plain white walls house my queen-sized bed and one dresser. Off the bedroom is the bathroom. It reminds me of a small hotel restroom: a toilet, a bathtub/shower combo, and a small counter with a sink. Nothing is fancy or overdone.
Just beyond the kitchen is the living room. There is enough room for a couch and a chair, though not a full living room set. I lined the right half of the main wall with one of my two bookshelves, putting the other on the wall to the right of that in the corner. Rather than have the space crowded, I bought a loveseat and a chaise lounge. After some debate, Jessika wins and we place the chaise by the bookshelves, diagonal to the corner, making a reading nook. The other half of the room houses my loveseat, a small coffee table, and a television, one we are hoping we can figure out how to mount to the wall.
After we unpack all my Houston items, Jessika and I go to my storage unit. When my single mom moved to live with my aging and ailing grandparents four years ago, she put all of my childhood belongings here. We bring all the boxes over, trying to get my life going.
“This one is yours to unpack. You’ve really saved everything,” she states as she moves on, opening the next box.
Sitting down beside her, I look into the box of memorabilia, finding my high school yearbook. I giggle as I pull out the annual. Opening the cover, I smile as I see my teenage doodles.
“You know he’s still here in Gardendale, right?” Jessika asks, looking over at me.
“Who?” I ask.
“Maverick.”
Looking at the focus of my scribbles, I see the many ways I signed his name and mine together in overly girly, bubbly handwriting in my book of memories.
Maverick Slade Collins and MaKenzy Norelle Davis, together forever
Mrs. MaKenzy Collins
Maverick and MaKenzy
Hearts used to dot the I’s and clouds around our names only added to the fluff of my high school scribbles. I was definitely living in the clouds.
Maverick was the popular guy. As the football player, hot, and every teenage girl’s fantasy, he never knew I existed. I was the nerdy girl with braces, a little curvy, frizzy hair, glasses, and no sense of style. Jessika and I have been each other’s only friend since around sixth or seventh grade when suddenly what you looked like mattered.
We both went to college and blossomed. She is a gorgeous brunette with a thin face and strong jawline to pull off the pixie haircut she wears. Once pudgy, she is now trim and fit. Given her profession as a fitness instructor and nutritionist, she works hard to keep her size-four figure. Her washboard stomach does make me jealous, and I am sure many others.
My body is shaped more like that of a pear, and my black hair that wants to puff into a wild bush on top of my head is tamed only by anti-frizz serum and an hour every day with my hair straightener. My B-cup breasts are obviously nothing to brag about. My flat stomach isn’t fat, though definitely not defined, and starts the path to my hips and ass that puts me in a size twelve.
Jessika and I look nothing like we once did. She has learned to embrace her small frame, and rocks skinny jeans with the best of them. I have learned that a pushup bra can do wonders, and to slim my hips, I wear straight-leg, dark-wash jeans, no flare, and certainly nothing of the painted-on skinny variety.
That’s us: two laid-back, Texas girls getting established in life. We both graduated from college and recently have had our hearts broken. Her fiancé of two years couldn’t hold down a job and had no motivation in life to do anything for himself or her. She paid for her own damn engagement ring. Feeling used got old, and she is now moving on.
I see where she signed our senior year. Best Friends Forever, even when we’re old and gray haired. Twix and Cookie, you and me.
Old and gray-haired, huh? She should have signed it alone together. I’ll be the bag lady, and she can be the cat lady.
“Snap out of it,” Jessika’s voice rings out, taking me away from my thoughts.
“Sorry, I was thinking of how far we’ve come since high school.”
“And Maverick.” She smiles at me.
“He’s probably bald, overweight, and an asshole.”
“He’s still here. I see him almost daily at the gym. Sweetheart, he may be bald, but it’s by choice with a razor, not because he’s lost his hair. He’s far from overweight, unless you want to talk about muscle weighing more than fat. That man is ripped. He works for Titan on one of the oil rigs.”
She is gushing so much I can’t stop the laugh I let escape. “How do you know all this?”
“I may have taken a peek at his client file.” Her smile is filled with devious intent.
“You’re telling me all of this … why, exactly?”
“Just conversation.”
“Conversation, my ass. He was a high school crush who never knew I existed, moving on.”
I didn’t move home to fall into some fantasy of my youth. Reality bites and Maverick Collins is not part of my future.