Teagan remembered nothing from the first hours of her long drive home. Her eyes remained on the road, but her mind was flooded with anger and the overwhelming desire to get as far away from Aaron and his horrible confession as possible.

He was getting back together with his ex.

He had his own place. His own things. His own life. He rarely mentioned his ex. Teagan didn’t even know her name or where she lived! He’d lived and behaved like a divorced man who’d moved on… apparently, that was all bullshit. Just like her marriage was bullshit. She really was an asshole magnet, a woman who had no idea how to differentiate between the real thing and a cheap knockoff.

She’d heard about men like Aaron. The divorced guys who couldn’t let go, who secretly hoped to get their wives back no matter how lousy the marriage, and who just used some other woman to fill the empty hole in their soul. She was the rebound, the transitional woman to keep his bed warm until his wife came crawling back.

And the missed phone calls! The man who always called when he said he would, who never left her hanging—who said a man’s only as good as his word—he promised to call and then failed to, twice! And why? Because his wife had commandeered his attention, had made even a man of his word forget her entirely. And how he’d behaved, so withdrawn. She’d known something was wrong, just like she’d known with Shawn. Aaron denied it at first, just like Shawn did. But calling when you say you’re going to call is something you do for women who really matter to you. Aaron had that woman who really mattered… and it wasn’t her.

With that awful realization, Teagan’s anger reached a peak and she began shouting a string of obscenities, spewing every filthy word she could think of until her throat ached. Finally, her anger dissipated like steam venting from a radiator, and she felt calmer.

But without the rage to energize and distract her, a dark sorrow filled her. Suddenly, images ran through her mind like slides at a presentation. Aaron talking to her at Kartchner Caverns State Park. Getting acquainted at Blake’s coffee in Benson. Chatting over margaritas in Tucson. Stargazing on the road to Mt. Lemmon. Eating ice cream as they walked through the park in Denver. Laughing with Diana and Stovi at their campsite, and Aaron’s tender treatment of her after they left. Each memory offered a fresh stab of pain, and soon she felt like she was riddled with holes and had blood spilling out of her. Finally, unable to withstand the pain any longer, she pulled over on Interstate 10, among the buttes of southern New Mexico. Tears ran down her face until she began to sob, the pain rushing from her one streaming tear at a time.

How could this happen? How?

There was a loud knock on her window. She jumped, scared out of her wits for a moment. A highway patrolman stood outside. Teagan wiped her eyes and rolled down her window.

“License and registration,” the cop said.

She scrambled to find her registration and got her license out of her wallet. The highway patrolman eyed them.

“Why are you pulled over? Do you need assistance?”

She wanted to make a joke about needing assistance with her destroyed love life. But the patrolman didn’t seem like the type to appreciate such humor. “No. I… I just needed to pull over for a minute. I’m fine.” Teagan figured that would be enough of an explanation, given that the cop could see her swollen eyes and tear-stained face, and would want no part in learning what caused them.

“Ma’am, do you know how fast you were going before you pulled over?”

“I don’t,” she admitted, knowing it was probably too fast.

“I clocked you at ninety-five miles per hour.”

Shit.

“Wait here.” The cop left and got back inside his patrol car. Soon, he returned and handed her a citation.

She stared at the piece of paper, not sure what felt worse: that a highway patrolman would ticket a woman who was obviously very upset, not to mention broke… or that another man in uniform had proven himself utterly heartless. When the patrolman pulled away, Teagan took a closer look at the citation.

$350.00.

She closed her eyes for a moment. Then she stuffed the offending ticket away and pulled back onto the highway. When her phone rang, she glanced at it. It was Aaron. He’d called twice just after she left, too. She cursed and turned off her phone.

Hours later, when she arrived in Albuquerque, she began to feel better. She was halfway to Denver, and the snow-capped mountains and dormant trees gave her a feeling of solace. Soon, she would be back home, curled up on her couch and watching Star Trek.

As she looked for a gas station, she noticed steam coming out from under her hood. When she checked her dash, the temperature gauge was rapidly approaching the red. She pulled off at the next exit and drove to a gas station, only to find out her radiator needed replacing. They could replace it the next day, as long as she brought it in first thing.

It would cost her $650.00.

Teagan spent the night in the gas station parking lot, sleeping in her sweats, hat, and coat to survive the 20-degree night. She was still cold and didn’t sleep well, especially with the highway just yards away.

In the morning, she gave her car keys to the techs and found a coffee shop to write in. It was a sunny day but a windy one, signaling that a storm was on its way. Sure enough, by the time they finished the repair, it was snowing hard. As much as she wanted to get home, driving through northern New Mexico during a snowstorm at night was a stupid idea. So she begged the guys to let her park there another night, and got on the road the following day. It was New Year’s Eve.

She wanted to call Diana, whom she’d talked to a couple times earlier in December, but she didn’t. She didn’t have the heart to tell the truth and risk that her psychologist friend would tell her she was stupid to get involved with a man who wasn’t divorced yet. And she’d be right. She thought of calling Hannah, but she couldn’t face her either. She couldn’t face anyone. Being left for another woman once was bad luck, but twice? She already loathed herself; she didn’t need their pity, too.

It was a long drive home on sketchy roads. Santa Fe. The lonely stretch of road to the Colorado border. Then north through Colorado Springs, where Teagan pushed away thoughts of Stovi, who was stationed nearby. Memories of the four of them camping only brought feelings of disgust and shame now.

When Teagan arrived at home, it was dark and already she saw people dressed up and heading out for their New Year celebrations. She hauled all her belongings into her chilly house, and turned up the heat. She was relieved to see that Ben’s place was dark and his porch light on, signaling that he was working or out for the evening. She couldn’t face him either. Before she locked up her truck, she spotted short brown hairs strewn about here and there. Patton’s fur from the car trips they’d taken together.

Teagan headed straight for her shower, lingering under the hot, steamy water for far longer than normal, hoping it would remove the unclean feelings and carry them away down her stainless steel drain. She dried off and donned her sweats, and sat down with a glass of wine to watch Star Trek. She smiled for the first time in days, glad to see Captain Picard and Data and Worf, wishing she could escape her life and go join Starfleet.

After a couple of episodes, Teagan dug through her bag for her Saturn notebook, ready to jot down a couple of ideas that had come to her. It wasn’t there. She sifted through her duffle bag, finally yanking out everything. No sign of it. She sat there, trying to recall when she’d last used it.

Then it hit her. She’d written a few notes before Aaron came home, and then left it on his bedside table. In her extreme haste, she’d forgotten to grab it.

Angry tears filled her eyes. Her personal notebook lay at his home, for him to find… for his wife to find when she came to be with him. That thought haunted her for several minutes, and the desperate desire to get it back clawed at her, to the point where she almost picked up the phone and called Aaron.

No. She couldn’t talk to him. She couldn’t risk that he’d ignore her call because he was with his wife. Or worse, that his wife would answer instead.

She was too tired to think about any of it, and she tucked herself into bed at 11 p.m.

Happy New Year.