Chapter One
It has come to my attention, for some time now, that my bastard of a husband is cheating on me. I'd be lying if I said I was surprised, bu--fuck.
Judy winced then reluctantly stopped writing, and let her squinting eyes look through her window for a second. It was a sunny day, during which she'd usually be out with Mr. Jerk, taking a walk in the garden. Not today though. Not for a long time.
She'd been delaying this moment for two months. Somehow, writing this moment in her journal made it more real. But there was no denying it anymore. Ever since she learned how to write, she'd stayed true to her journal, she couldn't lie to it anymore.
I wasn't surprised that much by the act, but by the pathetically small amount of guilt that Mr. Jerk has shown about it. which turned out to be none, no guilt. Not one fucking shred of remorse, and no intention of stopping.
Her hand stopped again by itself, and she slammed the notebook and stormed up from her desk. She put her journal in the drawer then threw herself in bed, recalling the cursed day.
When she married Mark, she knew she wasn't marrying a smart man, but she'd never have thought that he was stupid enough to get caught the way he did. It was almost like he wanted to get caught.
That day she was walking back home from her appointment at the spa close to their house. She decided to take a little longer road and walk through the garden, that she and Mark usually hung out in. At first, her eyes took a random glance at a couple sitting on one of the wooden benches near duck lake. She was behind them so could only see their back, but when the man's head turned slightly to the side, she immediately recognized him. She didn't think much of it. Mark did have some female friends at work, and she thought this just might be one of them. She thought she should go and say hey. But when her eyes saw his arm wrap slowly around the woman's shoulder, she froze, her feet nailed to the pavement under her.
She stood there in her little sundress and her little sandals, her face all made pretty with makeup and her hands and feet pedicured and manicured, just for the fucking asshole that had his arm around that other woman.
She saw his lips move, curled in one of his silly smiles, like he was whispering something devious, and then she heard the woman laugh. When his head leaned closer, and the woman's head started doing the same, Judy knew what she was about to witness, and it was like a slap to her face, making her snap her head, turning her eyes away, and spinning her whole body to the opposite direction. She froze there for a second, her eyes too dry to shed a single tear, while she knew full well that behind her, just twenty meters away, sitting there on the bench her husband was making out with another woman. She didn't see her face, and she had no intention to.
She walked home that night and cried herself to a long nap. She knew their marriage was in a rut lately. But they were married for five years, a rut at this point was normal. And it wasn't like she didn't try, she kept herself in shape, she kept taking care of herself just like the days when they were going out on their first dates. And she appreciated that he did the same, they were both 35 but they looked in their mid-twenties. But looked like all the effort he had been putting in to keep looking like a handsome stud wasn't for her, but for the whore he'd been fucking. The only thing that she was sure he had been doing for her, was the beautiful necklaces he kept gifting her without occasion. But she speculated that he might just be buying them out of guilt.
She couldn't confront him the day she'd caught them, neither the day after nor the eight days after that. For some reason, she wanted to know if he'd come clean by himself, if the pressure of his shameful betrayal would finally be too heavy to bear and he'd confess. But no, he came home every night, gave her a kiss on the cheek, gave her some lame excuse for being late, like a meeting or some other business obligation, then went straight to bed.
There was something awfully sickening about knowing that one's husband is sleeping with another woman. It left Judy in a wreck, making her days paranoid. When he'd come home, and she'd smell some perfume at him, and he'd say that he was just with some female colleges and their perfumes must have stuck to his clothes, she would know he'd been with her. When she thought about that, she also recalled a long array of similar incidents that had been happening for months, in which he'd given a lame excuse and like the naïve woman she was, she believed them.
Every minute he spent out of the house after she'd caught him in the garden, she spent them hunkered at home, unable to keep the images out of her mind for a single second. What was he doing now? Was he with her? were they in some bar drinking and having a great time, with her sitting in his lap? Were they laughing? Was he telling her one of his stupid jokes and watching her cackle? Were they making out? did he tell her that he was married? Did she feel bad about me or did she not care. Are they talking about me? Are they laughing at me, thinking that I was at home taking care of chores like a good little wife, clueless and stupid? Are they making fun of me, was he debasing me for her amusement, comparing her to me and saying that she is prettier, sexier, smarter?
She shook her head as if to wake up from a slumber and realized that her coffee machine had finished. She grabbed her coffee, put on her sundress and sandals, tied her messy blonde short hair in a short bun, then walked out the door. It was 4:pm. Mark was supposed to come home in a couple of hours if he didn't have any shagging appointments with Miss. Whore that is.
Judy got into her car and started driving, going to where she would always go whenever she wanted to explode, to her only friend, Morgan. She was supposed to be home by now, unless she had overtime.
Maybe I should've called her before I left...I'll call her now. She picked up the phone and dialed. It rang, a little too long, playing with Judy's nerves; she really needed to be with someone right now. Please don't have overtime today. When her hope was about to be squashed, the ringing stopped.
"Hey," Her friend's voice came from the other end making her exhale a breath of relief.
"Hey. You home?"
"Not until an hour," Morgan said, panting. "Why?"
"I..." She paused for a second, the heavy breath ringing against her ear. "What the hell are you on a treadmill or something."
"It's just those damn stairs, our office's elevator is broken." She said, her breathing steadying. "Anyway, I need almost an hour to get home."
"It's fine, it'll take me half an hour anyway to get to you, so I'll wait for you there."
"Alright, bey," she said and closed the phone.
Judy took a breath, then slowed down. The later she would get there the better.
As Judy's only friend, Morgan had been the go-to person when it came to blowing off steam. Since the day they had become friends in college until now, Morgan had spent countless hours listening to and advising on Judy's problems. And Judy knew for sure that without Morgan being there for her during this, she'd have probably broken down weeks ago.
She took a turn into Morgan's street, then parked in front of her building. Morgan lived in one of those high apartment buildings, very different from Judy's residential independent house.
She took a look at her clock and was satisfied to see that Morgan was to arrive in fifteen minutes. She took the elevator up to the 10th floor, using the time to check herself in the lift's mirror.
The fucking bastard. What kind of asshole would cheat on this? She turned in front of the mirror, trying to give herself a confidence push, taking in the details of her blue eyes and cute blonde bun, her slim legs. She was a damn catch, wasn't she?
She got out and walked to Morgan's apartment, then slid her back against the door and sat down, waiting.
To kill the remaining ten minutes, she put on some sad music and started humming with the rhythm, hugging her knees to her chest to put herself in the mood. She wasn't even that sad anymore. For the last couple of days, after she'd confronted him, she was just angry, and afraid.
She didn't expect him to plead or beg for her forgiveness, she knew he wasn't that kind of guy when she married him, but she didn't even get an apology. He just sat there with his dull face lounging on his stupid recliner after a long workday, and shrugged. He'd refused to tell her who the woman was, he refused to talk about it, and to her horror, he bluntly asked her if she wanted a divorce. Which meant that he wasn't planning to stop. She knew that the bitch must be manipulating him, hoping that he'd throw his wife in the street and marry her. or maybe not, maybe she wasn't that bad. But there was no way of knowing. She probably wanted him for his money--okay and maybe looks--but it was a huge leap to say for sure that she'd be such a devil of a woman, that she'd agree to have Judy thrown in the street. Even if she was that evil, Mark would never go for it, he had enough money to support her, at least for a year or two.
She returned her focus to the sad song, she rathered be sad than think about all of this crap.
A sharp toe nudged her in the thigh so she looked up startled taking off her headphones. Morgan stood above her with a blaming but understanding look on her face.
She raised her arms jokingly towards Morgan and whined in a dramatic tone. "My savior, my goddess, where have you been."
Morgan snickered and nudged her again with the toe of her pumps. "Get to your feet you dork, you're scaring my neighbors." She gave her a hand and pulled her up.
"What are you talking about," She shrugged. "No one saw me."
"Mrs. Wally just called me on my phone, said that some woman was sitting at my door humming to herself." She snickered while shoving her key in and opening the door.
Judy
I walked in after her, and took a seat on the black modern sofa in the middle of her living room while she took her suit off and hung it by the door. She stood there for a second and looked at me, taking a long tiresome breath. She was wearing her work clothes, which consisted of a black skirt and blazer, and black pumps. It suited her, the corporate clothes, with her black hair reaching just above her shoulders.
"Fuck this day..." she hissed.
"I know but why," I said.
"I had five fucking meetings." She threw her wallet and keys at the table beside the door. "And Denise chose this day out of all days to call in sick...At least she says she's sick. I know she's been avoiding me."
"Maybe she finally figured out that you're an opportunist bitch." I rolled my eyes with a sly smile before glancing back at her teasingly.
